Dear ShareTheLord, Please don't be surprised if you see this very same argument going on for another ten or fifty years. Unfortunately, not enough people today are humble enough to follow the truth (in my opinion). Therefore, this will keep recurring, unless all of our voices are muted one way or another. PS: You know you embarrassed Remenkimi through that link? Oujai qen `P[C
From the link above I read this excerpt from larger post by a poster "Reminkimi" and then signed George.
"Old Bohairic is the more authentic Coptic. We don't need to follow Greek anymore, especially since we know the driving force was political and erroneous. Rather we should try to find the most authentic Coptic pronunciation and modernize the use of Coptic that way. You can't modernize Coptic without knowing the ciricullum first and that means we have to agree on a pronunciation system also. Since GB is not Coptic, we should agree on OB."
I wonder if this is the same Reminkimi posting on this forum.
My post was not meant to humiliate anyone! Simply to encourage those who constantly educate themselves and continue to share their education with unknowledgeable people like myself.
I am not embarrassed at all at that link from 10 years ago. A person is allowed to modify his position on certain matters when he finds sufficient reason in a ten year period. I have changed my position that OB is more authentic than GB.
Regarding your comments about inventing a Geordie accent in Newcastle, while you might think it is artificial or offensive and do not believe that a preponderance of other artificial languages justifies a new Geordie accent in Newcastle then that is your opinion. However, all pidgin and creole languages are artificial in some sense, yet occur with natural linguistic and social pressures. If you only spoke Arabic and traded or sold beans in Newcastle and a Chinese person who neither spoke English or Arabic wanted to buy your beans, what would you do? In today's age, you pull out Google translate. But back then either (1)you both could learn English or (2) you would invent a pidgin language to communicate to this Chinese immigrant as it has been done thousands of times before. One could say it's offensive to invent a language in England when English is used. Yes, I suppose so. But the reality is pidgin languages are created and new languages are formed often. Sociolinguistically, they are more acceptable than learning a foreign language. Take for example the trade language Swahili. It was derived from Arabic but it is now the lingua franca of East Africa.
imikhail, your comparison of Aryan's intention to Italian with English pronunciation is not accurate or fair. If all Italians were pronouncing Italian as English (or at least a sufficient amount of words) that caused Italian words to have an opposite meaning, I think anyone would be justified to say there is a problem with Italian spoken as English. Aryan's intention was to correct words that have an opposite meaning when spoken in OB. It is not fair to say anyone who points out such actions is absolutely wrong and everything he did afterward is automatically wrong because of the method he went about it. I used to think this way until I realized he did what others have done in their respective languages and cultures.
And no one has commented that if a language is wrong because it is artificial than recommending/forcing our church to adopt OB would now make OB as artificial as GB (even though I personally believe artficiality is irrelevant in sociolinguistics). Are all the proponents of OB willing to become the new Moftahs?
In the feeble attempts to regain an attitude, or even only a way of pronunciation of my forefathers is much more worth the effort than keeping a flawed meaningless system of pronunciation... oujai
I did intend my comment mainly for Aegyptoc and only secondarily for Ophadece, since it was Aegyptoc who first expressed the idea with which I am taking issue. Aegyptoc, you responded by saying that you do not consider language to be a matter of Orthodoxy. Great! That is not, however, the sense I got from your post, since you specifically said we should not compromise language just as we don't compromise dogma, because we are Orthodox. The confusing thing for me, is that right after you denied that language is a matter of Orthodoxy you reiterated that as Orthodox we care what the truth is (in this case, regarding language), and that again as Orthodox we know we can find that truth.
I am emphasizing strongly here that being Orthodox has absolutely nothing to do with language or any other such secondary matter. The only truth we care about as Orthodox is our faith, our dogma, the revelation of Jesus Christ and the message of the Gospel. Nothing else is a matter of Orthodoxy, and almost nothing else is as absolute as anyone might think (in this particular case of language, I think Remenkimi has done a great job showing how relative this debate is).
I am not saying pronunciation does not matter. If I were to say this, then I should have no problem with any pronunciation, when in fact I do not support the use of OB in liturgical services and never have. So, I believe pronunciation is an important issue, I believe linguists, servants, and all other concerned parties should discuss the merits of both pronunciations and reach some sort of agreement, and I am certainly not belittling the work of linguistics, or the value of any cultural aspect of the church. However, none of this should be confused with Orthodoxy, even to a lesser degree.
It seems you would agree with all this, judging from your last post. I am not sure, if this is indeed true, why you insert the word Orthodoxy in the discussion at all.
An interesting fact that might shed more light on the issue is that I have first hand knowledge from a Coptic Scholar in Los Angeles who has been in Los Angeles since the early seventies that the early immigrants were still using "Old Bohairic" at that time in Los Angeles California. Obviously this was before mass media, cassette tapes etc... which really destroyed the natural evolution of Coptic in place of the Greco Bohairic.
He used to attend Pascha at St. Marks on Robertson blvd and they would say "Tok de di djoam nem biow..." etc. This was the whole church, not just one person. After Alexandrian influence and the flood of recordings this was all wiped away. This mans grandfather interestingly enough is believed to be one of the last Coptic Speakers in Egypt (who has since passed away).
Aryan Moftah did use the argument that Copts should pronounce the Coptic letters as the Greek since the Coptic alphabet utilize the Greek one. Hence my post. This is an absurd argument that cannot be used with different languages that utilize similar alphabets.
Orthodoxy is life not a set of rules or canons. Orthodoxy requires one to be truthful not just dogmatically but to be truthful to whatever matter is at hand. This is what the earlier arguments tried to convey with regards to passing on the entrusted heritage we have.
First, my name is Ramez. Unless you are calling me Ramzy as a form of endearment. Either way, no big deal :)
Orthodoxy is life not canons and rules. Yes, I absolutely agree and I never meant to imply that Orthodoxy is a code of law or a rigid set of rules. As you can see, I mentioned the Orthodox spiritual tradition as the number one thing, before any dogma, canons, or rules. Some fathers even shy away from calling Orthodoxy a religion, precisely because it may imply this sense of adherence to rules as the primary criterion (Re-ligion is related to the Latin root lig, meaning to bind or tie down)
That being said, when we say Orthodoxy is life, it does not mean that every aspect of our life is somehow related to being Orthodox. This is what I feel trivializes the word Orthodoxy and distorts it. Let me put it this way: We often speak of Orthodox icons. Why? Because Orthodox icons are not merely one style of art, but they portray visually key Orthodox beliefs and faith that other non-Orthodox styles of icons typically fail to convey...Orthodox iconography is theology in visual form. We also speak of Orthodox hymnography, not the tunes or the melodies, but the texts. One can take the music from Pekethronos and sing to some other popular Protestant song and it would no longer be considered Orthodox hymns...clearly the words matter more than the music, and there is nothing inherently Orthodox or heterodox about music in itself.
What I cannot see is how pronunciation of a language is related to Orthodoxy as I described it above. Yes, we care what is right. Yes, we should reach an agreement about pronunciation. But not because this has anything to do with Orthodoxy. The same goes if someone were to fight about which rendition of a hymn is more accurate saying that "I am Orthodox, therefore I cannot accept this wrong version, but I must find and sing the correct version."
First, my name is Ramez. Unless you are calling me Ramzy as a form of endearment. Either way, no big deal :)
Orthodoxy is life not canons and rules. Yes, I absolutely agree and I never meant to imply that Orthodoxy is a code of law or a rigid set of rules. As you can see, I mentioned the Orthodox spiritual tradition as the number one thing, before any dogma, canons, or rules. Some fathers even shy away from calling Orthodoxy a religion, precisely because it may imply this sense of adherence to rules as the primary criterion (Re-ligion is related to the Latin root lig, meaning to bind or tie down)
That being said, when we say Orthodoxy is life, it does not mean that every aspect of our life is somehow related to being Orthodox. This is what I feel trivializes the word Orthodoxy and distorts it. Let me put it this way: We often speak of Orthodox icons. Why? Because Orthodox icons are not merely one style of art, but they portray visually key Orthodox beliefs and faith that other non-Orthodox styles of icons typically fail to convey...Orthodox iconography is theology in visual form. We also speak of Orthodox hymnography, not the tunes or the melodies, but the texts. One can take the music from Pekethronos and sing to some other popular Protestant song and it would no longer be considered Orthodox hymns...clearly the words matter more than the music, and there is nothing inherently Orthodox or heterodox about music in itself.
What I cannot see is how pronunciation of a language is related to Orthodoxy as I described it above. Yes, we care what is right. Yes, we should reach an agreement about pronunciation. But not because this has anything to do with Orthodoxy. The same goes if someone were to fight about which rendition of a hymn is more accurate saying that "I am Orthodox, therefore I cannot accept this wrong version, but I must find and sing the correct version."
I hope this clarifies what I mean.
I appreciate you clarifying your position. Two things here I'd like to comment on.
First you likened the OB and GB as two versions of a hymn. This is belittling the discussion here and is not a fair comparison.
Second, you feel that sticking with the authentic pronunciation and insisting on the wrong one despite knowing that it is wrong along with handing the wrong to future generations does not rise to Orthodoxy. Well that is your own choice.
Others do not share your feeling. Again, Orthodoxy is a way of life and it is up to the individual to incorporate it in whatever facets of life s/he chooses.
Honesty and preserving tradition is part of Orthodoxy. If I believe that OB is the correct heritage, then it is my duty as an Orthodox to be honest and preserve what I was entrusted.
[quote author=imikhail link=topic=7582.msg164489#msg164489 date=1368065809] Honesty and preserving tradition is part of Orthodoxy. If I believe that OB is the correct heritage, then it is my duty as an Orthodox to be honest and preserve what I was entrusted.
It appears that you and only a few are truly "orthodox" on this earth--that is in your definition of "orthodoxy"....on the other hand, we are all heretics lead by our Pope and the Holy Synod.....i wonder if, as an admin, i should still allow you to be here on our forum....or should I just abuse my power and just to ban you....
[quote author=minatasgeel link=topic=7582.msg164490#msg164490 date=1368066923] [quote author=imikhail link=topic=7582.msg164489#msg164489 date=1368065809] Honesty and preserving tradition is part of Orthodoxy. If I believe that OB is the correct heritage, then it is my duty as an Orthodox to be honest and preserve what I was entrusted.
It appears that you and only a few are truly "orthodox" on this earth--that is in your definition of "orthodoxy"....on the other hand, we are all heretics lead by our Pope and the Holy Synod.....i wonder if, as an admin, i should still allow you to be here on our forum....or should I just abuse my power and just to ban you....
You need to reread the the posts on this thread and reread my last post to know what I am talking about. You are missing the point of my argument.
As to your power to ban me .. you are acting like those Muslims who cut the head off to silence the truth. Good luck with that power.
Aryan Moftah did use the argument that Copts should pronounce the Coptic letters as the Greek since the Coptic alphabet utilize the Greek one. Hence my post. This is an absurd argument that cannot be used with different languages that utilize similar alphabets.
Is it really as absurd as you think? Look at the scenario as a whole. 1. He recognized destructive patterns in OB. For example, in Arian's book e;ouab (which means holy) was pronounced and orthographically placed in manuscripts as a;ouab (which means unholy). 2. He knew that OB was not systematically taught in any education system other than the kattabas. In the 19th century, Egypt was heavily influenced by the Protestant missionaries who insulted Coptic Egypt for no education system. So they built their own. And eventually Pope Cyril IV built the Great Coptic School to combat lower education from the kattabas. 3. Arian was given approval by Pope Cyril IV to correct or modernize Coptic language education. 4. As a "guardian" of Coptic, Arian chose to model Coptic education based on Greek orthography and phonology. He couldn't use OB and he probably felt English and French were to foreign to Coptic.
I don't see it absurd. It's not the only way to modernize OB but given these conditions, it is not a crime.
If you had a child who was learning English and continued to say "goed" instead of "went" (similar to #1 above), you would correct him. As a parent you have authority to do so (similar to #3 above). If the child persisted in saying "goed" after numerous attempts to correct him, you would look for other systematic phonological tools, like "Hooked on Phonics" or Kumon (similiar to #4 above). If waited long enough you may decide to wait till your child went to pre-school and let him interact and learn it there. If no such system exists, you may even start a system yourself by organizing a society or homeschooling (which is similar to #2 above).
Arian did the same thing on a national scale. We may not agree with his method or even his intention. But what was he to do? Tell Pope Cyril IV "I can't do what you asked without changing Coptic significantly"? Or "I want to keep OB even though I know the pronunciation is destructive"? Or "Let the Protestant missionary schools teach Coptic"? If you or I were in his shoes, we may very well have done the same thing since there is no good alternative.
No no no... Aryan didn't correct the faults of OB by introducing GB as you claim Remenkimi. He made a mockery of OB, and wanted to change it for the sake of another language, totally different. Indeed, one can argue that he did the reverse; he encouraged Copts to say "goed" rather than "went", because he defiled the language (or the dialect if you don't like me being that emphatic). I know you wouldn't disagree about that either, but that is what he did. You see, now you are saying you don't agree with his intentions or methods, but the end result was what it was. I am not going to follow someone who made a mockery of how my fathers pronounced a language in order to spread the Coptic teaching on a wider basis. That is totally absurd to me, and quite unacceptable. I would very happily resort to unfeasiable measures of increasing people's awareness, and educating them rightly, instead of choosing a simple way of making Coptic sound like a foreign language? Also, how can you tell the difference between "a symmetrical" something and "asymmetrical" something. What about "desert sthg" and "dessert sthg". What about "break your car" and "brake your car". It isn't as destructive as he makes out to be. It is just his emphatic way of making it sound serious, when things could be understood from the context of a sentence, and not only that, when they do have different pronunciations; as in /atwab/ as opposed to /a:twab/ Oujai qen `P[C
[quote author=ophadece link=topic=7582.msg164479#msg164479 date=1368042224] In the feeble attempts to regain an attitude, or even only a way of pronunciation of my forefathers is much more worth the effort than keeping a flawed meaningless system of pronunciation... oujai
If avoiding a flawed meaningless system of pronunciation and adhering to the pronunciation of your forefathers is your only fundamental philosophy, why do people speak Cairene Arabic and not Classical Arabic? If you say my/their forefathers didn't speak Arabic, then you're fooling yourself since all our fathers spoke Arabic for at least 7-8 centuries. IF you say, Cairene Arabic is the original Arabic, then you ignore Upper Egyptian Arabic and all other dialects spoken in Egypt. If you say I learned Modern Standard Arabic and that's enough, well MSA is as "artificial" GB. (And I have yet to see someone proficient in MSA)
And as I said before you (I mean it generally as proponents of OB) are only considering it flawed and meaningless because it is not OB and not your preference.
[quote author=ophadece link=topic=7582.msg164497#msg164497 date=1368108422] No no no... Aryan didn't correct the faults of OB by introducing GB as you claim Remenkimi. He made a mockery of OB, and wanted to change it for the sake of another language, totally different. Indeed, one can argue that he did the reverse; he encouraged Copts to say "goed" rather than "went", because he defiled the language (or the dialect if you don't like me being that emphatic). I know you wouldn't disagree about that either, but that is what he did. You see, now you are saying you don't agree with his intentions or methods, but the end result was what it was. I am not going to follow someone who made a mockery of how my fathers pronounced a language in order to spread the Coptic teaching on a wider basis. That is totally absurd to me, and quite unacceptable. I would very happily resort to unfeasiable measures of increasing people's awareness, and educating them rightly, instead of choosing a simple way of making Coptic sound like a foreign language? Also, how can you tell the difference between "a symmetrical" something and "asymmetrical" something. What about "desert sthg" and "dessert sthg". What about "break your car" and "brake your car". It isn't as destructive as he makes out to be. It is just his emphatic way of making it sound serious, when things could be understood from the context of a sentence, and not only that, when they do have different pronunciations; as in /atwab/ as opposed to /a:twab/ Oujai qen `P[C
Ophadecee, you're contradicting yourself. If Arian encouraged people to say "goed" instead of "went", then he introduced the error. But in the end you acknowledge atwab. So the error was there first. I believe there is manuscript evidence too.
Context does not justify error. I know the difference between "a symmetry" and "asymmetry". But if the context calls for "a symmetry", then "asymmetry" is not allowed. OB did allow for "asymmetry" when the context requires "a symmetry". You can't write "brake your care" and expect the reader to automatically convert it to "break your car". The context would necessitate a verb, not a noun. You can't justify keeping a noun. That's not how neurolinguistics works.
Whether Arian's intention was to mock Coptic or not, and I agree he probably did as did many arakhna of the 18-19th centuries, it still doesn't negate the fact that there was a problem OB that he was authorized to correct.
Did I acknowledge an error? Then you misunderstood me. The former spells as e;ouab and is pronounced as /atwab/, while the latter spells as at;ouab and is prnounced as /a:twab/. I speak Arabic as my father and mother do. It could be a variant of Cairene Arabic (WHATEVER THAT IS), that is to say it is not a standard, and likewise OB may have so many subsets that I would speak one of. Oujai qen `P[C
1. He recognized destructive patterns in OB. For example, in Arian's book e;ouab (which means holy) was pronounced and orthographically placed in manuscripts as a;ouab (which means unholy).
What does writing have to do with pronunciation?
In the US, kids are taught to write words the way the word sounds. For example, if the kid writes the word "is" as "iz", it is ok. Then they are taught the proper spelling.
Those scribes who misspelled is not a justification of changing the proper pronunciation, rather education of the proper spelling.
In addition, his invention did not get rid of the problem of misspelling.
2. He knew that OB was not systematically taught in any education system other than the kattabas. In the 19th century, Egypt was heavily influenced by the Protestant missionaries who insulted Coptic Egypt for no education system. So they built their own. And eventually Pope Cyril IV built the Great Coptic School to combat lower education from the kattabas.
Again, what does teaching the Coptic language have to do with inventing a new way of saying Coptic?
Your analogy is like changing the way people speak Arabic for fear of English and other languages invading the illiterate people.
3. Arian was given approval by Pope Cyril IV to correct or modernize Coptic language education.
What do you mean by modernize? What was the extent of this modernization? How well versed Pope Cyril was in Coptic to allow such modernization? What were the cultural aspirations that influenced this modernization?
4. As a "guardian" of Coptic, Arian chose to model Coptic education based on Greek orthography and phonology. He couldn't use OB and he probably felt English and French were to foreign to Coptic.
An this was a disastrous move and the rationality thereof is a grave scientific mistake.
Authority does not mean dishonesty and not preserving our heritage.
This whole move of GB was political and cultural.
Political because the Church wanted to unify with the Melekites and hence all the modern Greek hymns that entered the Church.
Cultural because people were uneducated and accepted whatever was handed down to them.
[quote author=ophadece link=topic=7582.msg164500#msg164500 date=1368111360] Did I acknowledge an error? Then you misunderstood me. The former spells as e;ouab and is pronounced as /atwab/, while the latter spells as at;ouab and is prnounced as /a:twab/. Just for my edification, are not all Coptic words with the letter t, always pronounced /d/? That is what I heard on these forums and that is what I have seen in the phonetic inventories discussed by Worrell and others. Why is at;ouab pronounced /a:twab/ and not /ad twab/? I know why but I want to see what your answer is.
I speak Arabic as my father and mother do. It could be a variant of Cairene Arabic (WHATEVER THAT IS), that is to say it is not a standard, and likewise OB may have so many subsets that I would speak one of. Oujai qen `P[C
Somewhere in the history of Egypt (probably 6th-8th century, Arabic was Classical Arabic. Why is Modern Standard Arabic the only Arabic taught in schools? Why is it acceptable to learn and adopt Modern Standard Arabic, which is for all purposes is as "artificial" as GB, yet not considered a corruption or a flawed like GB is?
Somewhere in the history of Egypt (probably 6th-8th century, Arabic was Classical Arabic. Why is Modern Standard Arabic the only Arabic taught in schools? Why is it acceptable to learn and adopt Modern Standard Arabic, which is for all purposes is as "artificial"
Can you point to the differences between the Classical Arabic and the Standard Arabic and compare that to the differences between the OB and GB?
Are you saying that the Standard Arabic somehow changed the alphabetic sounds that the Classical Arabic used to have?
I like you to point those differences out because I do not know of any.
No, t isn't always pronounced as /d/; sometimes /t/ too. Pretty much like 'c' in English. Note words like batoc, and ,rictoc. I cannot comment on Arabic, because it isn't my language in the first place. I don't like speaking Arabic, and I am not going to defend whatever form people speak today; I just speak as my father and mother taught me. OB however isn't a language. And as imikhail pointed out, whose authority is it to change a dialect? Oujai qen `P[C
[quote author=ophadece link=topic=7582.msg164508#msg164508 date=1368117607] No, t isn't always pronounced as /d/; sometimes /t/ too. Pretty much like 'c' in English. Note words like batoc, and ,rictoc.
According to Worrell, in his article Popular Traditions of the Coptic Language p. 9, paragraph 26. "The letter t (called dau) and pronounced d/ḍ as it should be, and never t, except when final, e.g. šəmd somt." In another article he says, Greek words can take the /t/ sound. Since ,rictoc and batoc are Greek, it makes sense.
The only other word Worrell describes with both Coptic letters is pauyt. In this example, Worrell believes the OB way to pronounce is wrong (p. 7, Chapter 15). He notices that the Sahidic is pronounced Bāwāṭ which sounds like "baywait". He notices that the two Copts he is documenting OB (Bistauros and Girgis who come from different parts of Egypt), both say b-awīd. Worrell hypothesizes that it should be b-awād (or baWADE). So now we have conflicting sources on how the Coptic letter y is pronounced in qualitative verbs and also how t is pronounced. What I believe Worrell is saying is Bāwāṭ seems to be the most logical pronunciation since the t is in the final position however because it is a qualitative verb, b-awād is the "correct" pronunciation even though he hears everyone say b-awīd.
Also, according to Worrell on p. 10 chapter 31, the b is sometimes w, sometimes v, sometimes β and sometimes b. If b is in the final position of the word or the syllable, it is always b as in nyb which is pronounced nāb (not neeb). Worrell disagrees with other linguists that b is always w. He thinks the w pronunciation is an Arabic influence while β (bilabial fricative) is the original pronunciation of the letter b.
By Worrell's description - Worrell is the foremost authority on OB - batoc should be pronounced βa-təs (I think). I think Worrell would accept Wa-tos because it is socially acceptable but in theory it would be βa-təs which would be closer to Vatos than Watos.
[quote author=ophadece link=topic=7582.msg164508#msg164508 date=1368117607] And as imikhail pointed out, whose authority is it to change a dialect?
If you believe a language is "natural" then the answer to your question is everyone. You, I, and everyone who use that natural language. By definition, a "natural" language is any language found in practice that exhibits the existential nature or philosophical essence of the language. By the very fact that people are using a language, they will introduce idioms, nuances, and change because this is what linguistic phenomena does. It is for this reason why English has so many subdialects.
What makes you think anyone needs permission? Did Shakespeare ask the Queen of England to introduce hundreds of new words into British English that is also known as the "Queen's English"? Did St Shenoute ask anyone to introduce idioms, and Greek loan words and Sahidic variants into Sahidic Coptic? Did Sts. Cyril and Methodus ask anyone for permission to create Cyrillic?
Does not every government by definition have every right to officialize one or more languages? How does every government have the authority to say this language is official and this one is not - even when the one that is not official is used more than the official (like Esperanto, Egyptian Arabic, etc.)
Does Canada have the authority to pass a law like the "Official Language Act of 1969"? Or have an "Official language commissioner"?
Whether or not you believe one must have authority to change a language or create laws for language or not, it is irrelevant. Languages change with the authority of governing bodies and without any authority. As I said before, in sociolinguistics, there is no such thing as artificiality which in turn diminishes any concept of language authority.
That's great remenkimi, so we agree that natural language shifts need some collective acceptance of speakers of that language, or to a smaller extent, a dialect.. that wasn't the case with GB however. Oujai
[quote author=Remnkemi link=topic=7582.msg164531#msg164531 date=1368289084] [quote author=ophadece link=topic=7582.msg164508#msg164508 date=1368117607] And as imikhail pointed out, whose authority is it to change a dialect?
If you believe a language is "natural" then the answer to your question is everyone. You, I, and everyone who use that natural language. By definition, a "natural" language is any language found in practice that exhibits the existential nature or philosophical essence of the language. By the very fact that people are using a language, they will introduce idioms, nuances, and change because this is what linguistic phenomena does. It is for this reason why English has so many subdialects.
What makes you think anyone needs permission? Did Shakespeare ask the Queen of England to introduce hundreds of new words into British English that is also known as the "Queen's English"? Did St Shenoute ask anyone to introduce idioms, and Greek loan words and Sahidic variants into Sahidic Coptic? Did Sts. Cyril and Methodus ask anyone for permission to create Cyrillic?
Does not every government by definition have every right to officialize one or more languages? How does every government have the authority to say this language is official and this one is not - even when the one that is not official is used more than the official (like Esperanto, Egyptian Arabic, etc.)
Does Canada have the authority to pass a law like the "Official Language Act of 1969"? Or have an "Official language commissioner"?
Whether or not you believe one must have authority to change a language or create laws for language or not, it is irrelevant. Languages change with the authority of governing bodies and without any authority. As I said before, in sociolinguistics, there is no such thing as artificiality which in turn diminishes any concept of language authority.
I agree with this. How does this fit with what Ayan did? It totally goes against this invention of GB.
Comments
God bless :)
Please don't be surprised if you see this very same argument going on for another ten or fifty years. Unfortunately, not enough people today are humble enough to follow the truth (in my opinion). Therefore, this will keep recurring, unless all of our voices are muted one way or another.
PS: You know you embarrassed Remenkimi through that link?
Oujai qen `P[C
"Old Bohairic is the more authentic Coptic. We don't need to follow Greek anymore, especially since we know the driving force was political and erroneous. Rather we should try to find the most authentic Coptic pronunciation and modernize the use of Coptic that way. You can't modernize Coptic without knowing the ciricullum first and that means we have to agree on a pronunciation system also. Since GB is not Coptic, we should agree on OB."
I wonder if this is the same Reminkimi posting on this forum.
Regarding your comments about inventing a Geordie accent in Newcastle, while you might think it is artificial or offensive and do not believe that a preponderance of other artificial languages justifies a new Geordie accent in Newcastle then that is your opinion. However, all pidgin and creole languages are artificial in some sense, yet occur with natural linguistic and social pressures. If you only spoke Arabic and traded or sold beans in Newcastle and a Chinese person who neither spoke English or Arabic wanted to buy your beans, what would you do? In today's age, you pull out Google translate. But back then either (1)you both could learn English or (2) you would invent a pidgin language to communicate to this Chinese immigrant as it has been done thousands of times before. One could say it's offensive to invent a language in England when English is used. Yes, I suppose so. But the reality is pidgin languages are created and new languages are formed often. Sociolinguistically, they are more acceptable than learning a foreign language. Take for example the trade language Swahili. It was derived from Arabic but it is now the lingua franca of East Africa.
imikhail, your comparison of Aryan's intention to Italian with English pronunciation is not accurate or fair. If all Italians were pronouncing Italian as English (or at least a sufficient amount of words) that caused Italian words to have an opposite meaning, I think anyone would be justified to say there is a problem with Italian spoken as English. Aryan's intention was to correct words that have an opposite meaning when spoken in OB. It is not fair to say anyone who points out such actions is absolutely wrong and everything he did afterward is automatically wrong because of the method he went about it. I used to think this way until I realized he did what others have done in their respective languages and cultures.
And no one has commented that if a language is wrong because it is artificial than recommending/forcing our church to adopt OB would now make OB as artificial as GB (even though I personally believe artficiality is irrelevant in sociolinguistics). Are all the proponents of OB willing to become the new Moftahs?
oujai
I did intend my comment mainly for Aegyptoc and only secondarily for Ophadece, since it was Aegyptoc who first expressed the idea with which I am taking issue. Aegyptoc, you responded by saying that you do not consider language to be a matter of Orthodoxy. Great! That is not, however, the sense I got from your post, since you specifically said we should not compromise language just as we don't compromise dogma, because we are Orthodox. The confusing thing for me, is that right after you denied that language is a matter of Orthodoxy you reiterated that as Orthodox we care what the truth is (in this case, regarding language), and that again as Orthodox we know we can find that truth.
I am emphasizing strongly here that being Orthodox has absolutely nothing to do with language or any other such secondary matter. The only truth we care about as Orthodox is our faith, our dogma, the revelation of Jesus Christ and the message of the Gospel. Nothing else is a matter of Orthodoxy, and almost nothing else is as absolute as anyone might think (in this particular case of language, I think Remenkimi has done a great job showing how relative this debate is).
I am not saying pronunciation does not matter. If I were to say this, then I should have no problem with any pronunciation, when in fact I do not support the use of OB in liturgical services and never have. So, I believe pronunciation is an important issue, I believe linguists, servants, and all other concerned parties should discuss the merits of both pronunciations and reach some sort of agreement, and I am certainly not belittling the work of linguistics, or the value of any cultural aspect of the church. However, none of this should be confused with Orthodoxy, even to a lesser degree.
It seems you would agree with all this, judging from your last post. I am not sure, if this is indeed true, why you insert the word Orthodoxy in the discussion at all.
He used to attend Pascha at St. Marks on Robertson blvd and they would say "Tok de di djoam nem biow..." etc. This was the whole church, not just one person. After Alexandrian influence and the flood of recordings this was all wiped away. This mans grandfather interestingly enough is believed to be one of the last Coptic Speakers in Egypt (who has since passed away).
Aryan Moftah did use the argument that Copts should pronounce the Coptic letters as the Greek since the Coptic alphabet utilize the Greek one. Hence my post. This is an absurd argument that cannot be used with different languages that utilize similar alphabets.
Orthodoxy is life not a set of rules or canons. Orthodoxy requires one to be truthful not just dogmatically but to be truthful to whatever matter is at hand. This is what the earlier arguments tried to convey with regards to passing on the entrusted heritage we have.
First, my name is Ramez. Unless you are calling me Ramzy as a form of endearment. Either way, no big deal :)
Orthodoxy is life not canons and rules. Yes, I absolutely agree and I never meant to imply that Orthodoxy is a code of law or a rigid set of rules. As you can see, I mentioned the Orthodox spiritual tradition as the number one thing, before any dogma, canons, or rules. Some fathers even shy away from calling Orthodoxy a religion, precisely because it may imply this sense of adherence to rules as the primary criterion (Re-ligion is related to the Latin root lig, meaning to bind or tie down)
That being said, when we say Orthodoxy is life, it does not mean that every aspect of our life is somehow related to being Orthodox. This is what I feel trivializes the word Orthodoxy and distorts it. Let me put it this way: We often speak of Orthodox icons. Why? Because Orthodox icons are not merely one style of art, but they portray visually key Orthodox beliefs and faith that other non-Orthodox styles of icons typically fail to convey...Orthodox iconography is theology in visual form. We also speak of Orthodox hymnography, not the tunes or the melodies, but the texts. One can take the music from Pekethronos and sing to some other popular Protestant song and it would no longer be considered Orthodox hymns...clearly the words matter more than the music, and there is nothing inherently Orthodox or heterodox about music in itself.
What I cannot see is how pronunciation of a language is related to Orthodoxy as I described it above. Yes, we care what is right. Yes, we should reach an agreement about pronunciation. But not because this has anything to do with Orthodoxy. The same goes if someone were to fight about which rendition of a hymn is more accurate saying that "I am Orthodox, therefore I cannot accept this wrong version, but I must find and sing the correct version."
I hope this clarifies what I mean.
Imikhail,
First, my name is Ramez. Unless you are calling me Ramzy as a form of endearment. Either way, no big deal :)
Orthodoxy is life not canons and rules. Yes, I absolutely agree and I never meant to imply that Orthodoxy is a code of law or a rigid set of rules. As you can see, I mentioned the Orthodox spiritual tradition as the number one thing, before any dogma, canons, or rules. Some fathers even shy away from calling Orthodoxy a religion, precisely because it may imply this sense of adherence to rules as the primary criterion (Re-ligion is related to the Latin root lig, meaning to bind or tie down)
That being said, when we say Orthodoxy is life, it does not mean that every aspect of our life is somehow related to being Orthodox. This is what I feel trivializes the word Orthodoxy and distorts it. Let me put it this way: We often speak of Orthodox icons. Why? Because Orthodox icons are not merely one style of art, but they portray visually key Orthodox beliefs and faith that other non-Orthodox styles of icons typically fail to convey...Orthodox iconography is theology in visual form. We also speak of Orthodox hymnography, not the tunes or the melodies, but the texts. One can take the music from Pekethronos and sing to some other popular Protestant song and it would no longer be considered Orthodox hymns...clearly the words matter more than the music, and there is nothing inherently Orthodox or heterodox about music in itself.
What I cannot see is how pronunciation of a language is related to Orthodoxy as I described it above. Yes, we care what is right. Yes, we should reach an agreement about pronunciation. But not because this has anything to do with Orthodoxy. The same goes if someone were to fight about which rendition of a hymn is more accurate saying that "I am Orthodox, therefore I cannot accept this wrong version, but I must find and sing the correct version."
I hope this clarifies what I mean.
I appreciate you clarifying your position. Two things here I'd like to comment on.
First you likened the OB and GB as two versions of a hymn. This is belittling the discussion here and is not a fair comparison.
Second, you feel that sticking with the authentic pronunciation and insisting on the wrong one despite knowing that it is wrong along with handing the wrong to future generations does not rise to Orthodoxy. Well that is your own choice.
Others do not share your feeling. Again, Orthodoxy is a way of life and it is up to the individual to incorporate it in whatever facets of life s/he chooses.
Honesty and preserving tradition is part of Orthodoxy. If I believe that OB is the correct heritage, then it is my duty as an Orthodox to be honest and preserve what I was entrusted.
Honesty and preserving tradition is part of Orthodoxy. If I believe that OB is the correct heritage, then it is my duty as an Orthodox to be honest and preserve what I was entrusted.
It appears that you and only a few are truly "orthodox" on this earth--that is in your definition of "orthodoxy"....on the other hand, we are all heretics lead by our Pope and the Holy Synod.....i wonder if, as an admin, i should still allow you to be here on our forum....or should I just abuse my power and just to ban you....
[quote author=imikhail link=topic=7582.msg164489#msg164489 date=1368065809]
Honesty and preserving tradition is part of Orthodoxy. If I believe that OB is the correct heritage, then it is my duty as an Orthodox to be honest and preserve what I was entrusted.
It appears that you and only a few are truly "orthodox" on this earth--that is in your definition of "orthodoxy"....on the other hand, we are all heretics lead by our Pope and the Holy Synod.....i wonder if, as an admin, i should still allow you to be here on our forum....or should I just abuse my power and just to ban you....
You need to reread the the posts on this thread and reread my last post to know what I am talking about. You are missing the point of my argument.
As to your power to ban me .. you are acting like those Muslims who cut the head off to silence the truth. Good luck with that power.
Reminkimi,
Aryan Moftah did use the argument that Copts should pronounce the Coptic letters as the Greek since the Coptic alphabet utilize the Greek one. Hence my post. This is an absurd argument that cannot be used with different languages that utilize similar alphabets.
Is it really as absurd as you think? Look at the scenario as a whole.
1. He recognized destructive patterns in OB. For example, in Arian's book e;ouab (which means holy) was pronounced and orthographically placed in manuscripts as a;ouab (which means unholy).
2. He knew that OB was not systematically taught in any education system other than the kattabas. In the 19th century, Egypt was heavily influenced by the Protestant missionaries who insulted Coptic Egypt for no education system. So they built their own. And eventually Pope Cyril IV built the Great Coptic School to combat lower education from the kattabas.
3. Arian was given approval by Pope Cyril IV to correct or modernize Coptic language education.
4. As a "guardian" of Coptic, Arian chose to model Coptic education based on Greek orthography and phonology. He couldn't use OB and he probably felt English and French were to foreign to Coptic.
I don't see it absurd. It's not the only way to modernize OB but given these conditions, it is not a crime.
If you had a child who was learning English and continued to say "goed" instead of "went" (similar to #1 above), you would correct him. As a parent you have authority to do so (similar to #3 above). If the child persisted in saying "goed" after numerous attempts to correct him, you would look for other systematic phonological tools, like "Hooked on Phonics" or Kumon (similiar to #4 above). If waited long enough you may decide to wait till your child went to pre-school and let him interact and learn it there. If no such system exists, you may even start a system yourself by organizing a society or homeschooling (which is similar to #2 above).
Arian did the same thing on a national scale. We may not agree with his method or even his intention. But what was he to do? Tell Pope Cyril IV "I can't do what you asked without changing Coptic significantly"? Or "I want to keep OB even though I know the pronunciation is destructive"? Or "Let the Protestant missionary schools teach Coptic"? If you or I were in his shoes, we may very well have done the same thing since there is no good alternative.
You see, now you are saying you don't agree with his intentions or methods, but the end result was what it was. I am not going to follow someone who made a mockery of how my fathers pronounced a language in order to spread the Coptic teaching on a wider basis. That is totally absurd to me, and quite unacceptable. I would very happily resort to unfeasiable measures of increasing people's awareness, and educating them rightly, instead of choosing a simple way of making Coptic sound like a foreign language?
Also, how can you tell the difference between "a symmetrical" something and "asymmetrical" something. What about "desert sthg" and "dessert sthg". What about "break your car" and "brake your car". It isn't as destructive as he makes out to be. It is just his emphatic way of making it sound serious, when things could be understood from the context of a sentence, and not only that, when they do have different pronunciations; as in /atwab/ as opposed to /a:twab/
Oujai qen `P[C
In the feeble attempts to regain an attitude, or even only a way of pronunciation of my forefathers is much more worth the effort than keeping a flawed meaningless system of pronunciation...
oujai
If avoiding a flawed meaningless system of pronunciation and adhering to the pronunciation of your forefathers is your only fundamental philosophy, why do people speak Cairene Arabic and not Classical Arabic? If you say my/their forefathers didn't speak Arabic, then you're fooling yourself since all our fathers spoke Arabic for at least 7-8 centuries. IF you say, Cairene Arabic is the original Arabic, then you ignore Upper Egyptian Arabic and all other dialects spoken in Egypt. If you say I learned Modern Standard Arabic and that's enough, well MSA is as "artificial" GB. (And I have yet to see someone proficient in MSA)
And as I said before you (I mean it generally as proponents of OB) are only considering it flawed and meaningless because it is not OB and not your preference.
No no no... Aryan didn't correct the faults of OB by introducing GB as you claim Remenkimi. He made a mockery of OB, and wanted to change it for the sake of another language, totally different. Indeed, one can argue that he did the reverse; he encouraged Copts to say "goed" rather than "went", because he defiled the language (or the dialect if you don't like me being that emphatic). I know you wouldn't disagree about that either, but that is what he did.
You see, now you are saying you don't agree with his intentions or methods, but the end result was what it was. I am not going to follow someone who made a mockery of how my fathers pronounced a language in order to spread the Coptic teaching on a wider basis. That is totally absurd to me, and quite unacceptable. I would very happily resort to unfeasiable measures of increasing people's awareness, and educating them rightly, instead of choosing a simple way of making Coptic sound like a foreign language?
Also, how can you tell the difference between "a symmetrical" something and "asymmetrical" something. What about "desert sthg" and "dessert sthg". What about "break your car" and "brake your car". It isn't as destructive as he makes out to be. It is just his emphatic way of making it sound serious, when things could be understood from the context of a sentence, and not only that, when they do have different pronunciations; as in /atwab/ as opposed to /a:twab/
Oujai qen `P[C
Ophadecee, you're contradicting yourself. If Arian encouraged people to say "goed" instead of "went", then he introduced the error. But in the end you acknowledge atwab. So the error was there first. I believe there is manuscript evidence too.
Context does not justify error. I know the difference between "a symmetry" and "asymmetry". But if the context calls for "a symmetry", then "asymmetry" is not allowed. OB did allow for "asymmetry" when the context requires "a symmetry". You can't write "brake your care" and expect the reader to automatically convert it to "break your car". The context would necessitate a verb, not a noun. You can't justify keeping a noun. That's not how neurolinguistics works.
Whether Arian's intention was to mock Coptic or not, and I agree he probably did as did many arakhna of the 18-19th centuries, it still doesn't negate the fact that there was a problem OB that he was authorized to correct.
I speak Arabic as my father and mother do. It could be a variant of Cairene Arabic (WHATEVER THAT IS), that is to say it is not a standard, and likewise OB may have so many subsets that I would speak one of.
Oujai qen `P[C
In the US, kids are taught to write words the way the word sounds. For example, if the kid writes the word "is" as "iz", it is ok. Then they are taught the proper spelling.
Those scribes who misspelled is not a justification of changing the proper pronunciation, rather education of the proper spelling.
In addition, his invention did not get rid of the problem of misspelling.
Your analogy is like changing the way people speak Arabic for fear of English and other languages invading the illiterate people.
Does a language belong to just one person?
Authority does not mean dishonesty and not preserving our heritage.
This whole move of GB was political and cultural.
Political because the Church wanted to unify with the Melekites and hence all the modern Greek hymns that entered the Church.
Cultural because people were uneducated and accepted whatever was handed down to them.
Did I acknowledge an error? Then you misunderstood me. The former spells as e;ouab and is pronounced as /atwab/, while the latter spells as at;ouab and is prnounced as /a:twab/.
Just for my edification, are not all Coptic words with the letter t, always pronounced /d/? That is what I heard on these forums and that is what I have seen in the phonetic inventories discussed by Worrell and others. Why is at;ouab pronounced /a:twab/ and not /ad twab/? I know why but I want to see what your answer is.
I speak Arabic as my father and mother do. It could be a variant of Cairene Arabic (WHATEVER THAT IS), that is to say it is not a standard, and likewise OB may have so many subsets that I would speak one of.
Oujai qen `P[C
Somewhere in the history of Egypt (probably 6th-8th century, Arabic was Classical Arabic. Why is Modern Standard Arabic the only Arabic taught in schools? Why is it acceptable to learn and adopt Modern Standard Arabic, which is for all purposes is as "artificial" as GB, yet not considered a corruption or a flawed like GB is?
Are you saying that the Standard Arabic somehow changed the alphabetic sounds that the Classical Arabic used to have?
I like you to point those differences out because I do not know of any.
I cannot comment on Arabic, because it isn't my language in the first place. I don't like speaking Arabic, and I am not going to defend whatever form people speak today; I just speak as my father and mother taught me. OB however isn't a language. And as imikhail pointed out, whose authority is it to change a dialect?
Oujai qen `P[C
No, t isn't always pronounced as /d/; sometimes /t/ too. Pretty much like 'c' in English. Note words like batoc, and ,rictoc.
According to Worrell, in his article Popular Traditions of the Coptic Language p. 9, paragraph 26. "The letter t (called dau) and pronounced d/ḍ as it should be, and never t, except when final, e.g. šəmd somt." In another article he says, Greek words can take the /t/ sound. Since ,rictoc and batoc are Greek, it makes sense.
The only other word Worrell describes with both Coptic letters is pauyt. In this example, Worrell believes the OB way to pronounce is wrong (p. 7, Chapter 15). He notices that the Sahidic is pronounced Bāwāṭ which sounds like "baywait". He notices that the two Copts he is documenting OB (Bistauros and Girgis who come from different parts of Egypt), both say b-awīd. Worrell hypothesizes that it should be b-awād (or baWADE). So now we have conflicting sources on how the Coptic letter y is pronounced in qualitative verbs and also how t is pronounced. What I believe Worrell is saying is Bāwāṭ seems to be the most logical pronunciation since the t is in the final position however because it is a qualitative verb, b-awād is the "correct" pronunciation even though he hears everyone say b-awīd.
Also, according to Worrell on p. 10 chapter 31, the b is sometimes w, sometimes v, sometimes β and sometimes b. If b is in the final position of the word or the syllable, it is always b as in nyb which is pronounced nāb (not neeb). Worrell disagrees with other linguists that b is always w. He thinks the w pronunciation is an Arabic influence while β (bilabial fricative) is the original pronunciation of the letter b.
By Worrell's description - Worrell is the foremost authority on OB - batoc should be pronounced βa-təs (I think). I think Worrell would accept Wa-tos because it is socially acceptable but in theory it would be βa-təs which would be closer to Vatos than Watos.
And as imikhail pointed out, whose authority is it to change a dialect?
If you believe a language is "natural" then the answer to your question is everyone. You, I, and everyone who use that natural language. By definition, a "natural" language is any language found in practice that exhibits the existential nature or philosophical essence of the language. By the very fact that people are using a language, they will introduce idioms, nuances, and change because this is what linguistic phenomena does. It is for this reason why English has so many subdialects.
What makes you think anyone needs permission? Did Shakespeare ask the Queen of England to introduce hundreds of new words into British English that is also known as the "Queen's English"? Did St Shenoute ask anyone to introduce idioms, and Greek loan words and Sahidic variants into Sahidic Coptic? Did Sts. Cyril and Methodus ask anyone for permission to create Cyrillic?
Does not every government by definition have every right to officialize one or more languages? How does every government have the authority to say this language is official and this one is not - even when the one that is not official is used more than the official (like Esperanto, Egyptian Arabic, etc.)
Does Canada have the authority to pass a law like the "Official Language Act of 1969"? Or have an "Official language commissioner"?
Whether or not you believe one must have authority to change a language or create laws for language or not, it is irrelevant. Languages change with the authority of governing bodies and without any authority. As I said before, in sociolinguistics, there is no such thing as artificiality which in turn diminishes any concept of language authority.
Oujai
[quote author=ophadece link=topic=7582.msg164508#msg164508 date=1368117607]
And as imikhail pointed out, whose authority is it to change a dialect?
If you believe a language is "natural" then the answer to your question is everyone. You, I, and everyone who use that natural language. By definition, a "natural" language is any language found in practice that exhibits the existential nature or philosophical essence of the language. By the very fact that people are using a language, they will introduce idioms, nuances, and change because this is what linguistic phenomena does. It is for this reason why English has so many subdialects.
What makes you think anyone needs permission? Did Shakespeare ask the Queen of England to introduce hundreds of new words into British English that is also known as the "Queen's English"? Did St Shenoute ask anyone to introduce idioms, and Greek loan words and Sahidic variants into Sahidic Coptic? Did Sts. Cyril and Methodus ask anyone for permission to create Cyrillic?
Does not every government by definition have every right to officialize one or more languages? How does every government have the authority to say this language is official and this one is not - even when the one that is not official is used more than the official (like Esperanto, Egyptian Arabic, etc.)
Does Canada have the authority to pass a law like the "Official Language Act of 1969"? Or have an "Official language commissioner"?
Whether or not you believe one must have authority to change a language or create laws for language or not, it is irrelevant. Languages change with the authority of governing bodies and without any authority. As I said before, in sociolinguistics, there is no such thing as artificiality which in turn diminishes any concept of language authority.
I agree with this. How does this fit with what Ayan did? It totally goes against this invention of GB.