the fallacy of modernity [was RE: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website]

[Rich Alderson]

> From: SPC
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 12:53 PM

> My excuses for the sensibles stomachs, but:

> Eschatology (escatologia in Spanish). The RAE (Royal Academy  of Spanish
> Language) attribute these meanings to the word:

> * Set of beliefs and doctrines concerning the grave life
> * Dealin with excreta

> A word related is eschatological:

> * Belonging or related to excrement and dirt

> It's related with ???????, ????, ??????

OK, we've wandered way, WAY off-topic here, but I can't allow this to
stand.[0]

In Greek, <kappa> and <khi> are generally unrelated.[1]  Each reflects a
separately reconstructible sound all the way back to Proto-Indo-European,
usually written as *k and *gh in ASCII, although in the handbooks the <k>
and <g> will frequently have <prime> accents to indicate that they are
palatals rather than velars, and the <h> will be superscripted.[2]

Because Spanish does not have an aspirate class (nor did Latin, where the
borrowing first took place), <kappa> and <khi> are both represented by <c>,
here pronounced [k], and a distinction is lost that was present in Greek.
Further, in the history of Spanish, initial clusters of s+{p,t,k} developed
an epenthetic vowel e-, so that original Greek _eskhato-_ and _skato-_
fall together in Spanish as _eskato-_.[3]

Note that the Greek word _eskhatos_ means "last", and eschatology is that
part of religious doctrine that deals with death, judgment, and destiny.

Now I'll shut up on this topic.

[0] Before I became a full-time computer programmer and later system manager,
    I spent more than a decade studying Indo-European linguistics, both as an
    undergraduate and as a graduate student.  I see too much nonsense passing
    for linguistics in the newspapers and on-line, and I do what I can to
    correct it.

[1] There is a conditional relationship called Grassman's Law (better
    "Rule"), in which underlying aspirates can appear as nonaspirates.  In
    addition, an aspirate before final -s deaspirates.  The canonical example
    in classical Greek is the word _thriks_, _trikhos_ "hair", in which the
    final -s keeps Grassman's from operating in the nominative.

[2] In linguistics fora, I write that kind of thing in TeX notation, but I'll
    forego that here.

[3] For example, Greek _skhola_ yields Spanish _escuela_ "school", Latin
    _stare_ "stand" gives Spanish _estar_ "to be" (of transient states), etc.


Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104

mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
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