Lee Scoresby

EDkiwi - I remember the leafy streets of Auckland's suburbs were pretty much always totally deserted. (Weird little country, what what). Lee Scoresby

To RosieH, it is an regrettable compliment which only sets up a pointless insult. I really really should not be taking the bait like this, but why would on earth would you decide to address me as pissy and paranoid ? I have said nothing which warrants either of these epithets. To ianr, thanx again for chatting. Sorry I missed some of your posts. To the moderator, thanx for breaking cover and apologising. 'Fat fingers and a careless brain' does rather imply tho, that you were attempting to edit the thread in some way. Can you now restore all the posts, please ? I do not believe that the EDF operates without comprehensive back-up. Failing that, would it not be best to, as ianr puts it, curtail this thread ? As it exists now, it simply makes no sense, and wastes surfers' time if they decide to take a look. Lee Scoresby

My third post has indeed been removed, without notice or explanation, presumably by the moderator rather than pixies. And I assume this was because I responded to ianr's previous contribution in robustly negative terms - as well as thanking him. It is extremely annoying. The majority of my post was a detailed exploration of the subject which, I hope, was of interest to those finding and following the thread. I am guessing ianr's subsequent post was equally robust. Well, so what ? We're all consenting adults here in the tub, and the banter emphasises or colours the serious points of view being expressed, rather than being gratuitous abuse. So I am asking the moderator to restrain his or her itchy blue-pencil finger (not for the first time, sadly), reinstate all posts, and let a group of grown-ups finish their conversation. Otherwise what is the EDF for - selling old furniture and bitching about cappuccino quality in Lordship Lane ? For goodness sake. But now I suppose this message will likewise disappear into the memory hole. Lee Scoooo . . . . . . [silence]

Can anyone recommend a good sixth form college in SE London ? Meaning a place where A-level academic work is done in a calm serious supportive environment, as distinct from some of the wo'ever/time-filler/dating-frenzy establishments around? Christ the King in Lewisham has a good rep, for example, which may very well be richly deserved, I don't know. And that's the problem: good reps, as I've discovered about schools, sometimes float way above a less impressive reality. I would greatly appreciate hearing info and opinions from real human beings who have been thru this with their kids. Also: Can someone recommend a good sixth form college anywhere in West Kent ? - in case we decide to flee the Smoke. Genuine inquiry. After some crappy schooling, my child needs and deserves a real stepping stone to university. And a great many parents will understand that. Apologies if this has long since come up on the EDF. Lee Scoresby

I am obliged to ianr for that reference, even allowing that Mikhail, clearly a linguistics scholar, is answering a slightly different question. As he says, given that Sardinian has evolved away from Latin less than any other Romance language, as well as preserving many features of Latin, the shepherds in question were doubtless from Sardinia. The experiment's rationale extends from the fact that any human infant acquires an articulatory phonetics (a performative competence) specific to the language she or he is learning, with its defining phoneme inventory. This has the broader effect that she or he will then prefer or find easier certain sounds, combinations and longer patterns, while others become difficult or unintuitive. Certain sound distinctions will be inaudible, others insisted upon. Thus, although incomprehensible to these readers, the Latin texts would have been sufficiently similar to Sardinian that, employing their particular articulatory competence, the shepherds would produce a spoken Latin which one might at least hypothesise was much closer to the chatter of Ancient Rome than the speech of the classics master at Eton. It is as if, rather than written text preserved in a cache of old documents, this historically isolated speech-community has (putatively) preserved (quite unintentionally, and with a little drift) the 'how to' for an ancient spoken language. Research interest extends from pronunciation, nasalisation of vowels and so on, to elisions and slurring, and the characteristic rhythms and pauses given to longer phrases, sentences and extended units of language. I am sorry now to turn from thanking ianr to criticising him. I broadly understand the philosophical kite he wants to fly. The specific answer to how can we know is found in all that unending forensic interdisciplinary effort precisely to try to know: reverse engineering linguistic evolution through documents, synthetic linguistic modeling and so on, analysing transliterated Latin in other language texts, and clues in written Latin, particularly poetic meter. The meta-level response to your epistomological whimsifying is that you, not I, introduced the possibility of 'knowing' how Latin was once spoken. No-one presumes that 'know' in this context means the same as knowing something straightforwardly in one's everyday life. That being so, what is the meaning of your second question ? If one knows something approximately or vaguely in everyday life, one normally has the means at one's disposal to obtain better, clearer or additional information. In this context, one could indeed use evolutionary linguistic modeling and digital technology to tweak some of these verbal recordings and tentatively - always tentatively - get closer to what one proposes was ancient spoken Latin. I support your deconstructions, your postmodern scepticism, as a means of interrogating our 'reality' and the assumptions of any intellectual practice. This is enriching. But when know-nothing-ism wishes to disrupt and replace that work, then our ways must divide, you into sterile masturbatory solipsism, myself to continue, naively no doubt, to be a very tiny part of that ongoing attempt to understand everything, not least our human past. As I say, I am sorry to make this divided response to ianr. I thank him again for pointing out that reference to me. And PeckhamRose (who is, I put it to you, your mum) thinks you're a credit. I have been far too feeble about pursing this matter online and will take this it again. The point of this thread may be at an end, Ariadne . . . Lee Scoresby.

Katie, thanx for responding. I did not say UCL "organised" this recording (a UCL graduate may have), rather that I contacted them (in hope). Comparisons to what you call business people are, with respect to you, not the point. Whether they like it or not, academics occupy public life in some sense, and it behooves them to respond to public queries. As to 'quick', at a certain point, one understands - does one not ? - that someone one has emailed is never going to reply. Hinc illae lacrimae, if I was going to be smart arse (tho I think I've misspelt that tag). To me, not speaking when spoken to is snotty. But, really, grand as it is to rehearse all this, I am very keen to hear something over the digi-ether. Lee Scoresby.

I once heard that a classics researcher had gathered in a sound studio a number of Catalan hill shepherds (I believe it was) and asked them to read various Latin texts out loud. They did not understand what they were reading but the hypothesis was that the sounds they made were the closest we can now ever come to how Latin was actually spoken in Rome and the Empire. Last year, I emailed the Secretary of the Classics Dept at UCL to see if anyone there could spare the handful of minutes it would take to enlighten me, but (and if your experience is different, do tell) in the snotty tradition seemingly enveloping everyone in academia in this country, this person never troubled to reply. I have tried to google but have failed to find the magic words which will elicit this information. This is a genuine request for any information anyone can give me. It sounds like a fascinating experiment and I have wanted to know more about it for years. Lee Scoresby.

Ms Kalamity Kel ma'am and all subsequent Associates of the Word, my apologies are unreserved. My little contribution 'Venus' responds to what I see now is a very long ago moment in this distinguished lexical concatenation. As a follow-on from 'Sentence' it makes no sense. Could you, Miss K, see your way clear to expungin' mah e-gree-gious error and proceeding as before ? I should be horse-whipped and very well may be. - Lee Scoresby (Oh, and The Golden Compass is a vile travesty my friend - read the books, hmm ?)

Venus

Dear Admin, are you, like, the Fat Controller ? Ha Ha. Or Big Brother ? Or the Jade Emperor of the Seventh Heaven ? Seriously : a) When I went - finally - to respond to a thread I had started I was not shown the user-names of contributors. Are these deleted at a certain point ? b) Why do the headers of certain but not all threads say 'Go to page yada-yada-whatever ?' c) I notice my real name was left off my profile - by me, I guess. Is there any point adding it on. I want to use my nom de balloon for postings. Thanks, - Lee Scoresby