Why can't anything be 100% clearly translated?

[gendanken]

I am sure Doreen will explain her use of the word "colloquial".
At first, I, too, wondered what she meant.

We all do-- Doreen's fashionable 'thinking' sounds like a good pair of gibberish.

I know this from history, not this thread.

I think Doreen was speaking from a position of "universal language" (which is meaningful when we talk about the problem of translation), and from this perspective, it makes sense to call a particular English use "colloquial" when it is such that it cannot be meaningfully translated word by word into another language.

Then that would be more a philosophical problem of 'qualia' , a term used to describe the subjective experience of existence.

You and I, for example, would not experience the sound of a skull smashing to pieces the same way.

This is not a linguistic problem-- this is why I do no agree that it is a colloquialism.

A colloquialism would be some snarky word or phrase use to describe the event of a skull being crushed, and it would would vary from place to place.

Doreen is using the word wrong.

 

[wynn]

Doreen certainly hasn't used the word "colloquial" in the sense it is generally used. But as I sketched out above, I can think of a use in which it would make sense.

There are people who call Latin a dialect of Sanskrit. From a Sanskrit-centred perspective, this is justified.

 

[gendanken]

There are people who call Latin a dialect of Sanskrit. From a Sanskrit-centred perspective, this is justified.

Allright.

How so?

 

[gendanken]

And how does it relate to Doreen's misuse of 'colloquialism'?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Know what the meaning of "bullshit", literally, is? Speaking beyond your intelligence.

Well pardon me for being hyperbolic. Obviously it's not possible to have literally no concept of time. (Although dogs come pretty close to it: "I don't know how that puddle got here, do you?") "Time" is a broad topic. Still, being able, for example, to distinguish morning from evening because they look and feel different doesn't automatically give you the ability to relate to the distant past or a hypothetical future. I lived in Arizona for many miserable years; I've been to the Hopi rez and talked with Americans who worked with the Hopi. They said that it was very difficult to communicate with them about time, that some of the aspects of time we take for granted and manipulate with the ease of doing arithmetic with one-digit numbers, were hard for them to handle.

Now of course this was fifty years ago. Today I'm sure almost all of them have been Americanized and have been taught English since they were little, and that would certainly change their way of thinking.

Something else they told me is that when a Hopi kid was acting up, his mom would discipline him by saying, "No, that is not the Hopi way." I'm sure that doesn't work any more.

And how are prepositions "colloquial"?

English prepositions have virtually no intrinsic meaning. Every prepositional phrase is a figure of speech. On the table, on time, on a tight schedule, on order, on TV, on call, on a journey... how can you abstract a proper meaning for the word "on"? Dictionary.com lists 30 different definitions!

In, to, of, with, for... our language is hamstrung with a tiny set of prepositions left over from the Stone Age, with which we're expected to describe every possible relationship between nouns and/or verbs. And prepositions are the one part of speech that our grammar doesn't allow us to create. Within, without, upon, into, the small number of new prepositions that have been added to our vocabulary in the last 1500 years is pathetic. Out of frustration, we've taken to using gerunds like "regarding" and adjectives like "absent" as prepositions.

Prepositions add very little meaning to a sentence. Their primary purpose is parsing, to let us know that there is a relationship implied and to hope that we can figure out what it is. Actually I've often thought that the true purpose of prepositions is to help us identify foreign speakers, because they have a hell of a time getting them right. It's surprising how little confusion is injected into most sentences by using the wrong preposition.

In the last century we finally gave up and invented a new paradigm for expressing relationships: the noun-adjective compound. User-friendly, fuel-efficient, computer-literate, cable-ready, labor-intensive. This is a new type of construction in English.

Translate this sentence, "Hmmm ok I don't see that at all but ok," into Spanish, and give it the same tone of incredulity it has in English.

Hmmm, bien, yo no entiendo ni una palabra, pero está bien.

In that sense, that phrase "at all" is colloquial (chances are that to translate it into Spanish, you will not use the Spanish equivalents for "at" and "all").

I just said "not one word of it," but that's not close enough. I assume you're not saying that you don't understand what I just said, but something more abstract than that. And I translated "see" as entender, "understand," which is also not close enough. You're not saying you don't understand it, you're probably saying that you doubt it. I suppose you could say, Yo dudo ésto completamente, "I doubt that completely." And está bien isn't really good enough either. It implies that even though you disagree, it doesn't matter, when what you probably mean is that you're just tired of arguing about it.

Colloquialisms are the most difficult things to translate.

 

[Giambattista]

haaaaaaa,

I feel sorry for any translater that trys to translate English to what ever Language.

with sentences like this ..


•The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

That's my favorite. But honestly, most of those confusions can be avoided by different word choice.

And English is not the only language with homophones, ie words that are spelled or sound similar but have different meanings.

 

[gendanken]

Fraggle:

Well pardon me for being hyperbolic

You weren't.

You and I know precisely what you did. You, like a million other people, caught the slightest glimpse of this Sapir-Worf hypothesis and began repeating it-- without thinking-- because it appealed to this need you have to romanticize foreigners.


You might as well prattle about the billion words that Eskimos have for snow.
"OOOhhhhhh", say it with me "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh":

Eskimos, unlike, say, the American with 'slush' "flurry" and "sleet", have so many words for snow that its exotic and fascinating!

Why? Because they eat blubber and hunt seal with their molars?

If I were to tell you that computer programmers have dozens of words for fonts-- Helvetica, Times New Roman, Gaelic, Sans serif, Your Mother-- you'd find it boring and wonder that such a thing should be worth intellectual discussion.

But if "Computer Programmer" was the name of some savage in Borneo that ate his Durian fruit with his anus, why, you'd be suffocating these forums with emotionally stimulating chunks you selected out of a theory you never questioned because of the exotic perspectives of savages you wished to believe in.

Still, being able, for example, to distinguish morning from evening because they look and feel different doesn't automatically give you the ability to relate to the distant past or a hypothetical future

There's nothing 'automatic' about language.

What is the past or the future but a series of evening and mornings strung along an eternity of tomorrows and yesterdays?

I lived in Arizona for many miserable years; I've been to the Hopi rez and talked with Americans who worked with the Hopi. They said that it was very difficult to communicate with them about time, that some of the aspects of time we take for granted and manipulate with the ease of doing arithmetic with one-digit numbers, were hard for them to handle.

Who were these people?

Anthropologists? Linguists? Or mere hippies still trying to find themselves among brutes?

You're still going off the haphazard, chaotic mess of hearsay.

By the by--

Signal said:
Translate this sentence, "Hmmm ok I don't see that at all but ok,"

Fraggle said: Hmmm, bien, yo no entiendo ni una palabra, pero está bien.

Where in "Hmmm ok I don't see that at all but ok" do you find the word 'word' meaning 'palabra'?

You're reading yourself into the translation. The closest, most literal translation of the following in Spanish:
"Hmmm ok I don't see that at all but ok"

Is:

"Hmmm...ok, no lo veo para nada, pero ok"

Puerto Ricans, Costa Ricans, Columbians, and Mexicans-- just to name a few-- all have "ok" in their vocabulary.

I hear that you, as a moderator, used to go around editing people's posts just to butcher what they wrote with your "corrections".
You're doing that here, meddling that busy little body of yours into people's work like a nosy teacher hacking, twisting, slashing, distorting something to fit your view of correctness.

There was no need to put 'palabra' in there.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Who were these people? Anthropologists? Linguists? Or mere hippies still trying to find themselves among brutes?

There weren't any hippies fifty years ago. They were teachers, social workers and various health care workers, probably all federal employees.

Where in "Hmmm ok I don't see that at all but ok" do you find the word 'word' meaning 'palabra'? You're reading yourself into the translation. The closest, most literal translation of the following in Spanish: "Hmmm ok I don't see that at all but ok" Is: "Hmmm...ok, no lo veo para nada, pero ok"

I thought it was pretty clear that we were to translate the sentence with the original meaning. It's not much of a challenge to do a mechanical word-for-word translation. I pointed out the deficiencies in my attempt, there's no need for you to echo that. Ni una palabra is a perfect way to say "not at all" if you're talking about not understanding speech, and I admitted that we were probably not talking about speech.

Puerto Ricans, Costa Ricans, Columbians, and Mexicans-- just to name a few-- all have "ok" in their vocabulary.

This is a good illustration of the question under discussion. "OK" is merely vernacular in English and therefore acceptable in all but the most formal speech, whereas it's slang in Spanish. I wouldn't use it in a class exercise. I'd have to look up the spelling, since o.k. ought to be pronounced "oh-kah."

I hear that you, as a moderator, used to go around editing people's posts . . . .

So now you're going to castigate me for something that happened three or four years ago when I first took this job?

 

[gendanken]

There weren't any hippies fifty years ago

2010 minus 50 is 1960.

There weren't any hippies in 1960?

So now you're going to castigate me for something that happened three or four years ago when I first took this job?

Live with it.

My own 'reputation' follows me around like a lost, hungry piranha.
Goes from frustrating to boring, but you deal with it.

There weren't any hippies fifty years ago. They were teachers, social workers and various health care workers, probably all federal employees.

Ah, teachers, social workers, and health care workers-- in other words, overpaid, underworked dilettantes who barely skim the surface of things before pretending an understanding of it.

I would value the work of an anthropologist like Ekkehart Malotki or Steve Pinker, professor of cognitive neuroscience at none other than MIT, over the presumptions of some starry-eyed social worker getting fat off the state.

I thought it was pretty clear that we were to translate the sentence with the original meaning.

True

It's not much of a challenge to do a mechanical word-for-word translation.

But you didn't.

You, unintentionally perhaps, complicated it. Then again, Polonious never intended the long wind of his mind.

Like defacating, one doesn't "intend" what comes perfectly natural.

I pointed out the deficiencies in my attempt, there's no need for you to echo that.

I appreaciate the effort, but only I say what goes for gendanken's needs around here.

Ni una palabra is a perfect way to say "not at all" if you're talking about not understanding speech, and I admitted that we were probably not talking about speech.

I don't think this adds or detracts from the discussion, so to continue this point is counterproductive.

I say anyone else reading this should breathe life into this sagging thread and just pull my finger.

 

[stateofmind]

You're my favorite iconoclast

 

[gendanken]

Gasp!

Fraggle's an icon?
I con't imagine you worshipping at his scrotum.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

There weren't any hippies in 1960?

No. The Beatles hit the airwaves in 1963 and the hippie movement didn't really get started until at least one year later. The "decade" that people call "the sixties" was really a twelve-year period of attitudes, politics and activities that began with the British Invasion and ended with the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.

My own 'reputation' follows me around like a lost, hungry piranha.

I remember you from my early years here, but I can't say I associate you with a reputation.

Ah, teachers, social workers, and health care workers-- in other words, overpaid, underworked dilettantes who barely skim the surface of things before pretending an understanding of it.

Isn't that the dictionary definition of civil "service"?

But you didn't [do a literal translation.]

I wasn't trying to. I was trying to salvage the meaning, and doing a poor job of it.

I say anyone else reading this should breathe life into this sagging thread and just pull my finger.

This board doesn't get that much traffic.

 

[gendanken]

Fraggle:

This board doesn't get that much traffic.

SHAME on you.

GOD, if I could get my hands on this forum-- do you realize that language is the most accessible science in the world?

Unlike physics or chemisty, every human does it-- he breathes and eats it, thinks it, fornicates with it, everything a man does is contaminated with the wonderful scent of language.


If you even had a lick of the spiritual fire that singed the eyebrows of the poorest wretch that wrote for a living, this place would blind with the energy emblazoned in any topic dealing with such an explosive as Language.

I bet that if you were to do this, you'd have as many proles in here as they do in Free Thoughts.

No. The Beatles hit the airwaves in 1963 and the hippie movement didn't really get started until at least one year later. The "decade" that people call "the sixties" was really a twelve-year period of attitudes, politics and activities that began with the British Invasion and ended with the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.

Ah.

Sorry, I'm a little too young to know.

I remember you from my early years here, but I can't say I associate you with a reputation.

Well, people here do and you can hear the maw of their mind snap shut because I'm a 'bitch'.

Ooohhh.

Isn't that the dictionary definition of civil "service"?

No, the dictionary definition of that is 'for suckers'

 

[Pandaemoni]

I made a thread in the Religion section asking why someone would want to learn Hebrew if they are Christian and they said because the person would want to learn the language that the Bible was originally written in. I asked why if would they if it's correctly translated and they said because it doesn't translate everything like the feeling or tune. How is that? I'm a bit bilingual because I taken Spanish for two years and remember most of it and I do't see that at all.

With respect to any sophisticated thought, it is easy enough to get drawn into disagreements over the meaning when dealing with the work in one language. Language is often susceptible of more than one interpretation and the author may not have been clear in his or her own thinking to start with. When the author is no longer around to clarify his or her thoughts, the problems become intractable...and even if the author is there, who is to say that the author's interpretation is more correct than a reader's? If the goal is truth, then the author's thoughts are irrelevant except where they are closer to truth. If the goal is entertainment, then neither need be thought of as more correct, since entertainment value is subjective.

These problems are compounded when dealing with a separate language, as it adds a new layer of possible error into the mix. Words do have subtle shades of meaning that can be added or lost. If you believe that reaching the "original intent" of the author is important, that additional layer is detrimental to that effort.

 

[IamJoseph]

Much of the Bible is written in a story-teller's language, poetically, from the basis of an essentially oral culture.

Somebody once defined poetry as "that which is lost in translation".

There is a reason why the Hebrew bible commands, not to add or subtract anything. Hebrew is a very pristine language, with only 22 letters, inclusive of numerals and music notes. Examining its litrary style, it surpasses the likes of Shakespear with its never dated phrases and metaphors [Let there be light has manifold meanings and applications], and it appropriately begings with IN THE BEGINNING, followed by the word, GOD. Here's a hint what this language highlights:

MYSTERY OF THE HEBREW


The Hebrew language origins mystify. Research does not give any satisfaction of the process of its emergence - raising more questions than answers. Is Hebrew the first spoken language of which all others its derivates - why not when we have no earlier books of this calibre?


1. It appeared suddenly - without a development stage track record.

2. It appeared in an already advanced state - escaping the normal evolutionary process of languages. Even 2000 years later, the Latin was less advanced, e.g.: requiring four digits to express 17 (X, V, 1, 1), which the Hebrew dispenses with half as many digits.

3. It manages copious arithmetic’s in the millions with the ease of expression of today's most advanced English (sp: the consensus of millions of Hebrews in the desert, complete with scientific sub-total check lists of age and gender); the dispensing of controversial subjects such as incest, homosexuality and bestiality in concise but comprehensive strokes of a few non-offending words; its prose quoted by the greatest writers in history without any loss of relevance today.

4. It was introduced via the smallest, and certainly not the earliest or mightiest, nation.

5. It was a non-popular, non-pervasive and unknown language to the great empire surrounds and their civilizations: the Egyptians knew 70 languages but knew not Hebrew. Yet it evolved as the most quoted, printed and believed document in recorded history.

6. Archaeological summations of its prototypes (Sumerian, Phoenician) fail to qualify the criteria to any satisfactory levels: why the greatest volume of Hebrew but an absolute vacancy of these assumed earlier writings? Wherefrom the striking similarity between the older Hebrew and the Indian and Japanese scripts so afar off, since 1000's of years? Hebrew is similar to, and influencing of, most written languages today. The success of the English language may yet impinge on its reverting to the Hebrew mode – the combining of vowels back with the alphabets, which the Greeks erroneously did when they translated the Septuagint in 300 BCE.

7. It introduced a new vocabulary and prose, with no record of past usage, of numerous words and concepts, deemed controversial for 1000s of years.


8. It introduced history and historical writings akin to today's Telephone Directory, the first Hebrew book (The Torah) is brimming with specificity of names, places, dates, distances, cultures, diets, rivers, mountains - which remain a yardstick in measuring history. But for this Hebrew - the world would have no other source for the life and history of Abraham.

9. It introduced a Document (The Torah) - a summary of laws and statutes, many mostly new, to which none have been able to add to or subtract from: no other religion, ideology or figurehead gave the world a single law not already contained in this Document. Try to name a single new law outside the Torah? It remains comprehensive as a Law book without equal; the world turns by the Torah's 613 Commandments/Laws despite its ancient station in history.

10. It prevailed as no other, after disappearing and returning as no other. Apart from being one of the oldest alphabetical books in existence (The Dead Sea Scrolls), the Hebrew remained dead/dormant for 2000 years, and then returned circa 1940's as a living language/writings again. No other language ever did so after a period of 150 years of dormancy: Ancient Egyptian, Phoenician, Sumerian, Assyrian, Aramaic, and Latin are dead languages.


...The closest to expound any acceptable answers to the mystery of Hebrew, after much research, appears from a most unlikely, perhaps unacceptable source. In a book called THE MEDRASH, appears an entry relating to this sudden advent of the world's oldest surviving alphabetical writings. As a preface, the Hebrew is recorded as being a spoken language in ancient Egypt by the Hebrews, but not as a written one: there is no written Hebrew predating the Torah.

When THE TEN COMMANDMENTS were handed down to the Israelites via Moses (circa 1250 BCE), its second Commandment prohibited the use of Graven Images. This would present a great contradiction: all writings of this period were in the Cuneiform ('picture writings'), made of animal/beast faces inter-polated with human torsos - or alternatively Human heads with animal limbs. This would clearly not be suitable for the Torah, which contained such a Commandment expressly forbidding Images with worship.

The Medrash tells that Moses was thereupon given, or establishing therein, the means of transforming 'IMAGE' writings to 'ABSTRACT' writings - and the Alphabet was born. This is the only answer which explains this mystery. The prototype ascribing of the Hebrew to Phoenician and Canaanite have irresolvable conflicts, aside from the absence of those alphabetical books: they contain no ‘V’ [among other alphabets]; and their nations spoke no Hebrew. We have no Phoenecian or Canaanite alphabetical books.


The above noted ten attributes of the Hebrew, which is unique unto it and not shared by any other presumed prototypes, may have in fact been the precursor - not the derivative - of those writings, via a connection to the first primal language of humanity. It is established that the Hebrews returned to Canaan 3250 years ago, equipped with the Hebrew books already in their possession [the Torah narratives] - thus they could not have received this Hebrew from the Canaanites or from Egypt, which display no such artifacts as alphabetical books.

In Judaic belief, Hebrew is referred to as La'Shon HaKodesh (The Holy Tongue) - the Holy One spoke in this language from Mount Sinai. And there was no echo…

 

[Dywyddyr]

More rubbish from you. And a link is required for cut and paste quotes.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

The Hebrew language origins mystify. Research does not give any satisfaction of the process of its emergence - raising more questions than answers. Is Hebrew the first spoken language of which all others its derivates - why not when we have no earlier books of this calibre? 1. It appeared suddenly - without a development stage track record. 2. It appeared in an already advanced state - escaping the normal evolutionary process of languages.

You need to read more and write less. Hebrew is a member of a huge family of languages called Afroasiatic. This family has six branches:

• Semitic (Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Akkadian, Phoenician, Amharic, Ge-ez, etc.)
• Berber (Kabyle, Tamazight, etc.)
• Chadic (Hausa, Tumak, etc.)
• Cushitic (Somali, Hadia, etc.)
• Egyptian (now extinct but including Ancient Egyptian)
• Omotic (Bambassi, Kafa, etc.)

We have a wealth of evidence showing the evolution of the Hebrew language from its predecessors. Its immediate ancestor is called Proto-Canaanite.

Even 2000 years later, the Latin was less advanced, e.g.: requiring four digits to express 17 (X, V, 1, 1), which the Hebrew dispenses with half as many digits.

You are confusing a language with a number system. This is fallacious.

3. It manages copious arithmetic’s in the millions with the ease of expression of today's most advanced English

Again, I urge you to study more. The Hebrew number system had no zero, just like the Roman system and the Greek system. This made mathematics arduous. It's really not much different from the Greek system.

6. Archaeological summations of its prototypes (Sumerian, Phoenician) fail to qualify the criteria to any satisfactory levels: why the greatest volume of Hebrew but an absolute vacancy of these assumed earlier writings?

Civilizations typically invent the technology of writing during their Bronze Age. Writing usually is invented as a means of keeping business records. Besides, the Hebrew writing system is descended from the Phoenician system, which is descended from Egyptian hieroglyphics. The history is clear. You need to study more and write less.

Wherefrom the striking similarity between the older Hebrew and the Indian and Japanese scripts so afar off, since 1000's of years? Hebrew is similar to, and influencing of, most written languages today.

That's because all alphabetic writing systems are offshoots of Egyptian--with the single exception of Korean, which was developed independently a few hundred years ago. So of course they're going to have similarities. Other types of writing such as the syllabaries of Japanese and Cherokee were invented independently, as were the logograms of Chinese. There is no relationship between the Japanese kana (syllabaries) and the Hebrew abjad (an alphabetic writing system with no vowels). Wherever you got that, it is wrong.

The success of the English language may yet impinge on its reverting to the Hebrew mode – the combining of vowels back with the alphabets, which the Greeks erroneously did when they translated the Septuagint in 300 BCE.

Vowels are not phonemic in the Afroasiatic language family--i.e., they are irrelevant to the meaning of a word, so they can be omitted in writing with no loss of understanding. This is not true in the Indo-European family (ours), Sino-Tibetan, Finno-Ugric, Mongolic, Malayo-Polynesian, Athabascan, or most of the world's languages. You have to write the vowels or you lose precision.

8. It introduced history and historical writings akin to today's Telephone Directory, the first Hebrew book (The Torah) is brimming with specificity of names, places, dates, distances, cultures, diets, rivers, mountains - which remain a yardstick in measuring history. But for this Hebrew - the world would have no other source for the life and history of Abraham.

Many of the people and events in the Torah are fictitious. It's a book of mythology, not necessarily history. We already know that there was no exile in Egypt, for example. And there certainly was no Great Flood: there are not enough water molecules available to raise sea level to cover Mount Ararat! The highest sea level that ever existed, when all the ice caps and glaciers melted, was less than a kilometer above today's level.

9. It introduced a Document (The Torah) - a summary of laws and statutes, many mostly new, to which none have been able to add to or subtract from: no other religion, ideology or figurehead gave the world a single law not already contained in this Document. Try to name a single new law outside the Torah?

How about freedom of religion, freedom of the press and freedom of speech? These are granted in the United States Constitution and were remarkable for their time for being unprecedented.

 

[IamJoseph]

We have a wealth of evidence showing the evolution of the Hebrew language from its predecessors. Its immediate ancestor is called Proto-Canaanite.

If you wish to really impress me, I can make it very easy for you. Please post a Canaanite alphabtical book predating the Hebrew: you should have 100's - I ask for just one. Or any other language you wish. I think that is a reasonable request.

You are confusing a language with a number system. This is fallacious.Again, I urge you to study more. The Hebrew number system had no zero, just like the Roman system and the Greek system. This made mathematics arduous.

o
There was no problem of a cencus in the millions - how come? The Hebrew alphabets are also numbers, yet you say I am confusing alphabets with numbers - that does not sound right.

It's really not much different from the Greek system.

The Josephus documents, as well as some ancient Greek archives, say the Greeks got their alpha beta from the Hebrew alef bet. Most European fostered links and encyclopedea say Phoenecian. I say, which ever one can prove an earlier hard copy wins.

Civilizations typically invent the technology of writing during their Bronze Age. Writing usually is invented as a means of keeping business records.

No dispute about commerce being a strong reason for inventing numbers. But this does not account for litrary, gramatical, alphabetical writings.The oldest alphabetical book I know of is the Hebrew bible - book meaning a continueing multi-page narrative.

Besides, the Hebrew writing system is descended from the Phoenician system, which is descended from Egyptian hieroglyphics.

I've of course read such descriptions. However, I also checked them out, and I find you are not addressing the impacting factors here. Where is the Phoenecian alphabetical books - which museum? With regard Egypt, do I have to remind you, they did not have alphabetical books when the Israelites left - nor did they speak Hebrew - so how could the latter have derived from there? Fundamental factors must apply.

There is no relationship between the Japanese kana (syllabaries) and the Hebrew abjad (an alphabetic writing system with no vowels).

Have you checked the design of the letters? Do you realise there are 1000's of Indian ancient words the same as the Hebrew? Adam = man [Hebrew]; Adami [Indian].

You have to write the vowels or you lose precision.

Not so. If you check a newspaper or traffic sign in Israel - no vowels are seen. Those were applied by Greece in 300 BCE, or at least Greece seperated the vowels and numerals. There is no precision lost - if certain alphabets are placed behind or before certain alphabets - they double up for vowel sounds. Today's english got back to the Hebrew mode - making the vowels as alphabets again and discarding the Roman Latin - this should give some idea of the power of the Hebrew mode and what made English win all others.

Many of the people and events in the Torah are fictitious. It's a book of mythology, not necessarily history. We already know that there was no exile in Egypt, for example. And there certainly was no Great Flood: there are not enough water molecules available to raise sea level to cover Mount Ararat!

Whoa! If the Israelites were not exiled from Egypt, then you have to show that they never entered Canaan and had a sovereign kingdom there till 70 CE. You also have to explain an Egyptian stelle dated over 3000 years which mentions Israel by name and a war with it.

Re the Flood. It appears you are looking at the Hebrew from a NT Disney like approach. Isaac was 37 years old when he was offered as a sacrifice - not a cute kid. One thing which is not fiction and 100% historical in the flood story is the first mention of Mount Ararat.

Let me try to enlighten you. If you read carefully the flood report, you will see that it is limited to Noah's family and his possessions only [the text] - meaning his domestic animals only. You will not find a single wild animal listed there - only domestic animals - no tigers, snakes, spiders, aligators. This was a huge 'DOMESTIC' [Regional] flood, which this area was notable for. The phrases such as 'all the world and the mountain tops' were covered with water' - refers to how it appeared to the people in their space-time. So here we have a diminshed or lacking of contemplation of the texts. The textual narratives are descring an early period of humanity - from their POV; it does not apply 5000 years later - meaning today. That was the then known world to those people and the text is speaking in the language of the people. The flood surely apeared as the end of the world - because that was their world - whereby most people never left their village throughout their lives. Otherwise, we have to take into account matters which will transpire 5000 years from now in depicting the weather report?!

Further, if you check the 'NAMES' listed in the geneologies, they are regarded absolutely authentic of its times, names being the primal premise for determining ancient history. Of note is those names are not Hebrew names - they list only one Hebrew name and this appears towards the very end of the geneology - namely Abraham's grandfather 'SHEM'. This is authentic because the Hebrew people never existed at Noah's time.

So when you say its fiction or myth, what exactly is your factors relied upon - some mis-percieved FX miracles - or the recording of historical factors?

How about freedom of religion, freedom of the press and freedom of speech? These are granted in the United States Constitution and were remarkable for their time for being unprecedented.

I see the Constitution as the greatest man made [non-scriptural] document in existence. But those sublime laws do not come from any place else but the Hebrew bible - as declared by the Presidents of America's early history. The notion of Freedom, inalienable human rights and equal justice for all, comes from nowhere else but the Hebrew bible, and is antitheised in most other scriptures. The Hebrew bible declares that all humans are born equal and stem from one family, and each must be judged on their individual deeds, namely:

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR THE STRANGER AS THE INHABITANT.

The US Constution is Hebrew derived. No kidding.

 

[IamJoseph]

More rubbish from you. And a link is required for cut and paste quotes.

No link available. I got that from a pamplet in a lecture series. Which part is rubbish - you never said?

 

[Dywyddyr]

Which part is rubbish - you never said?

The vast majority of it, as shown by Fraggle (and your subsequent misunderstanding or misreading of his reply). Including this:

Examining its litrary style, it surpasses the likes of Shakespear with its never dated phrases and metaphors

THAT is a purely subjective opinion.

On the other hand, posting unsubstantiated rubbish does appear to be your forte.