From: dalmatia@eburg.com
Date: Sun Apr 12 1998 - 02:42:19 EDT
Micheal Palmer wrote:
> It is quite clear that the
> earliest manuscripts had nothing like even
> this basic level of punctuation.
Michael ~
I got to thinking about this...
I use a Sainai look-alike manuscript text [Concordant Publishing], and
it occurred to me that these manuscripts were read to people at
gatherings. Now that, in itself, has never been a big deal to me,
until I TRIED to read the manuscript aloud as if I were reading, say,
this post. Michael... It doesn't happen!!! With no punctuation etc,
and with words divided line to line ~ That text don't read out loud!
Not at the pace I would read this letter I'm writing. And my question
then becomes: At what pace/speed of word delivery were these texts
read aloud at gatherings??? It MUST have been WAY SLOW, wouldn't you
think? Way, way slow ~ Say one word for every 10 or so English words
as we speak them? And if v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y read aloud, as the
simple mechanics of reading these manuscripts would seem to dictate,
then what can we infer about inner processes of the illiterate minds
[which are superior, imho] in their apprehension, and what impact
might that understanding of their quality of listening teach us about
how we might understand the material?
This really seems like fertile ground to explore! Is this just old
hat stuff, already talked to death?
George
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:25 EDT