Online now, and getting ready to go offlist for the weekend...
Was: Re: RT, efficiency in communication, and the expression of a
superlative concept.
Hey, I guess I was being too sincere in displaying on list the nice insult
I got offlist but then, as I always say, it is a pleasure to be insulted by
an RTheorist... (and of such calliber too).
He or she may find my comments on English ridiculous, but then English is
not my language, or isn't it -- and I was ever willing to share --
sometimes you get the nicest feedback/insult by the most irrelevant
comment. English is my object-language. In replying to Fantin I was merely
attempting to turn the issue from a Graeco-Roman/Semitic perspective, such
as his, into one of Germanic/English relevance.
More on ps.
JL
I found out that the problem Fantin found for Romans was echoed by one
found for Angles and Saxons. There are many words used by the English to
refer to JESUS.
The first is perhaps, "HIGHER" -- this is cognate with German "herr", & it
occurs in OE in Maldon and the Old Testment, but no registers are found
that the term was used for Jesus. I was referred to a book called THE
CAROLINGEAN LORD, which is a discussion of the word "higher" in Old
Germanic culture.
Then comes, perhaps, "DRIGHTIN". This is _still_ an entry in the OED. It is
OE for "dominus". It was used to refer to Jesus (at least in many instances
of the OED, I see. For further refs. feel free to cc me offlist). Obviously
the first usages, as with "Higher", were secular. So I guess a RELEVANT
transference from secular to non-secular was taking place -- which is, as I
understand, what interests Fantin.
Then comes "LORD". Unfortunately, though this became relevant in
post-Anglo-Saxon England, I found that the term "lord" (literally
"Loaf-Guardian", as opposed to Loaf-Eater = servant) was not registered as
having been used for JESUS before 1066. Of course, it's the relevant term
today as when we refer to the Lord's Prayer, the Lord's Supper, etc.
A further ref was given to me asper work of one Mary Ramsey, of Georgia
Univ. She has dwelt, and on the celebrated Kalamazoo Conference, on the
many ways to refer to JESUS in OE. And so has J. Cambpell, of Worcester,
Oxford.
Finally, the entry for DOMINUS in the Lewis & Short -- available online --
notes that the term was indeed used for EMPEROR but avoided by express will
by TIBERIUS, inter alia. It was then transferred, in ECCLESIASTICAL LATIN,
to Jesus, as per, eg. The Gospel acc. to St John, where Jesus is said to
have said, "I am your Lord and Master".
===
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 17:03:03 GMT