[lit-ideas] "All languages are illiterate"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:25:41 EDT
I quoted from Caedmon, "an illiterate shepherd", and his poem and wrote:
>>English is _essentially_ an illiterate language.
Geary, a priori, replies:
>All languages are illiterate.
Even Esperanto, o Volapueck, or the language of Principia Mathematica? I
take your point, then why do you think McCreery was leading a whole thread
towards the question as to whether the word _has_ be literate?
If we take literate to mean 'dependent on the graphic medium', then I agree
with Geary.
Every sentence, in any language, can be just _pronounced_ and not be written.
So I think the onus probandi is on McCreery (being an anthropologist) to let
us know what he meant.
JL
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