[lit-ideas] Re: "All languages are illiterate"
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:53:11 +0900
On 10/16/07, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> So I think the onus probandi is on McCreery (being an anthropologist) to let
> us know what he meant.
I certainly did not mean the imbecilic question being attributed to
me. What I am looking for is even one example of a preliterate people
with a creation myth in which the Word or words bring the cosmos into
being. I know of creation myths in which ancestors emerge from holes
in the ground, stomp around leaving valleys and mountains as records
of their passage, drip semen into the sea forming islands, do all
sorts of things. What I do not know, and this could be simple
ignorance (thus the question), is any case in which the Word or words
play the role that they do in Genesis, "And God *said* 'Let there be
light.'"
Maundering on about this or that philosopher's view of language may be
an interesting thing to do. It is not responsive to the question.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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