>My anthropological question is whether, empirically, there is any >evidence of people thinking this way about language in the absence of >writing. One piece of evidence may be the Angles (as from Angeln, current Germany). They left their 'angular' land (in current Schleswig-Holstein, still called "Angeln") and crossed the North Sea to arrive to a land they called "Angla-Land". They did not carry much of a writing script with them. Some warriors remained pretty illiterate. Their biggest god was Thor. This is what J. L. Borges writes about it in his Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard (published by HUP, 2000): "We might go on to other examples. Let us take the word, "thunder" and look back at the god "Thunor", the Saxon counterpart of the Norse "Thor" The word 'thunor' stood for thunder and for the god; but had we asked the man who came to England with Hengist whether the word stood for the rumbling in the sky or for the angry god, I do not think they would have been subtle enough to understand the difference. I suppose that the word carried both meanings _without committing itself very closely to either one of them_. I suppose that when they uttererd or heard the word 'thunder', they at the same time _felt_ the low rumbling in the sky and _saw_ the lightning and _thought_ of the god. The words were packed with magic; they did not have a hard and fast meaning." (p. 80) Note that the word _can't_ be literate. Of the very many theories about the origin of language (the pooh pooh, the wow wow, the tug tug theory -- they all presuppose the SPOKEN word as basic -- never the literate. Literacy is an American invention. -- perhaps exported to Scotland. The four first quotes in the OED are American (from New England, Princeton, the Boston Athenaeum, and a Scottish magazine). The old Angles (modern English) never felt the _need_ to defend the status of the literate word over their ancient echoes of their 'mother tongue'. Cheers, JL 1883 New Eng. Jrnl. Educ. XVII. 54 Massachusetts is the first state in the Union in literacy in its native population. 1888 New Princeton Rev. Dec. 336 Education is more general, our literacy greatly increased, our habits and tastes more refined. 1893 Athenæum 19 Aug. 255/3 It was for Mr. Edgar to trace the gradual progress in Scotland from illiteracy to literacy. 1943 Amer. Mag. Mar. 103/1 To help many of the poverty-stricken peoples to set their feet on the path of education, manual dexterity, and economic literacy. JL Speranza, Buenos Aires, Argentina ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com