Ancient to Modern Languages Question?

Favorite Answer

The Ancient Egyptians were already confronting the efficiency of communication. "I have not multiplied words needlessly" was one of the final prayers of the candidate for judgment preparatory to gaining eternal life. That is found in the Egyptian Book of the Great Awakening (wrongly called The Egyptian Book of the Dead by most modern scholars).

The pleas in several categories include "I have not polluted the water," and "I have not taken milk from the baby..."

Nunitak values being lucid and concise. However, I have noticed that more often than not the best wisdom is not transferred successfully without some repetition.

Therefore I evaluate(d) each situation on its own possibilities.

There are times when there is nothing which you can do.

Also, Cardinal Wolsey once said, it is even more difficult to remove incorrect teachings. His instruction to a teacher was to have a care what was put into the students' brains, "because you will never, ever, ever get it out." Something like that.

I have made a profound study of communication, even early in life. The best perspective is from Information Theory.

An EXTREMELY good book was written by the Russian, Amosov (Nikolai Mikhailovich ?). I well remember the year, 1965. But the title is lost in too many blows to my head. Something about 'heart' in the title, meaning only, not the word necessarily. I am sure Princeton and the Library of Congress will have copies. It was translated from the Russian by the former.

All communication involves at least two terminals and a channel. If you draw a line through the middle of the channel, both parts are symmetrical. This is true about ALL communication here on earth, and also for the circuits used by angels, et cetera. Might be true for all eternity -- no matter where -- during our cosmic journey, as far as I know.

If air is the channel, you will notice that two people both have ears that receive sounds leading to impulses in the brain.

Likewise ALL electronic communications channels are symmetrical (take my word for this, symmetrical equipment, functions, both sides). Simplest case, telephone to telephone, for you.

The spies too have such a comm line.

And this points up one significant item. The transmission code must be one that is intelligible (understood) at both ends of the comm line.

Thus, a Frenchman speaking French words of great value is not understood by someone who is limited to Chinese. And vice versa.

You see therefore: A CODE or LANGUAGE of meanings is ALWAYS involved.

And thus we can also see that for perfect communication both terminals must understand the code. You have heard of ASCII code and network protocol for computers. Modems not symmetrical are of no value.

Sometimes understanding is delayed until and when the recipient (someone like me) consults a dictionary. Others may not make such effort.

I have learned (absolute certainty) that our communications expertise will evolve during our cosmic careers. At later points, in the highest realms, we will be able to communicate more in 1/2 hour than we could in 10,000 years here. This involves new methods which we will learn, also other 'natural' equipment and vastly improved minds.

Now, to sum up this brief answer I would say we should weigh our words carefully to see that we convey the intending meanings and that we have chosen words which are intelligible to the intended audience or readers.

So, I have not strayed too far into electronics, as I would have preferred here, because this offers some amazing proofs, examples, and more (!) of all said here.

I will only mention computers and computer languages. Very analogous to nations of people and their respective languages.

This brings us to the the translators! These must understand meanings in both languages to be perfect.

These are the basics. Were these not true at any point I must conclude that communication would be impossible or suffer greatly.

I must say, too, that we are in some measure symmetrical with the God who has ordained all things.

We are learning machines, advancing ones, in so far as one is among the advancing, not true for many. Our mechanisms are adapted to the serial spheres of our cosmic careers. God has much in store for us. My blog is one place for starting, certainly accessible to the tenacious, most likely to the diligent. After that it tapers off.

Now, I could say a LOT more on this subject, one very close to my heart. In Star Trek there was a Universal Translator. The universal earth languages translator is not too far off, the ones for major languages are quite close.

But perhaps my info is not what you were looking for.

If you have questions about this answer, just use my email by clicking avatar.

Good news! I found the title of that book:

"Modeling of Thinking and the Mind" by Nikolai Mikhailovich Amosov. One of the MOST valuable, even the precious few, of books that I have read. The 'heart' part was from another book by him...

Hope that I have not multiplied words needlessly. Forgive me, I now have brain injuries and some things are difficult.

Again, questions are welcome where more is desired. Ask and you shall receive.......Show more

Greek obviously is a modern language, but so is Aramaic. There are still a few speakers left in the middle east, although obviously it's not exactly the same language that was spoken at the time of the New Testament....Show more

Very interesting question. I would be interested is the answer to this question too although I would never thought of this on my own.
I followed you to this question since I liked you comment on
" Roman Catholic Church or God's word" You seen to have exceptional ability to grasp complex concepts and have some very interesting insights in them. Although I don't necessarily agree with you. I have to say some of your comments are the most thought provoking I have seen on Yahoo. Just wanted to say thanks. Keep up the thought provoking work!...Show more