Elsb3antisophist

About your contribution to Levant

I had proposed to maintain that "Levant" could be somehow related not only to Aramaic language but also to Hebrew, as was previously stated in the article.
I based my edition on the fact that Hebrew for "white" is "לבן" (pron. la'van).
Would you please kindly explain your point of view for insisting in your deletion of Hebrew?
Regards, --Zack Holly Venturi (talk) 13:23, 1 March 2008 (U

yes I can explain, because it gives a false image of the history of the Levant which simply falls into the Orientalist desires of the Western world.

The Semitic root word LBN, is a canaanite word for white, (Arabic, aramaic, canaanite, etc etc are all Semitic languages) in Arabic the word became milk, yogurt. Thus there is no evidence of which came first, was LBN (in proto-semitic original language) meant for white, and then was used for yogurt, milk, OR was it originally the word for yogurt and milk, but came to mean white, because those languages such as aramaic and hebrew lost their original word for white.anything is possible. In Arabic the word for white is Abyadh, and the word for Yogurt or Milk is LEBAN, milk is HALIB in Levantine arabic, and Leban means yogurt, but for the rest of Arabs Leben means milk. Thus this idea of words for different things is unclear, because what can happen is one word can come to mean many things in a languages development, or more words can be developed, these are the two possibilities and we have no way of knowing which one is was in this case.

Finaly the Canaanite Aramaic word LBN, is the root word for the name Lebnan, Lebanon. This is knowns, but the word Levant is more believed to be the equivalent of the Arabic name Mashrek, meaning east, rising sun.,

The Israelites were the only speakers of Hebrew, they were only a few tribes and few in number, and even the Israelites, like all Jews (most of whom were not Israelites or Hebrew speakers) and like almsot everyone living in the Levant, came to speak Aramaic very very very early in their ancient history, (thus it was not and never was and truth be told, never will be, a strong regional lingua franca or even a strong local spoken language) and had lost any form of spoken hebrew and it would remain remain only the language of scripture until 1948!!!

So this is my reason for deleting it, because it gives a false and politically motivated view of the history of the holyland, remeber Jesus who was a jew as there were so many jews in the region of tht time, who had no common ethnic origin, they were mostly arabs and aramaic speakers and some israelites (hebrews), he spoke aramaic not hebrew.

AND THUS IN CONCLUSION:

Not only does your inclusion of hebrew uneseccary, it gives an unmerited importance and significance to the hebrew language which contradicts both historic and lingustic reality. The fact is Hebrew until 1948 was a dead language, and as a result is incomplete, even after relying immmmmmmmmmmeeeennnsseelyyy on arabic and aramaic and even ethiopic borowings (ie other semitic languages) thus because it was a forgotten language they had to rely on borowings from other closest related semitic language (arabic and aramaic most of all), finally not onl do you include it but you put it before aramaic!! as in "Hebrew and Aramaic word" as though hebrew was ranked before aramaic!! aramaic spoken variety died on a large scale but remained spoken by syriac minorities throughout the middle east, in its syriac dialectic form, and the cannons and scipture in the aramaic language inlclude not only most of the Torah (yes it is not mostly hebrew!) but also most of ancient christian liturgy and scripture (the rest being Greek) as I said even the israelites like all the jews spoke aramaic and Arabic, yes arabic! and the reformed version of hebrew, still incomplete, which occured in the last century, relied completely on borrowing from the main large languages of region and the semitic history , arabic and aramaic.

thus your inclusion here of hebrew, conforms with the typical politically motivated "scholarly" writing of the western world, and gives a dillusion to history un representative and unmerited by reality.

Thank you for your kindness and your great attitide, I must applaude your chivalry

cheers, Elsb3antisophist (talk) 03:19, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

• Hello, Elsb3antisophist,

Thank you for your convincing, rightful account for the deletion of the term “Hebrew” when historical origin and evolution of the term “Levant” are considered. Additionally, your position proves to be well-balanced, as you keep the term “Hebrew” when phonologic aspects were exposed a couple of lines above: of course in Hebrew לבנט is related to לבן.

Perhaps irrelevant, but please check that it wasn’t me who introduced the word “Hebrew” in the article. I just came across and found it as such.

I see you are an expert in semitic languages, so I would dare to invite you to contribute to the discussion about the Move Proposal in process for the English spelling of the famous Egyptian singer أم كلثوم, please see [1] ).

I appreciate your contributions.

Zack Holly Venturi (talk) 09:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Official Welcome!!!

An official author's welcome to thee, you power-hungry bastard! Your's truly. Please check out my page and edits, brother. Le Anh-Huy (talk) 18:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)