Are the following expressions now acceptable in edited
British prose? A section of a book I'm reviewing begins

"Like in the Syriac grammatical tradition, ..."

and the next sentence begins

"However, also like in Syriac, ..."

There are a number of additional examples throughout
the volume, which originated as a Cambridge University
dissertation (though that fact is not mentioned in the
front matter). The author is from a Chicago suburb and
was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.

On Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 7:51:47 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> Are the following expressions now acceptable in edited
> British prose? A section of a book I'm reviewing begins
>
> "Like in the Syriac grammatical tradition, ..."
>
> and the next sentence begins
>
> "However, also like in Syriac, ..."
>
> There are a number of additional examples throughout
> the volume, which originated as a Cambridge University
> dissertation (though that fact is not mentioned in the
> front matter). The author is from a Chicago suburb and
> was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.

they may be OK if they are infrequent....

i've worked with a journal editor who absolutely would NOT accept
a sentence beginning with [However,]

> "However, also like in Syriac, ..."

On Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 12:15:23 PM UTC-4, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 7:51:47 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > Are the following expressions now acceptable in edited
> > British prose? A section of a book I'm reviewing begins
> >
> > "Like in the Syriac grammatical tradition, ..."
> >
> > and the next sentence begins
> >
> > "However, also like in Syriac, ..."
> >
> > There are a number of additional examples throughout
> > the volume, which originated as a Cambridge University
> > dissertation (though that fact is not mentioned in the
> > front matter). The author is from a Chicago suburb and
> > was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.
>
> they may be OK if they are infrequent....
>
>
> i've worked with a journal editor who absolutely would NOT accept
> a sentence beginning with [However,]

I'm sure the fate of the world was at stake.

Le 05/07/2022 à 15:51, Peter T. Daniels a écrit :
>
> Are the following expressions now acceptable in edited
> British prose? A section of a book I'm reviewing begins
>
> "Like in the Syriac grammatical tradition, ..."
>
> and the next sentence begins
>
> "However, also like in Syriac, ..."
>
> There are a number of additional examples throughout
> the volume, which originated as a Cambridge University
> dissertation (though that fact is not mentioned in the
> front matter). The author is from a Chicago suburb and
> was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.

I can't speak for others, but they aren't acceptable to me. They grate
horribly - which is a downside to being interested in and paying
attention to language.

The recent books I've seen show few signs of having been edited or
proof-read. I assume publishers are cutting costs and doing as little as
possible.

On 2022-07-05 14:51:45 +0000, Peter T. Daniels said:

> Are the following expressions now acceptable in edited
> British prose?

No. Not now, and not in the past.

> A section of a book I'm reviewing begins
>
> "Like in the Syriac grammatical tradition, ..."
>
> and the next sentence begins
>
> "However, also like in Syriac, ..."
>
> There are a number of additional examples throughout
> the volume, which originated as a Cambridge University
> dissertation (though that fact is not mentioned in the
> front matter). The author is from a Chicago suburb and
> was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.

--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

On 2022-07-05 14:51:45 +0000, Peter T. Daniels said:

> Are the following expressions now acceptable in edited
> British prose? A section of a book I'm reviewing begins
>
> "Like in the Syriac grammatical tradition, ..."

In the context of Syriac I'd like to ask your opinion about something I
read yesterday (no citation, however; I don't know if I could find it
again). The author said that Syriac was still spoken today (OK), but
surmised that it had changed as much as English in the past 2000 years.
This surmise wasn't based on any evidence that I could see, and I found
it unlikely.

> --
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

On Wednesday, July 6, 2022 at 4:37:06 AM UTC-4, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2022-07-05 14:51:45 +0000, Peter T. Daniels said:

> > Are the following expressions now acceptable in edited
> > British prose? A section of a book I'm reviewing begins
> >
> > "Like in the Syriac grammatical tradition, ..."
>
> In the context of Syriac I'd like to ask your opinion about something I
> read yesterday (no citation, however; I don't know if I could find it
> again). The author said that Syriac was still spoken today (OK), but
> surmised that it had changed as much as English in the past 2000 years.
> This surmise wasn't based on any evidence that I could see, and I found
> it unlikely.

My comment, posted to that thread, was, "Ya think?"

Language is constantly changing. The comment wasn't about
Syriac, but was in the context of harps (claiming that the problem
in deciding which musical instrument was intended by the writer
of the text was that the Bible was written in Aramaic and translated
into Greek). A few chapters of the Old Testament are in Aramaic
-- mostly in Daniel, but also transcribing what appear to be two
actual archival documents in Ezra

At the point where the book of Daniel switches from Hebrew to
Aramaic (2:4), the KJV translates the Hebrew word _aramit_ as
"Syriack" (I wasn't able to find the word "Aramaic" used before
1810, and then first in Latin -- though of course the language
group had been recognized long before). OED used to give the
first English use as 1816 Penny Cyclopaedia, which is rather
unlikely for a technical term. Maybe it still does.)

Anyway, if there was an intermediary in doing the Hebrew Bible
into English, it wasn't Greek (i.e. the Septuagint) but Latin (the
Vulgate); the Douay(-Rheims) -- RC -- translation preceded the
KJV by a few years but (not being elegant at all) had little impact
on the KJV, which was mostly an updating of Coverdale's version
with even a few reminiscences of Wycliff. (David Crystal's *Begat*,
which came out in 2011 in time for the anniversary, explores this
aspect of the KJV beautifully.)

I suppose there are some adherents to the modern Syriac-using
churches who say they speak Syriac as their native language,
the way about 5000 Indians say that Sanskrit is their native
language; but there is a huge variety of identified Modern
Aramaic, um, dialects. Not only did each village develop its
own variety because of relative isolation in mountains and
valleys (and even plains), but within the villages there could be
distinctive Jewish, Christian, and even sometimes Muslim
varieties (when that happened with Arabic, they're known as
"communal dialects").

Beginning in 1948, entire populations of Jewish villages in
Syria and the various parts of Kurdistan moved together to
Jerusalem (several dozen people each, maybe), and for the
next several decades, linguists could do their dissertations
by describing the dialect of a or more than one particular
village simply by going to the apartment house where that
group had settled -- and then next door to another.

More intrepid linguists fanned out and did more traditional
sorts of surveys and fieldwork in the original locations,
recording almost exclusively the Aramaic languages of Christian
communities. Quite a few large-scale grammars have been
published in the series Semitica Viva, to name just one outlet.

Overall syntheses of this vast new material have not yet
been attempted. The specialists seem to feel that it's more
important to gather the data while the speakers are still
alive than to analyze it.

(They have in mind the example of the Iowa language,
which was spoken at least into the 1930s, but there
didn't happen to be enough linguistics grad students
for one to visit for a summer and record the language,
which in those days was the normal way to get a Ph.D.)