On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 21:04:00 +0200
Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> wrote:
> At 7:28 PM +0100 2004/04/21, Colin Percival wrote:
>
> >>I challenge you to defend this (Sapir-Worfian) claim with a specific
> >>example. :)
> >
> > I'm not a biblical scholar, but I've been told that the word in
> > Isaiah 7:14 which is often translated as "virgin" was used at the
> > time to mean both "virgin" and "young woman". Presumably the
> > original author knew which he (or she) meant, but the precise
> > meaning was lost in translation.
>
> Actually, the original meaning was "unmarried". For someone who
> has never had sex before, the word used was translated as "chaste".
>
> Unfortunately, no one ever uses chaste anymore, and the mis-use
> virgin to mean something quite different. Kind of like the way the
> word "hacker" has been abused.
Sure. And the history of the word "silly" is equally interesting...
But unless someone can show that it is actually *not possible* to
distinguish between "unmarried" and "chaste" in Aramaic, I think the
challenge still stands. :)
-Chris
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