I would like to ask whether it is the "linguistic gobbledygook" (obscure jargon) that is not understandable or the unfamiliar lay of the land within the discipline of linguistics? Isn't linguistics just another field of learning in the campus besides language learning?Jonathan Robie wrote:On B-Greek, Greek is our bread and butter, and Hebrew, Latin, and linguistic gobbledygook are also relatively common. But participants have widely differing ability to read any of these languages (including obscure jargon).
Be merciful. If you are writing about a topic that mere mortals can grasp, write something mere mortals can read. You are very welcome to write in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, or gobbledygook, but if you do so, provide a translation. Διὸ ὁ λαλῶν γλώσσῃ προσευχέσθω ἵνα διερμηνεύῃ (therefore the one who speaks in a tongue must pray that he may interpret).
If someone, who (hypothetically) knew both botany and NTG started to post about Ceratonia siliqua and ἀκρίς, then that would be more or less jargon, because ceratonia siliqua has a common name "Carob", and its seeds are "locust beans". If however, the same person were to start talking about rhizobium that has gone beyond what could be considered common knowledge and into a specialist field.
I'm the first to admit that my views in regard to linguistics are not unbiased. I am (was) a foreign language major from my undergraduate years and have a definite "side of the fence" in an underlying rivalry between linguistics and languages which can be summed up something like; you learn linguistics because you couldn't / can't learn languages ||| (something that amounts to the feel of) you don't know how the bridge is designed, you can only drive across it. But, I do, however, think that the commonality that we have here on B-Greek the Greek language - we are either learning it, or learning how to use it, or at least have an interest in it. I believe that any or all other disciplines might have something to contribute to the understanding of the New Testament in Greek - Roman history, numismastics, social anthropology, economics and linguistics. Perhaps some would see language and linguistics as paw in glove, but am I the only one who prefers bare-knuckles boxing?
The jargon of any other discipline (not only linguistics) will seem obscure for the those who are not well-versed in the field. So, to be more inclusive, would it perhaps not be useful / better that if anything from another discipline that is introduced to a discussion about Greek be done so with the reader in mind, by not only translating, but by also explaining the significance and context of the point raised with as much of an explanation of the theories in that other discipline as is necessary for a reasonably educated man in the street to understand it? Would it be suitable to say; Διὸ ὁ γράφων ὁρολογίᾳ ἐνθυμείσθω ἵνα μεθερμηνεύῃ "Tell the one who writes in technical jargon have a serious think about how they are going to make their jargon understood in plain language."?