@HiddenYorkshire @PrinceVogel ithinkspeakersofsemiticlanguageslikephoenicianandhebrewwerewaysabletoreadsilentlybecausetheyalwaysusedspacesorpunctuationtoseparatewordsidontrememberwhetherthatbooksayssoexplicitly
English
Aaron
250 posts
There's a solid distinction (as explained in the replies) between silent reading as an ability and as a social function - I absolutely agree with the idea that notions of public/private literacy and oral performance has changed. But so often it's presented as though the actual ability to silently read was just invented.
English
If silent reading simply didn't, on a purely cognitive level, exist for thousands of years of human writing systems, then was mental arithmetic invented as well? Could humans only do maths if they said it out loud? Of course not. It's ridiculous.
Catherine Warr@HiddenYorkshire
@nosilverv Low-stakes but I straight up do not believe that silent reading was just "invented". Do we really have such little theory of mind for people in the past that the most basic literacy function was beyond them? How do we know this passage isn't a commentary on lectio divina?
English
@HiddenYorkshire justfortherecordtoanyonereadingthistheresanentirebookwrittenonthistopicinanutshellthereasonpeoplereadaloudwastohelpthembreakcontinuoustextwithoutspacesintodiscretewordsthiswasdoneinlanguagesthathadwrittenvowelssuchaslatinandgreekasopposedtosemiticlanguages
sup.org/books/literary…
English
Reminder that Gazans are a bunch of cowardly wusses just like the rest of us (complimentary)
Elizabeth Tsurkov@LizHurra
Qatar arrested Saeed Ziad, a pro-Hamas commentator who is a regular on al-Jazeera, for his pro-Iran stance during the ongoing war. Ziad aroused massive anger among Gazans for consistently urging for continued "resistance," despite its futility in the face of Israel's merciless war machine. His statement that prompted the greatest outrage was "the Palestinian in Gaza has no choice but to keep steadfast and fight with his nails and even the flesh of his children." His rhetoric aligned with that of Hamas' external leadership, which described the immense losses suffered by Gazans as "tactical", while claiming that Hamas' achievements are "strategic" (a statement by Khalid Mashal). Or the statement by Osama Hamdan who said "we don't have white cloth to raise it in surrender, but we have fabric to bury our children and continue down the path [of resistance]." Recent Reuters report on public attitudes toward Hamas among Gazans reuters.com/world/middle-e… Palestinian reactions to Saeed Ziad's statements & calls for Gazans to resist as he's sitting in Qatar almwatin.com/%D9%85%D9%88%D… vt.tiktok.com/ZSuqn8UET/
English
@LucasGageX Why are all the people here replying as if they were talking to the real Lucas Gage?
Do you really believe that’s him who’s been insisting that Bibi is alive? You don’t believe the Mossad has the ability to take him out and post under his name?
English
I'm getting called a traitor and Zionist because YOUR INFLUENCERS KEEP LYING TO YOU?
English
By the way, like you said the story of Jesus writing on the ground is irrelevant, because no one spoke aloud while writing. But anyway, assuming that Jesus was writing in Aramaic or Hebrew, he was writing with spaces or some other separators between the words. Without word separation or vowelization it would be extremely hard to read a Semitic language, either silently or aloud.
English
@Rongwrong_ @HiddenYorkshire @nosilverv But if speaking while reading may have been normal behaviour - what about writing?
I suppose in writing, you aren't trying to solve a puzzle.
This isn't exactly evidence but in the bible, John 8:1-11, Jesus apparently writes without speaking - on the ground with his finger.
English
Reminder that EVERYTHING is an achievement: St. Augustine was shocked to find St. Ambrose reading *silently* (reading was then social and aloud) and private silent reading only really took off 700 years after in the 12 century.
English
@rja_carnegie @HiddenYorkshire @nosilverv I guess you could compare reading and writing yourself, in English if you don’t know Latin.
Take some text you haven’t read, remove all the spaces and punctuation, and read it. Then write some of your own text without spaces or punctuation, and see which was easier.
English
@bloatinus @L0m3z NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is the other movie I’ve seen based on his writing and it was also really really camp, but I didn’t read the book so I can’t say how much is McCarthy camping out and how much is the Coen brothers. Cuz they’re also happy campers.
English
@steven_lynn_ @JPUATX @HiddenYorkshire @nosilverv correctionithinkthewholepremiseofthebookistheexactoppositeyoureadthetextaloudinordertobeabletoreaditinyourheadinotherwordsinordertodistinguishthediscretewordsincontinoustext
English
@steven_lynn_ @JPUATX @HiddenYorkshire @nosilverv ithinkthewholepremiseofthebookistheexactoppositeyoureadtjetextaloudinordertobeabletoreaditinyourheadinotherwordsinordertodistinguishthediscretewordsincontinoustext
English
@rja_carnegie @HiddenYorkshire @nosilverv Maybesobutagainthisiscompletelydifferentfromdoingmathitssaboutfindingdiscretewordsincontinouswrittentextthatisthereasontheyreadaloudyoucandoitsilentlylikeambrosebutapparentlyitseasierifyouvocalizeatleastinlatinandgreek
English
@HiddenYorkshire @Rongwrong_ @nosilverv "Maths" is... quite difficult. I'd guess that over history, and perhaps today and in the street where I live, or in your street, relatively few of us can do maths without moving our lips - those who can do it at all. If we're not speaking it, we're imagining speaking.
English
@si_rubinstein The value is in pointing out that the person’s work is worthless. That makes the point that people should still have the right to free expression even if they’ve got nothing worthwhile to say.
English
Just defend the principle of academic freedom or don’t bother. No need or value in these silly rituals.
Sasha Gusev@SashaGusevPosts
This is a good letter. Cofnas shouldn't be fired (and it appears he will not be). Cofnas is a deeply unoriginal thinker and a sloppy researcher; his recruitment is an embarrassment. But once hired, he has a right to academic freedom of expression.
English
Aaron 리트윗함
This is a good letter. Cofnas shouldn't be fired (and it appears he will not be). Cofnas is a deeply unoriginal thinker and a sloppy researcher; his recruitment is an embarrassment. But once hired, he has a right to academic freedom of expression.
Committee for Academic Freedom@ComAcFreedom
Dr @nathancofnas’s appointment at Ghent University has prompted a campaign by members of the institution calling on the university to reverse course, citing his published work on race, heredity and intelligence. In response, CAF Advisory Board member Professor Abhishek Saha helped organised a counter-petition in support of Cofnas’s right to #academicfreedom of expression. CAF Director Dr Edward Skidelsky is among the signatories, alongside a number of senior academics from leading universities. This is not about endorsing Cofnas’s views, but about defending the principle that disagreements of this kind should be addressed through open inquiry, criticism, and civil debate. Of course, academics must be free to strongly contest ideas they regard as deeply objectionable. But that does not extend to a veto over appointments. Universities cannot function if controversial or provocative lines of research are treated as grounds for exclusion rather than argument. You can read the statement and sign the counter-petition here: drive.google.com/file/d/1RRsGma… @ObhishekSaha @ProfDHayes @epkaufm @Furedibyte @HJoyceGender @drianpace @aytchellesse @JoPhoenix1 @sapinker
English
@gran1te_mtn Rufo is too old (and too straightlaced) for these books now. You have to get McCarthy into your bloodstream when you are younger
English
@JPUATX @HiddenYorkshire @nosilverv What is related to culture and society is the question of whether it was seen as a problem that reading was difficult. But the use of reading aloud is purely about solving a cognitive task.
English
@JPUATX @HiddenYorkshire @nosilverv To make it very clear, silent reading HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH READING AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE.
It is ENTIRELY about the COGNITIVE ABILITY to read silently, which is about spaces between words.
English
@JPUATX @HiddenYorkshire No, the OP was mistaken about that. Of course people often read individually.
The point of reading aloud was to break the continuous text into discrete words. This was possible with continuous text in Indo-European languages cuz it included vowels. Other languages needed spaces.
English
It’s don’t think it’s that it wasn’t possible, I think what they’re trying to say is that reading out loud to other people was the point of reading, as an extension of oral history and storytelling and not as a separate solitary act. I’m sure people read sentences in their heads all the time, but no one thought that was the primary goal of reading
English
@HiddenYorkshire You can download a PDF from Anna’s Archive (at least I did years ago).
Like the title suggests, reading aloud was a way of separating the continuous writing into discrete words. Silent reading in Latin was enabled by spaces or other separators between words.
English
@Rongwrong_ @nosilverv If I can get a hold of that book without academic access I'll check it out. I remain skeptical bc the corollary is the idea that mental arithmetic wasn't possible. If we're talking about cognitive functions, mental maths is the same as reading. Was maths only possible out loud?
English
@HiddenYorkshire @nosilverv There’s a whole book on it, “Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading” <sup.org/books/literary…>
Ambrose was presumably reading Latin. Other languages had word spacing long before Latin. Also, pace the OP, reading wasn’t just social, it was individual as well.
English
@nosilverv Low-stakes but I straight up do not believe that silent reading was just "invented". Do we really have such little theory of mind for people in the past that the most basic literacy function was beyond them? How do we know this passage isn't a commentary on lectio divina?
English
Top Ten People Who Block Me on X
1. Whit Stillman
2. Adrian Vermeule (alternates between following and blocking me)
3. John Podhoretz
4. Noah Smith
5. Passage Press
6. Richard Spencer
7. Kathleen Stock
8. Elizabeth Bruenig
9. Iona Italia
10. Sohrab Ahmari
Daniel Rubenstein@paulrubens
Top Ten People Who Block Me on X 1. Barak Ravid 2. Jeffrey Goldberg 3. Paul Graham 4. Gérard Araud 5. George Galloway 6. Danny Citrinowicz 7. Craig Murray 8. Muhammad Shehada 9. Heidi N. Moore 10. Chaya’s Clan
English