LINGUIST List 13.3192

Wed Dec 4 2002

Disc: Roger Bacon Quote

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Michael A. Covington, Disc: Roger Bacon

Re: Linguist 31.2985

A reader named Karen, a.k.a. kmdavis, reminds me that Roger Bacon
definitely knew some Hebrew and may well have known some Arabic. This
was very uncommon in northern medieval Europe; Hebrew and Arabic
linguistic data had no impact on subsequent medieval philosophical
grammar as far as I know, and Greek had precious little (they
overestimated its similarity to Latin). But Bacon himself had more
than the usual amount of acquaintance with foreign languages -- as
well as many other kinds of out-of-the-way knowledge, such as optics
and alchemy.


Michael A. Covington - Associate Director
Artificial Intelligence Center, The University of Georgia
http://www.ai.uga.edu/~mc