While digging up the Old Words ... I found some very curious "bones."
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T H E
C R A T Y L U S
01
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T O
L E T T E R S
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An Excerpt from Plato's The Cratylus
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[Socrates:] In just this way we, too, shall apply letters to things, using one letter for one thing,
when that seems to be required, or many letters together, forming syllables, as they are called,
and in turn combining syllables, [425a] and by their combination
forming nouns and verbs. And
from nouns and verbs again we shall finally construct something great and fair and complete.
..., so now we shall make language by the art of naming, or of
rhetoric, or whatever it be. ... No, not
we; I said that too hastily. For the ancients gave language its existing composite character; and
we, if we are to examine all these matters with scientific ability, [425b]
must take it to pieces as they
put it together and see whether the words, both the earliest and the later, are given system-
atically or not; for if they are strung together at haphazard, it is a poor, unmethodical perform-
ance, my dear Hermogenes. ...... Hermogenes: By Zeus, Socrates, maybe it is.
Socrates: Well, do you believe you could take them to pieces in that way? I do not believe I
could. ...... Hermogenes: Then I am sure I could not.
Socrates: Shall we give up then? Or shall we do the best we can and try to see if we are able to
understand even a little about them, [425c],
so now, before we proceed,
shall we say to ourselves that if anyone, whether we or someone else, is to make any
analysis of names, he will have to analyze them in the way we have described, and we
shall have to study them, as the saying is, with all our might? Do you agree, or not?
......
Hermogenes: Yes, I agree most heartily.
[425d] Socrates: It will, I imagine, seem ridiculous that things are made manifest through
imitation in letters and syllables; nevertheless it cannot be otherwise. For there is no
better theory upon which we can base the truth of the earliest names, ....
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WORD_BONES_PUZZLE_THE_CRATYLUS_03
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