Judeo-Christian

sagehen sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM
Mon Nov 21 03:31:10 UTC 2005


>Quoting Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>:
>
>> On 11/20/05, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> > * Judeo-Christian, a.
>> >
>> > 1847 _Harbinger_ 16 Jan. 88/2 A unitary religion, embodying the
>> > Judeao-Christian [sic] doctrine of Universal Love, shines, the
>> > torch-bearer of humanity, far in advance of its actual institutions.
>> > http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&did=3D429940111
>>
>> To the best of my knowledge, "_Judaeo_-Christian" is still the prescribed,
>> if not the preferred, spelling.
>
>To be sure. Many of the early cites use the "Judaeo-" spelling, very often
>with
>the "ae" ligature. My [sic] above is intended for the misspelling, "Judeao-".
>
>> That's why a lot of people say
>> "Judayo-Christian." In fact, this latter was the pronunciation that I used
>> myself till the early '70's, when I heard a Jewish friend consistently use
>> "Judeeo-Christian." I gave this some thought and realized that she was
>> correct, given that -ae- is pronounced [i], except in the name, Mae.
>> Nevertheless, in my library days, we uniformly pronounced _Judaeica_ as
>> "Judayica" and not as "Judeeica."
>
>I'm not sure if a knowledge of the "Judaeo-" spelling is a necessary
>prerequisite for the "Judayo-" pronunciation. "Judeo-" could be pronounced
>that
>way on the model of such foreignisms as "Galileo", "Montevideo", "Rodeo" (the
>Copland ballet), etc.
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer
~~~~~~~~~~
I have never seen the spelling "Judaeica".  I'd have thought "Judaica" was
from "Judaic," which  needs no excuse for being pronounced like "mosaic,"
for example.
AM



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