All this phonics stuff what?

Post #26,970 by ben_tilly 2/2/02 11:01:28 AM 2/2/02 11:03:04 AM Reply	All this phonics stuff what? 26 years ago when I landed in my mother's grade 1 class she taught everyone to read using, you guessed it, phonics. And it was (very much) not a new-fangled approach back then. It, in fact, dates back in the English-speaking world to when spelling first began to be standardized in English. In other languages it goes back further and is more popular. For instance nobody would even think of using another method of teaching spelling in German. To get an idea of the true age of the use of phonetic techniques for spelling, the word dates back to the Phoenicians to whom credit goes for the idea of having an alphabet with letters corresponding to sounds to use for writing. You might remember the Phoenicians, they were the people that the Romans later destroyed in the Punic wars (eventually razing Carthage to the ground and ploughing it with salt so that nothing would grow back). Cheers, Ben PS I grew up with hearing my mother rant about the stupid "whole word" movement. She thought the fact that she took the bottom grade 1 class, and routinely got them reading at a grade 4-6 level by the time they left should speak volumes enough about the effectiveness of her techniques... PPS D'oh. How is that for a stupid user trick. First miscalculate how many years, and then double-post? :-( Edited by ben_tilly Feb. 2, 2002, 11:03:04 AM EST Expand All History
Post #27,001 by tonytib 2/2/02 4:18:38 PM Reply	Minor note: your history is off in both time and place Phoenicians lived in roughly modern day Lebanon (Tyre, Sidon, etc) around say 800 - 1000 BC (I'm guessing here...but for example King David traded with the Phoenicians) The Punic wars were the wars between Rome (Scipio Africanus was most important Roman general) and Carthage (general, Hannibal; location, in North Africa, around Libya IIRC); IIRC Carthage was destroyed around 150 BC. IIRC (my memory is a little hazy and I'm too lazy to look it up), Cato was the Roman Senator who insisted on Carthage being destroyed. Tony
Post #27,011 by CRConrad 2/2/02 5:41:45 PM Reply	Ben's kind'a right: Carthage was founded a Phoenician colony
Post #27,022 by ben_tilly 2/2/02 7:06:01 PM Reply	Exactly, and... The Phoenician empire was broken by Alexander the Great in 333 BC (332 for Tyre), and the name Phoenecia was finally lost in 64 BC when it became part of the Roman province of Syria. But Carthage had become the center of Phoenician trade several centuries before that, at about the time that Babylon captured Tyre in the 6'th century BC. That is why I marked the destruction of Phoenician power by Carthage's destruction in 146 BC by Rome. Cheers, Ben
Post #27,025 by a6l6e6x 2/2/02 9:23:56 PM Reply	On Malta, I was told they were of Phoenician decent. Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
Post #27,165 by GBert 2/4/02 10:03:58 AM Reply	Re: Exactly, and and... ... the Roman word for the Carthagineans, "Puni", from which we get the term "Punic", has the same root as the (greek) "Phoen" in Phoenicia. Folks at the time were very aware that Carthage was part of the phoenician world. One of the most obvious turning-points of history was the roman defeat of Carthage. Rome and Carthage very closely balanced militarily -- either one could have gone on to take over the hellenistic world and dominate the subsequent history of the West. Whatever Rome's faults were, its subjects and allies in Italy endured 20 years of war and invasion and defeat rather than join Hannibal's carthaginean army against a militarily impotent Rome. If Tenochtitlan had inspired even half that loyalty among its subjects in central Mexico, Cortez wouldn't have had a prayer... just a thought. On the other hand, had Carthage won, today's Mexico City might have been founded as a phoenician colony 2000 years ago... Giovanni
Post #27,181 by boxley 2/4/02 11:02:47 AM Reply	They were, see book of Mormon My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #27,212 by ben_tilly 2/4/02 12:54:49 PM Reply	But would the Carthaginians... have managed to have their empire last until 1453 AD like the Romans did? Cheers, Ben
Post #27,215 by boxley 2/4/02 12:58:48 PM Reply	Dont know enough to answer but the phonecian diaspora helped map trade routes that eventually led Cristobal to these shores. Thor Hyerdal and his Ra expedition showed the possible expansion of these peoples to the Americas. thanx, bill My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #27,243 by GBert 2/4/02 3:54:25 PM Reply	Re: But would the Carthaginians... Could a putative phoenician empire built after a defeat of Rome in 200 BC have lasted until 1453 ? I don't know of course, but I personally doubt it. Roman administration had a lot of common sense and was well respected; it was politically very inclusive; most folks over the centuries were proud to be roman citizens and were very sorry to see it go. All in all, the roman empire was a pretty rare thing: a long-lived union of very diverse peoples over a large area that inspired devotion and identification. Giovanni
Post #27,246 by a6l6e6x 2/4/02 4:03:22 PM Reply	Pax Romana! Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
Post #27,262 by ben_tilly 2/4/02 5:06:03 PM Reply	I find it strange that... The Italians are known for producing one of the best administered empires in history, but are also known for very haphazard administration of government today... :-) /duck Ben
Post #27,370 by boxley 2/5/02 10:59:36 AM Reply	they dont let them use wheat sheaves anymore :) My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #27,546 by GBert 2/6/02 4:42:33 PM Reply	A regime joke Even during Fascism -- bundles or no -- Italy was not particularly well administered. Here's a fascist regime joke my father remembers. Consider the following 3 qualities. If any two are present in the same person, the third is necessarily excluded... 1. Honesty 2. Intelligence 3. Being a Fascist Giovanni
Post #27,545 by GBert 2/6/02 4:25:21 PM Reply	It is a little strange ... Those ancient romans do seem more german than italian as far as organization goes. The Italian style of administrative chaos has matured over centuries of foreign and local misrule, graft, corruption and cynicism in the presence of incredible cultural wealth, and is indeed one of the wonders of Europe -- but even it pales in comparison to the millennially aged product that flourishes on the Indian subcontinent. Giovanni
Post #27,653 by Arkadiy 2/7/02 11:32:16 AM Reply	If I get it right... ...current crop of Italians are mostly descendent of barbarians that overran Rome.
Post #27,560 by CRConrad 2/6/02 6:48:12 PM Reply	Just look at the EU Commisioner, mr "Roman" Prodi A descendant of the "Ugly Americans" of two millennia ago speaks: Roman administration had a lot of common sense and was well respected; it was politically very inclusive; most folks over the centuries were proud to be roman citizens and were very sorry to see it go. All in all, the roman empire was a pretty rare thing: a long-lived union of very diverse peoples over a large area that inspired devotion and identification. Many people are still proud to proclaim -- some even with their very name! -- that they "are Romans". Personally, being a German and all, I prefer to include the mediaeval "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" in the concept, and see it as a way of saying "I am a European". Christian "Romanus sum!" Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #27,611 by a6l6e6x 2/7/02 1:24:49 AM 2/7/02 1:26:05 AM Reply	Re: Holy Roman Empire Not Holy. Not Roman. Not an Empire. Talk about marketing! :) Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny Edited by a6l6e6x Feb. 7, 2002, 01:26:05 AM EST Expand All History
Post #27,626 by CRConrad 2/7/02 6:39:18 AM Reply	OK, neither Holy nor Roman; but why/how wasn't it an Empire?
Post #27,663 by a6l6e6x 2/7/02 1:13:56 PM Reply	Just too small in area. Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
Post #27,716 by boxley 2/7/02 7:06:13 PM Reply	Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation Fast freddie's crew. Owned Byzantium to the baltic, and they say the turks arnt eauropeans. :) thanx, bill "If you're half-evil, nothing soothes you more than to think the person you are opposed to is totally evil." Norman Mailer
Post #27,780 by CRConrad 2/8/02 9:23:25 AM Reply	By then Anatolia had been taken from Byzans by... the Turks.
Post #27,013 by CRConrad 2/2/02 5:47:10 PM Reply	So are you claiming the telephone and gramophone... ...have to do with the Phoenicians, too? Funny, I never knew the Greek word(-part) phonos, "sound", had anything to do with the Phoneicians -- but it sure as Hell must have something to do with "phon-ics" ("sounding out"). Sure, I guess it is possible that the Greeks derived their word for "sound" from the name of the Phoenicians... But I kind of doubt it. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #27,021 by ben_tilly 2/2/02 6:52:22 PM Reply	The connection isn't a naming similarity The idea of an alphabet is usually ascribed to the Phoenicians. At the least they had the earliest one that we know of, and the others that we know of (including the Greek, Roman and eventually our own) developed from theirs. Compare and contrast to alternate forms of writing such as Egyptian hieroglyphs. The key idea that writing should represent how you would say the word is, as best we know, a fundamental advance that is due to the Phoenicians. The point is to make it easier to translate spoken fluency into literacy. In short our alphabet descends from the recognition of the value of making literacy possible through phonics by the Phoenicians. This is why I ascribe the origins of phonics as a teaching method to the Phoenicians. Any similarity of names and Greek word roots may or may not be entirely a coincidence. Cheers, Ben

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