At least, that's sort of what he says.
\n<\/p>\n
The tricky part is that he's writing about Hebrew, where the traditional orthography<\/a> normally represents consonants and not vowels. Spinoza, writing in Latin, uses the terms litera<\/em> and vocalis<\/em>, glossed by Lewis & Short as follows:<\/p>\n litera<\/a>:<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0a letter, a written sign or mark signifying a sound.<\/em><\/p>\n vocalis<\/strong><\/em><\/a>:\u00a0that utters a voice, sounding, sonorous, speaking, crying, singing, vocal.<\/em><\/p>\n We might translate these as \"letter\" and \"voicing\", or as \"consonant\" and \"vowel\". The difficulty is that because consonants = letters<\/em> in this context, Spinoza uses litera<\/em> sometimes to mean one and sometimes to mean the other.<\/p>\n In the translation below, of the first page of his Chapter 1, I'll try to make choices that make sense in context — though maybe it would be better throughout to translate litera as \"letter\" and vocalis as something like \"voicing\".<\/p>\n De Literis, & Vocalibus in genere.<\/span><\/p>\n On the nature of consonants and vowels<\/span><\/p>\n Quoniam linguae cujusque fundamenta literae, & vocales sunt, dicendum ante omnia nobis est, quid apud Hebraeos litera, quidque vocalis sit.<\/span><\/p>\n Litera est signum motus oris eo loco facti, unde sonus ore editus audiri incipit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A consonant\u00a0 is the sign of a motion of the mouth made in that place where a sound coming from the mouth begins to be heard.<\/span><\/p>\n Ex. gr. \u05d0\u202c significat principium soni in gutture audiri ex ipsius apertura; \u05d1 autem principium soni in labiis ex eorum apertura audiri;\u00a0\u05d2<\/span>\u202c vero in fine linguae, & palati, &c.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For example,\u00a0\u05d0\u202c means the beginning of a sound in the throat to be heard from that opening;\u00a0\u05d1 on the other hand is the beginning of a sound in the lips to be heard from their opening; while\u00a0\u05d2<\/span>\u202c is in the back of the tongue and palate; etc.<\/span><\/p>\n Vocalis est signum indicans certum, & determinatum sonum.<\/span><\/p>\n A vowel is a sign indicating a certain and determinate sound.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Unde intelligimus, vocales apud Hebraeos non esse literas; & ideo\u00a0apud Hebraeos vocales\u00a0literarum animae<\/em>\u00a0appellantur, & literae sine vocalibus\u00a0corpora sine anima<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n Whence we understand that\u00a0vowels\u00a0among the Hebrews are not\u00a0letters; and\u00a0therefore among the Hebrews vowels\u00a0<\/b>are called\u00a0the souls of (<\/i>consonant) letters<\/i>, and\u00a0(<\/b>consonant) letters\u00a0without\u00a0vowels\u00a0are\u00a0bodies without souls<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Verum, ut differentia literarum, & vocalium clarius intelligatur, explicare ea commodium potest exemplo fistulae digitis ad canendum pulsatae.<\/span><\/p>\n Indeed, in order for the differences between consonants\u00a0& vowels<\/strong> to be more clearly understood, it may be helpful to explain them through the example of a flute struck by the fingers in playing music.<\/span><\/p>\n Sonus namque fistulae vocales illius musicae sunt, foramina vero digitis pulsata eus literae.<\/span><\/p>\n Vowels are thus the soundings of that musical pipe, while consonants are the placings of the fingers against the holes.<\/span><\/p>\n Sed de his satis.<\/span><\/p>\n But enough of this.<\/span><\/p>\n Here's an image of the page:<\/p>\n Why, you may well ask, am I reading and translating this document?<\/p>\n A couple of days ago, I got a note from Anne Cutler<\/a>, who is working on a review article about vowels and consonants, and wrote to ask if I owned or could easily get an English translation of Spinoza's grammar:<\/p>\n It occurred to me that there is a nice quote by Spinoza about the V\/C difference, in his writings on Hebrew. It occurs in his book that is known in English translation as \"Hebrew Grammar\" (the original title is in Latin). I can't find it in English or in Dutch on line (and if the original was also written only in Latin, that wouldn't help me). A French version, from a French translation ominously using Abridged in its title, is in one of Jacques Mehler's papers (he told me about the quote, years ago). But I'm reluctant to include a 3-step translation.<\/p>\n I once got a prize named after Spinoza and found a nice sardonic remark of his about language acquisition to use in my acceptance speech. But that remark was in the Ethics (that I own, in English and Dutch). It would be nice to cite him\u00a0 again but I don't think there's anything on V\/C in the Ethics\u2026.<\/p>\n I checked Penn's library, which seems to have only translations into Italian and Polish. I couldn't find an English translation on line, but did find the Latin original at the Hathi Trust web site, and so decided to exercise my secondary-school Latin (with some help from Perseus). And I'm glad I did — the bodies-and-souls stuff is nice, but I actually prefer the idea of consonants as flute fingerings and vowels as the anima<\/em> (breath or soul) that creates the music.<\/p>\n In some ways this is preferable to the alphabetic phoneme metaphor, that sees consonants and vowels as just different-colored beads on the same string.<\/p>\n So yay Spinoza.<\/p>\n Update — the \"nice sardonic remark\" that Anne quoted in her 1999 Spinoza Prize<\/a> acceptance speech was from Ethics 4 \"De servitute humana seu de affectuum viribus<\/a>\" (\"Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions\"), Propositio XXXIX, which ends:<\/p>\n Fit namque aliquando ut homo tales patiatur mutationes ut non facile eundem illum esse dixerim, ut de quodam hispano poeta narrare audivi qui morbo correptus fuerat et quamvis ex eo convaluerit, mansit tamen pr\u00e6terit\u00e6 su\u00e6 vit\u00e6 tam oblitus ut fabulas et trag\u0153dias quas fecerat suas non crediderit esse et sane pro infante adulto haberi potuisset si vernacul\u00e6 etiam lingu\u00e6 fuisset oblitus. Et si hoc incredibile videtur, quid de infantibus dicemus? Quorum naturam homo provect\u00e6 \u00e6tatis a sua tam diversam esse credit ut persuaderi non posset se unquam infantem fuisse nisi ex aliis de se conjecturam faceret. Sed ne superstitiosis materiam suppeditem movendi novas qu\u00e6stiones, malo h\u00e6c in medio relinquere.<\/span><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/myl\/SpinozaBeginning.png\" "\\"Click")
<\/a><\/p>\n