A Comment on Semitic Verbs (and other things)

In the post below I mention "Semitic verbs" or those who study them in what may be construed to be a less than complimentary fashion. I was merely using the term to refer to a certain kind of attitude... And yes, we get the same thing in computer science: that "object-oriented", "user-friendly", "internet-based", "plug-and-play" world where the O's are always big and the paychecks are...

Uh, well, perhaps not. Actually it is good for me to mention this. "Big O" is the term we use to indicate something called the "complexity" of a problem: it is supposed to measure how long the theoretical solution will take. Some fanatics have erected altars to it. Others treat it as heresy. (I am squarely on the fence, for I think both are right, and so I am rejected by both camps!)

Anyhow, long before I began playing with computers I played with Egyptian hieroglyphics. (I have yet to play with Hebrew, though I have a coloring book of the letters.) Back in 1972 I received a large tome from my father: Egyptian Grammar by Sir Alan Gardiner, who wrote:

The Egyptian language is related, not only to the Semitic tongues (Hebrew, Arabic, aramaic, Babylonian, &c.) but also to the East African languages (Galla, Somali, &c.) and the Berber idioms of North Africa. Its connexion with the latter groups, together known as the Hamitic family, is a very thorny subject, but the relationship to the Semitic tongues can be fairly accurately defined. In general structure the similarity is very great: Egyptian shares the principal peculiarity of Semitic in that its word-stems consist of combinations of consonants, as a rule three in nmumber, which are theoretically at least unchangeable. Grammatical inflexion and minor variations of meaning are contrived mainly by ringing the changes on the internal vowels...
[Egyptian Grammar 2]

Very interesting. Now wait, don't get all jumpy, here. Maybe we ALL ought to rejoice in the Semitic tongue! For that means, in that language,

ONE WORD IS ALWAYS UNCHANGEABLY THREE.

Major goosebumps.

There is something else that works that way: DNA. God puts the same Semitic word-construct into protein formation: for THREE nucleotides are translated (by the ribosome) into ONE amino acid (the building block of protein.)

Hey, St. John, looks like molecular biology supports your line about "the Word was made flesh"...