>"chrysaetos_at_..." <chrysaetos@...> wrote :
>
>Her name is just "Bast". "Bastet" is a weird little translation
>error from the 1800s -- the -et suffix makes a masculine
>name feminine, but "Bast" is already feminine so it's not needed.
Sorta. The -t addon was also used to make sure the "t" was
pronounced in the name. Otherwise it sounded like "Bas" with
no "t" sound at the end; BUT, Ancient Egyptians didn't spell
their vowels out, so no one really knows how it should be
spoken. We can blame the ancient scribes for this. Ancient
Egyptians were great at stone work; lousy at recording
how to pronounce words. Ah well. I don't know where the 1800
date comes from though. The scribes were doing this around the
end of the New Kingdom. (Side note: Modern Arabic doesn't spell
vowels either, I believe.)
I'm like Jim. I like Bast too. What a cute kitty. He needs to
draw more of her, or her likeness.
Received on Thu Feb 15 2007 - 23:40:31 CST