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Subject:Re: BC/BCE From:"Michael A. Lewis" <lewism -at- BRANDLE -dot- COM -dot- AU> Date:Tue, 4 Nov 1997 22:45:23 +1100
Mark L. Levinson wrote:
>
> Arlen (& others), as a non-Christian I'm bothered not so much by
> the Christian significance of the baseline date as by the Christian
> allegiance implied by the abbreviations.
I share Mark's lack of allegiance. But that's not entirely the point.
When we use dating systems, we are assuming (one way or another) some
common ground with our readers. Islamic readers are accustomed to dating
events from a religiously-significant event; Judaists will want to date
things according to a "year of the world"; Japanese readers will want to
date things from the year of accession of the current emperor. We can't
even begin to cover all those bases in one play. In the end, a calendar
is no more than a mutually-agreed system of marking the passage of time;
given that some systems are based on the lunar month extrapolated into
the "lunar year", while other systems (including the defunct but
accurate system of the Maya) are based on other sets of observations,
the essential criterion is this: what is least ambiguous to our readers?
Astute readers of this posting will notice a parallel with a whole heap
of other linguistic issues. Language changes; social conventions change;
linguistic reflections of social conventions change doubly fast.
Contributors to this thread are actually helping to determine what
happens next. One of the few things most people can agree on is the
sidereal year; another is the "christian" dating system (even the
Japanese use it for non-ceremonial purposes). So let's accept that any
convention is culturally loaded, and go for one that makes fewest
assumptions. For my money, that's the CE / BCE convention.
--
Michael Lewis
Brandle Pty Limited, Sydney, Australia
: PO Box 1249 : Suite 8, The Watertower :
: Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012 : 1 Marian St, Redfern 2016 :
: Tel +61-2-9310-2224 : Fax +61-2-9310-5056 :
