Ancient Languages and Memory
Used to denote a point in time which is located before a basing point in the past, the past perfect is the tense that locates a situation in the deep past. In ancient Egyptian language, an equivalent to the past perfect was unknown; any situation that was located before the recent past (often expressed by the perfect participle) was only open to those who were permitted access to archives or able to read king-lists and the like.
In ancient Egypt, primordial times made part of the divine sphere. In ancient Greek language, the pluperfect was understood as the past tense of the (time-unspecific) perfect, using an addition before the stem of the perfect. Finally Latin, the youngest of these three languages, owns a separate verbal form for the past perfect, ideally suited to reflect the deep past. If we take language as a mirror to reflect a change of consciousness with regard to the past, it clearly emerges that in antiquity attitudes towards a memorable past changed considerably. On the other hand, modern languages own the tools to express a past that is situated before the past generation. Modern languages provide the tools to remember points in the past that are obviously situated beyond the borders of individual memory, and to structure these memories.
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