[b-hebrew] Perception influenced the origin of the Hebrew alphabet?

George Athas George.Athas at moore.edu.au
Thu Jan 21 19:04:42 EST 2010


James,

The main issue I have with your discussion here is that it seems to be approaching a Semitic language from a largely Indo-European perspective. I think the discussion needs to pay far more attention to the actual construction and internal logic of Semitic languages, especially the concept of triliteral roots (that's not to discount biliteral and quadriliteral). I don't think it's a question of active or passive use of vowels, but rather of the function of consonants and vowels. Syllables are, I believe, a completely secondary issue in word formation and alphabetic notation within Hebrew, whereas in Indo-European languages it's far more important because they do not have Hebrew's basic triliteral construction model.


GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au




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