[b-hebrew] words with the same root letters: XCC-N TMR

Arnaud Fournet fournet.arnaud at wanadoo.fr
Fri Jan 14 15:37:44 EST 2011


From: JimStinehart at aol.com

In analyzing the tsade in XCC-N TMR at Genesis 14: 7, let me just briefly 
set forth my own view as to Late Bronze Age sibilants.  Although scholars 
disagree about the pronunciation of sibilants in early Biblical Hebrew, I 
believe the following is one mainstream view, being the view that I have 
adopted.

Z/zayin is a voiced affricate.
***
It's not necessarily affricate although it is certainly voiced.
A.
***


C is an emphatic affricate:  TS.
***
It's not necessarily affricate although it is certainly emphatic.
A.
***



$/shin is SH.
***
That was doubtless /s/.
A.
***


%/sin is emphatic s.
***
no,
sin was a lateral fricative, probably voiceless in (proto-)Hebrew.
A.
***


S/samekh is non-emphatic s.
***
No
It was a voiceless affricate /ts/.
A.
***


  [On that view, the only change in the sibilants by the Middle Ages was 
that %/sin had come to be pronounced as non-emphatic s;  there no longer was 
any emphatic s in Hebrew, and sin/% and samekh/S had come to have the 
identical sound.]

If Hurrian usually, though not always, pronounced s as SH, and if Genesis 
slightly simplifies the Hurrian pronunciation, then only 3 sibilants are 
needed to record Hurrian in Hebrew:  Z and $ and C.  No % or S is needed 
[emphatic or non-emphatic s], because s was usually pronounced $ in Hurrian 
[and was always so treated in Genesis].
***
Logically, we would expect z, shin, (maybe sin ?) and samekh to reflect 
Hurrian phonemes.
A.
***



Based on my own research as to dozens of names in Genesis that I see as 
being Hurrian names, samekh/S and sin/% were  n-e-v-e-r  used in rendering 
Hurrian names in Hebrew.  Hebrew tsade/C, an emphatic affricate, was used to 
render the Hurrian affricate TS, even if that Hurrian affricate may have 
been non-emphatic.
***
Doubtless false.
A.
***



So xa-tsi-tsi in Hurrian is XCC in Biblical Hebrew.  XCC-N TMR at Genesis 
14: 7 represents xa-tsi-tsi-ni tam-ri in Hurrian, it means “Wisdom-the Nine” 
in Hurrian, and it’s referring to xa-si/Hasi in the Hurrian-dominated Beqa 
Valley where, per Amarna Letter EA 175, there was an enclave of Amorites in 
Year 14.  Amarna Letter EA 175 and the second half of Genesis 14: 7 are 
reporting the identical event, with Genesis 14: 7 having been composed a 
mere one year after that traumatic event.
***
ok
We have already seen that this theory is false.

Arnaud Fournet
****




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