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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Aegean Ethnic determinatives on Philistine guardsofJudean king...
  • Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 03:00:26 -0800

On 26/01/2004 20:22, Karl Randolph wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: Polycarp66 AT aol.com


In a message dated 1/25/2004 2:27:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, kwrandolph AT email.com writes:
I noticed that these terms were used exclusively to refer to soldiers. What made me suspect that it may refer to classes of professional soldiers was the realization that the PLTY is always written with a definite article prefix in Tanakh, which would have had a pronunciation of “hapeleti”. This sounds awfully similar to a class of soldiers among the Greeks, who had imported a lot of their culture along with their alphabet from Semitic sources.

The terms, as well as the weaponry, may have been Philistine, but in the list of David’s top soldiers, almost all of them were native Israelis (2 Samuel 23).
_________

Are you implying that the Greek "hoplite" derives from this?

gfsomsel


Any reason why not?

Karl W. Randolph.


Liddell and Scott derive Greek hOPLITHS from hOPLON, usually used in the plural hOPLA, meaning arms, weapons. -ITHS (H is eta) is a regular Greek derivational suffix. So, although we can't rule out a loan word with similar form and meaning, hOPLITHS would have meant "armed man" anyway.

There may be a little more mileage in postulating a loan from Greek into Hebrew, if hOPLITHS or something similar was already used by the (Greek-speaking, from Linear B) Cretans: HAKK:RETIY W:HAPP:LETIY could then be an expression (hendiadys, or perhaps the W- added later) for "armed Cretans" or "Cretan soldiers".

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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