Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?
  • Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 16:48:54 +0100

On 03/05/2005 16:24, Vadim Cherny wrote:

...

There is also a moderate hypothesis: Hebrew lacks vowels because in a
simpler Hebrew at the time of emergence of alphabet, vowels could be
unamiguously reconstructed through syntax. ...


This is a bit more promising, although I suspect that context was always required to reconstruct vowels.

... For example, if we assume that at
the time of emergence of aplhabet piel did not exist (and could not be
confused with vowelless paal) ...


This assumption is demonstrably incorrect, because the Akkadian equivalents of paal and piel were already distinct before the alphabet emerged, which demonstrates that this distinction goes back to proto-Semitic.

...

I likewise explain every morphological form. They all derived from the

davar

form.


In this case you need to explain why in many cases there are
semantically distinct words which differ from one another only in their
vowels. On your theory this is impossible.


Please elaborate, I'm not sure I understood. An, example, perhaps.


Just think of any two nouns which have the same consonants (and no matres lectionis) but different vowels, and clearly different meanings. Even an obvious pair like MELEK "king" and MALKA "queen" are distinguished only by vowels (the final he in the latter is a mater lectionis, a late development). Are you saying that these two persons would not have been distinguished in speech?

...

You seem to assume that Hebrew emerged in isolation as some kind of
proto-language among a previously entirely mute population.


Rather, I should call this language proto-West Semitic or proto-Egyptian.
Yes, I assume that this proto-language to which Hebrew is traceable emerged
or was offered to previously speechless humans.


Well, your assumption is very different to those of most scholars, and myself.

You ignore a simple issue: obviously, we can trace Hebrew back to a
proto-language that had a single grammatical form, davar nouns. ...


I'm sorry, but this is not at all obvious. Many scholars consider, although this must be speculative, that the three-letter Semitic root is a relatively late standardisation of a previously more complex situation. There are certainly indications that many Hebrew roots were originally biliteral with some kind of suffix modifying the meaning - or else an added final he, internal yod or vav, or gemination. If that is true, very likely there never was a language with standardised davar forms. And even if there was, there is no remaining trace of it which we can follow.


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



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.11.2 - Release Date: 02/05/2005





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page