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  • From: Kevin Riley <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
  • Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 22:25:43 +1100

I suspect you're right about much of what you say below, but Mycenaean Greek is though to have had dialects, they are just not represented in the written language - which is rather meagre. The surviving Greek dialects indicate at least 2 dialects (roughly Attic-Ionic and Arcado-Cyprian). The intrusion of the West Greek dialects make the situation more complicated than Canaan ever was. It is possible that most of the Greek area was underlain by a language close to Luwian, if it wasn't Luwian itself. The situation on Crete especially and also Cyprus still seems to be subject to debate. Of course, we have less data from Canaan than from the Greek areas, so who knows what may be still undiscovered?

The example Chaucer gives: A-S ey -> eieren or originally Norse egg -> eggis, may exaggerate the differences between dialects for effect. But it does seem that some barrier to communication was posed by the large number of dialects in England at that time. Even in modern languages, just one unrecognised word in a sentence that is otherwise well understood can cause difficulties.

Kevin Riley

On 2/11/2010 6:50 PM, Arnaud Fournet wrote:

From: "Will Parsons" <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>:

Arnaud, comments on some points...

On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 21:27:19 +0100, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr> wrote:

Prosody is always a problem when divergent.
In addition there is no reason to think Ancient Hebrew had so many "dialects".
That language was not sprawling over a whole continent, as far as I know.
A.
***

That wouldn't prevent it from having a lot of dialectual variation. Consider
the case of Greek in ancient times.
***
Yes, but Greek was indeed spoken over a very large area, and it had replaced quite a lot of substratic languages.

As I see it, Ancient Hebrew was not spoken on an area much, much bigger than Crete *alone*
and I've not heard that Mycenian Greek had dialects.

In addition there is little reason to think that Hebrew spread over substrates.

In other words I tend to think that Ancient Hebrew was spoken over a rather compact area with little inferences.
I let you disprove this point of view.

A.
***



Hebrew itself very clearly indicates that emphatics must have been
glottalized in Ancient Hebrew, as vowels are not at all colored in any way
by emphatics.
Conclusive.
A.
***

It happens that I agree with you here - the lack of vowel colourization
is strong evidence of emphatics that were realized as glottalized. But still,
is this conclusive? I would say not. I would like to know (from someone
familiar with Yemeni Hebrew pronunciation) if in the Yemenite tradition
(where I believe, emphatics are pronounced as the corresponding sounds in
Arabic) there may in fact be an influence of emphatic consonants on the
adjacent vowels.
***
In all cases, this situation is a very strong argument to think that glottalized is the original feature.
A.
***



>>8. Affricates: lost (except Tsade)
>
> Tsade emically preserves what may have been a pharyngealized sibilant.
***
It represents the fusion of a glottalized affricate and a glottalized
lateral stop.
A.
***

Too dogmatic by far! What evidence is there that sadhe *was* an affricate
in ancient times? (And no, I don't consider the Codex Vaticanus "evidence"
discussed in a previous thread to be valid.)
***
Akkadian tsade and tsade cuneiform signs are doubtless an affricate as it is rendered as affricates in other languages, which have the distinction affricate / non affricate.

Cuneiform S was probably just s
Cuneiform s, z and s. are affricates.

So I suppose it must have been an affricate in the original proto-Semitic (and before).
A.
***



Or a glottalized lateral stop?
(Actually, I'm not even sure of what a "lateral stop" would be.)
***
Maybe you would prefer lateralized stop: a combination of T plus a lateralized fricative L (plus voice or other features).
A.
***



Do you know that story from Chaucer himself that he said eggs or eyes to a
southern English lady, and she did not understand him, because her plural
was eyen. Sometimes it does not take much to block communication.

Arnaud Fournet
***

Sometimes, but this is the exception. I don't know this story, but since
Chaucer himself was Southern English, I doubt that he found the ambiguity
a serious difficulty.
Will Parsons
***
The lady did...
She was probably less familiar than Chaucer with the dialectal variability of Middle English.

Arnaud Fournet



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