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  • From: Bill <wrschmidt2 AT comcast.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] PQH vs PTCh
  • Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:28:58 -0400

At 02:57 AM 4/15/2012, you wrote:
PTCh evolved from PTH, the soft Heh moved slightly forward and became more course. PTH also means to open, but in context it is more often than not a behavioral open than a physical:

This can certainly explain how PTCH developed from PTH, and PQCH developed from PQH.

> The similarities between the two are a case of CONVERGENT EVOLUTION found in language and nothing more.

Could be but, imho, your conclusion is highly assumptive.

In fact, in retrospect I don't think one can summarily dismiss the possibility that the concept of opening in these verbs was originally inchoate in the scribal practice of using a circle as a logogram to represent the opening that Hebrew wordsmiths called peh, considering that 1) the letter peh was by all accounts originally nothing but a circle, and 2) words for mouths, per se, were derived from words that referred more broadly to openings.


In other words, in view of the acrophonic practice, whereby ancient scribes derived prototypal letters from logograms representing monosyllabic words, it is very possible that the abovementioned logogram came down through history as 1) the letter peh, and as 2) peh differentially vowelized as the first syllable in these and other ancient Near Eastern words for openings.

Bill




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