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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] PQH vs PTCh
  • Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:21:19 -0400

What I mean by self evident is that all we need for verification is to open the Hebrew Bible and look for it.

In Gen. 3:7 PAQAX is used to the parting of the eyelids to expose the pupil (indeed, in the extended sense of understanding what one sees), while in 1Ki 8:29 the verb PATAX is used for it. In Dt. 15:8 PATAX is used for the parting of the fingers of the hand.

Opening the eyes is such a common act that Hebrew has a special verb for it. Hebrew has also this special verb NAGAN, 'to play a musical instrumet', absent in English!

All we have in Biblical Hebrew is what we see written, and hence a phonetic analysis of its verbs is irrelevant, methinks.

I believe that the only way to penetrate the internal logic of the Hebrew language is via the realization that some of its letters are mere variants, say ג ח כ ק G X K Q. There is no doubt in my mind, for instance, that PISEX RAGLAYIM is PISEQ RAGLAYIM, 'a spreader, or parter, of (limp) legs'. Here [Y] is a PISEX RAGLAYIM standing on his head.

What is this RO$ HA-PISG-AH of Nu. 23:14? Of course, it is ראש הפשקה RO$ HA-PISQ-AH, the point where the mountain parts its slopes. The place is also called שדה צופים SDE COPIYM (COPEH is, I believe, a COBEH, 'erect'), a vantage point, an observatory. This is how ancient Hebrews understood PISGAH, and this is how I understand it.

Today we use the word פסיג PSIYG for the embryonic parting of the leaves in a sprouting seed. Here is how it looks like [Y].

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Apr 23, 2012, at 7:36 PM, Will Parsons wrote:

Hi Isaac,

On Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:03:54 -0400, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:
1. It is not clear to me how to advance "real evidence" for something
that is manifestly self evident.

What is self-evident to you is not so much to me. A lot of phonetic
similarities can be attributed to simple coincidence, especially when
what are being compared are sequences of three consonants only.
Nevertheless, I'm not completely excluding the possibility of a
relationship, just that it needs to be based on more that individual
phonetic similarities. What I would regard as "real evidence" is a
pattern of correspondences, whereby it could be demonstrated that taw
corresponds to qoph in a series of semantically-related roots (not
just פתח and פקח), and that heth corresponds to... (what? nothing? a
vowel? a [j]?) in a series of roots besides פתה/פתי and פקח. Perhaps
it is possible to demonstrate such correspondences on a systematic
level, but I at least haven't seen such claims.

--
Will Parsons
μη φαινεσθαι, αλλ' ειναι.





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