Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Rolf,

You wrote: "I refer to J. Barr: "Vocalization and the Analysis of Hebrew 
among the Ancient Translators"  Hebraische Wortforschung. Festschrift zum 
80 Geburtstag von Walter Baumgartner. VT supp XVI, 1967, 1-11. In this 
article he discusses how a person's mother tongue influences her when 
hearing another language which she is going to transcribe."

I fear that your own argument is sufficient to cast doubt on your reliance 
on Origen, a native Greek speaker, and therefore one whose transcription of 
Hebrew cannot be relied on. The same applies to the LXX translators, for 
whom Hebrew was probably already their second language, also to Jerome. 
Josephus could be more reliable, as probably he knew good spoken Hebrew. 
Nevertheless, the influence of mother tongue is not random, and so with 
great care maybe some results can be derived from Origen. The statistics 
you quote do not show this great care, but of course you were abbreviating. 
Is there any published work in which these matters are carefully dealt 
with?

You seem to imply in your arguments that the doubling of the yod in 
wayyiqtol is a phonological artifact, a Masoretic addition to get around an 
apparent exception to their pronunciation rules. Is that a generally held 
view? Is this also borne out by Origen's transcription? Or could this 
doubling represent some morpheme that has otherwise dropped out, as Vince 
seemed to suggest at one point? I am mindful of the distinction between 
B:YOWM "in a day" and BAYYOWM "in the day", which superficially and 
phonetically resembles that between W:YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL. Of course in 
BAYYOWM it is the article which has almost disappeared, but is represented 
by patah (in place of shewa) and dagesh. Is this distinction also a 
Masoretic one? Is it seen in Origen's transcription? Is it consistently 
represented in LXX translation? This could be a significant test or whether 
Origen's failure to distinguish WAYYIQTOL was grammatical or phonetic.

The phonetic distinction between WAYYIQTOL and W:YIQTOL may also have been 
affected by the phonetic environment - as in the Masoretic text where we 
have WF'EQTOL for *WA''IQTOL, but perhaps differently in the dialect which 
Origen and others heard. To avoid being misled by this variable, separate 
study should be made of WAYYIQTOL, WF'EQTOL, WATTIQTOL, and WANNIQTOL 
forms; the latter two may be more fruitful, if the sample is large enough 
e.g. in the surviving extracts from Origen, as the environment of vowel 
before yod may significantly affect the pronunciation - taw and nun are 
more neutral. (Maybe you have looked at all of this already, if so I'm 
sorry if I seem to restate the obvious.)

Peter Kirk