Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT sil.org]

So what about the theory that there were two distinct pronunciations 
of `ayin and two of Het in ancient Hebrew? As I understand it, one 
pair was pharyngeal (pretend you are gargling to pronounce these) and 
the other pair uvular (so rather like the Parisian French "r"). Thus 
`ayin would correspond to both `eyn and gheyn in Arabic (they are 
written and named as variants of the same letter), and Het to Arabic 
Ha and kha (similarly differing only in a dot). Evidence for this in 
Hebrew includes the transliteration of `ayin as gamma in LXX (and "g" 
in English) in the names Gaza and Gomorrah - Gaza is spelt with gheyn 
in Arabic. Thus `ayin and ghayin, Het and khet would, like sin and 
shin, have been two letters written the same. Presumably by Masoretic 
times the first two distinctions had been lost, and so no need was 
seen to mark the distinctions. Some of them could be reconstructed 
from Arabic and other parallels, e.g. to distinguish between roots 
ayin-resh-bet: Hebrew `erev "evening" corresponds to Arabic gharb 
"west", whereas Hebrew `arav "steppe-dwellers" (BDB) corresponds to 
Arabic `arab "Arabs".

Is there anything in that theory? Are there any signs of such a 
distinction being maintained in any modern pronunciation of Hebrew?

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
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Subject: ayin
Author:  ButhFam at CompuServe
Date:    30/12/1998 07:58


{george athas wrote}
>I always encourage people to pronounce their ayins as it was in antiquity.


i applaud. music to my ears.

voiced pharyngeal fricatives.

and let your Het's be voiceless pharyngeal fricatives 
and not velar xaf's,  -- Has veHalila!

these are usually distinguished in "mizraHi" israeli music for those so 
inclined.

braxot,
randall buth

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