Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Well, maybe Henry Churchyard is the exception that proves your rule, 
but in his thesis (dated this year rather than more than 50-100 years 
ago, p.138 of the version I downloaded from the Internet) he writes 
concerning qamets and qamets-hatuph:

"These two sounds are written with the same grapheme in the Tiberian 
orthography, but as discussed below, come from separate diachronic 
sources (o from Proto-Semitic *u and aa mainly from Proto-Semitic *a), 
behave differently in the synchronic Tiberian Hebrew phonological  
system, and are pronounced differently in many attested modern Jewish 
pronunciations of Hebrew (Blau 1976:10)."

Churchyard goes on to examine this question in detail in his section 
1.4.2.4.5., Comparative Evidence and the History of the Hebrew Vowel 
System (pp.146-157). He argues that "the vowel diacritics we call 
"Tiberian" must have originally been devised to represent an 
innovative pronunciation tradition which... resembled the later 
Ashkenazic pronunciation traditions in having seven unreduced 
vowels... This orthography was then afterwards adopted to represent 
the Tiberian pronunciation tradition proper, which had a more 
conservative Qimhian vowel system." (p.153). He concludes: "it remains 
clear that short o and long aa act differently within the phonological 
system of Tiberian Hebrew itself, though written homographously" 
(p.157).

So clearly the question is not as settled as you seem to be 
suggesting. Although Churchyard is not arguing for a simple Qimhian 
system, in him Alfred Silberman does have at least one worthy 
opponent.

Peter Kirk



______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Saenz-Badillos on Tiberian pronunciation <LYR12657-916-1999.
Author:  rdhoberman AT ccmail.sunysb.edu at internet
Date:    26/03/1999 09:38


<snip>

Traditional Hebrew grammar textbooks do still say things like that "long" 
qames is to be pronounced a and "short" qames like o, which certainly is 
trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. They are reproducing a docrine 
that goes back to David Kimhi.  I doubt that any linguist for the past 50 
or 100 years has thought of that as a coherent description as it stands. 
(For a more nuanced, knowledgeable and incredibly thoroughgoing version of 
this Silberman might look at Malone's book Tiberian Hebrew Phonology.) 
Clearly, there were historical correspondences between Tiberian and 
Sephardi pronunciations; what's wrong with trying to figure them out?

Robert Hoberman
robert.hoberman AT sunsyb.edu