Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

The g (gimel) in En-Gedi is a quite different letter from the gh (guttural
ayin) of Ai. The former regularly becomes j (jim - English not German
pronunciation!) in Arabic, the latter remains gh (gheyn) in Arabic. Compare
`azza (Hebrew, with a guttural ayin inferred) = Gaza (LXX, English) = Ghazza
(Arabic, with gheyn). But many other Hebrew names starting with ayin are
transliterated by zero in LXX (e.g. `abarim > abarim in Num 33:47, plus all
the various Obadiah's etc) and/or have Arabic equivalents with `eyn (a
different Arabic letter), which suggests that the one Hebrew letter ayin was
used for two originally different sounds, though the distinction was later
lost.

Peter Kirk

----- Original Message -----
From: Walter Mattfeld <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 9:31 AM
Subject: Locating Ai


<snip>
>
> "Etymologically, Ai does not refer to a ruin. In antiquity the name would
> have been pronounced ghay (gutteral gh) which would not have been
associated
> by an Israelite with his Hebrew word for "ruin," `iy. The two words simply
> don't sound anything like each other. Arabic cognates suggest that the
name
> gay may have referred to some topographical feature of the city. The word
> gay may have referred to the height of the city.
>
> I note biblical en-Gedi appears in Arabic as ain-Jedi, suggesting a g/j
> transliteration is possible ? In a previous post I suggested that the
> Septuagint's Gai might be preserved at the spring of Wadi Ein el-Jaya, and
> Wadi el Jaya, adjacent to et-Tell.
>
<snip>