Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Ian wrote:
> >> There is no difference in pronunciation; how can you differentiate
> >> in speech between "Sh" and "ShSh"?
> >
> >There certainly are langages that have a doubled "sh" shound in
> >speech; Arabic and Japanese spring to mind...
> 
> And in connected speech in English (ie spoken normally):
> 
>     Bush showed a lot.
> 
> There is a double $ going from Bush to showed. Try and say it with only one
> and you end up with
> 
>     Bush owed a lot.
> 
> So, is there really no difference in pronunciation?

Excellent point.  It's easy to forget that we're looking at a written 
text that is designed to represent the verbal sounds, and such 
written systems are by their very nature less than perfect.  Thanks 
for the reminder.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"No study of probabilities inside a given frame can ever
tell us how probable it is that the frame itself can be
violated."  C. S. Lewis