Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Izzy Cohen:

Thanks for the comments. 

However, I don’t think you need to postulate that the heh had a dh sound, I 
have seen other cases where the t and h sounds are interchangeable. For 
example, a majority of the Chinese who immigrated to the U.S. in the last 
century were from one county, Toishan, in Canton province. People from Canton 
or Hong Kong cannot understand that dialect, but following a few rules, t -> 
h, d -> glottal stop (ayin), j -> d, s -> a sound found in neither English 
nor Hebrew, oh -> oi and a few wild cards, then a Cantonese speaking person 
has most of the Toishan dialect. Hence I have no problem in your connecting 
of t or d to h.

Karl W. Randolph.
 
you wrote:
> I believe the Hebrew heh once had a DH sound, that is:
> aleph, bet, gimel, dalet, dalet-heh (together). This
> may explain why the prefix heh is the "definite article" 
> in Hebrew.
> 
-- 
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