Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

Peter wrote:

> There are just three cases where there is ambiguity, given 
> here in M-C 
> encoding (the list standard):
> 
> JOB 31:40 BF):$FH
> ISA 34:3 BF):$/FM
> JOL 2:20 BF):$/OW
> 
> I suppose that the F's here in the first syllable are meant 
> to be qamets 
> hatuf, the o sound. But in your transliteration this cannot be 
> distinguished from the long qamets followed by silent alef in for 
> example RF)$IYM, Gen 2:10 etc etc. Whether that is important 
> to you is 
> for you to decide, but I would see it as significant enough to need 
> consideration in a full scholarly transliteration.

Interesting that they're all from two nouns of the same root
(essentially the masc/fem equivalents of each other). I'd say this is
probably an archaic preservation of some sort, and since they're all for
basically the same word, simply footnoting the distinction wherever it's
necessary to transliterate them would take care of the ambiguity.
Indeed, since these are probably closed syllables anyway, the standard
transcription systems (SBL, for instance) would also be ambiguous here.
So at least I haven't lost anything.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics