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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ancient pronunciation of biblical names
  • Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:22:23 -0800

On 13/02/2004 05:37, Trevor Peterson wrote:

===== Original Message From "Sesamo m." <sesamox AT hotmail.com> =====
Hi all,

I studied a little Hebrew at University and I remember the teacher telling
us that the Hebrew name for Mary was pronounced "Maryam" in biblical times
(both for Moses' sister and Jesus' mother) and "Miryam" in later Hebrew.
Also Samuel was pronounced "Samuel" in those times and "Semuel" in later
Hebrew.


Actually, the first consonant would be a shin, pronounced /sh/. Greek lacks this sound, so it came across as s.


I admit I'm not sure to remember this accurately. I'd like to ask you if
this is so, and also which other examples of important characters from the
Bible you could mention.


The issue here, particularly in the case of Samuel, is one of vowel reduction. It is generally thought that vowel reduction was a developed feature, so that older forms of words with reduced vowels (in this case, a simple shva) would originally have had full vowels. To a certain extent, we have to infer this based on the theory of language change. I imagine evidence can also be drawn from transcriptions of names in other languages, primarily Greek and Aramaic. In particular, the form Maryam comes across into Aramaic and seems to underlie the Greek Maria (with i probably standing for a consonantal /y/). I know this doesn't get into other names, as you asked, but I thought it might help to understand where this type of argument comes from.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics



There are very many names which appear in the Hebrew Bible with reduced first vowels but in the Septuagint in longer forms. Other examples are Samson (Hebrew: Shimshon), Solomon (Hebrew: Sh'lomo) and Sodom (Hebrew: S'dom). The longer forms are also sometimes preserved in other languages e.g. Maryam in Arabic as well as Aramaic. This is evidence for a general shift in the pronunciation of Hebrew, reduction of vowels in first syllables in certain environments, sometime probably between the time of the LXX translation and the time of the Masoretes. There is probably other evidence e.g. Origen's Hexapla transliterated Hebrew which can pinpoint the time of the change more precisely.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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