Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Isn’t there evidence for more changes than just these listed?

For example, the ‘tet’ (between chet and yod) had the same form and position 
in the alphabet as the theta in Greek. Did the Greek change it to the theta 
sound, or did Hebrew, under the influence of Aramaic, lose the theta sound? 
From what I know of linguistic sound shifts and how they show up in writing, 
I think the latter is more likely.

As for the ‘sameck’, there is evidence that it originally had an English “x” 
sound, at least in Ezra and Nehemiah. It can be seen in the transliteration 
of the Persion name Ataxerxes. In the transliteration into Aramaic, it 
appears that Aramaic had already lost the sound, and apparently in a 
generation or two afterwards, Hebrew did too.

I think it is pretty obvious that sin and shin were originally one letter. 
The first evidence is in Hebrew poetry, where the now two letters were 
treated as one letter. Secondly, I noticed that sometimes a lexeme is spelled 
two different ways in Tanakh, one way with a sin, a second with a shin. 
Third, I noticed that lexemes that share a common root would sometimes be 
split, e.g. ‘sham’ (there, that place) from the same root as ‘sim’ (to place) 
(‘shem’ (name) could be from the same root, as in placing a person by his 
name).

The New Testament shows that there was another pronunciation shift going on 
at that time. It was not completed yet, e.g. Capernaum (K’far Nahum) and 
Nazaret (Nazareth) where non-fricative consonants were being divided into 
fricative and non-fricative versions. The evidence for this change was 
preserved in the Byzantine tradition of the New Testament, but mostly lost in 
the Coptic tradition of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and other surviving early 
versions. Again, based on what I know of pronunciation shift, the 
non-fricative pronunciation appears to be the original.

Where the spelling for a language is fluid, it is seldom that letters change 
their pronunciations and any language shift can be traced by spelling 
changes. After the Galut Babel, Hebrew, like Latin in the Middle Ages, had 
its spelling frozen causing changes in pronunciation to force changes in 
letter pronunciation. Thus it will be difficult to prove the pronunciation 
changes based on fairly rare transliterations.

As for vowels, the utter lack of them in Biblical Hebrew leaves the whole 
question wide open.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>

> 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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