Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 17/02/2004 19:04, Uri Hurwitz wrote:

> Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com> wrote:
> 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
>
> <snip>
>
>  The "Tet" is part and parcel of the regular Semitic alphabet, one of the so-called "emphatics";  clearly distinct fromthe the  the other "T", in Arabic speech, for example.(should also be in Heb,, epecially in Sephardi reading, and in modern speech, but lost under the influence of European languages. A similar change started in Talmudic times, if not before) 
>
>
>  
Greek theta, by the way, was originally and still in classical times an 
aspirated t, distinguished from tau which was unaspirated. I suppose 
that aspiration was the Greek way of making a distinct "emphatic" sound, 
whereas for Semites the "emphatic" sound was (and in Arabic still is) 
pharyngealised. It was only later, in Koine or Byzantine times, that 
Greek theta took on the sound of English th. Hebrew tav (without dagesh) 
also took on this sound in some dialects, but for different reasons. In 
Arabic this sound is represented by a separate letter, like the Arabic 
version of tav but with three dots instead of two, which (from its 
numeric value) was originally added to the end of the alphabet straight 
after tav.

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