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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] lexicography?

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] lexicography?
  • Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 15:44:21 -0800

On 19/02/2004 15:27, Karl Randolph wrote:

Peter:

I noticed that in Hebrew poetry, the two letters are treated as the same
letter. ...


If you are referring to acrostic poems, this is true, but tells us about the alphabet at the time those poems were written, and not about pronunciation - just as an English acrostic would have only one letter G for two pronunciations.

... Second, there are lexemes in Tanakh which have two different spellings
where the only difference is that one spelling has a sin, the other shin. ...


For example? You are not thinking in fact of those in which one spelling has sin and other SAMEKH, are you? There are a number of those. There are also some sin/tsade crossovers e.g. YIC:XFQ / YI&:XFQ. But I don't know of any sin/shin crossovers. Am I just ignorant? Of course one might expect some just because of various routes for borrowings. English "ship" and "skip" have the same origin, but this does not imply that H and K were originally the same letter.

... Third, there are words apparently from the same root, but in one form
written with a sin (e.g. ’siym‘ to place) and another form with a shin (e.g.
’sham‘ there, that place). ...


Well, these have apparent cognates with distinct forms in Arabic and Aramaic, so your conclusion that they are from the same root seems to be premature.

... Fourth, the number of lexemes that have different meanings but the same
spelling, assuming sin and shin are the same letter, appears no more commonly
than for other letters, whereas if they had been separate phonemes from way
back, I expected to find more, many times more.


Well, any such argument would have to be based on a careful statistical analysis and not a gut feeling - especially if you want people to believe you rather than a couple of centuries of scholarship.

It is for these four reasons that I say that sin and shin were the same
phoneme, at least, in pre-Galut Babel Hebrew.

Karl W. Randolph.




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





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