Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

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

> 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.

The only example that I know of from sin to samekh is in Judges to indicate a 
dialectal pronunciation. Can you give some other examples?

Do you have any other examples from sin to tsada? The one you give, is it 
possible that this is an example where the pronunciation shifted? The 
pronunciation with the tsada as a verb or noun with two exceptions is found 
only in early writings, while with the sin is only later, the transition 
point appears to have been during the time of the judges.

As for the sin : shin crossovers, either the text I use is bad, or it is found in $GY), $YX, $QD, $TM and a couple of others. 
> >... 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.

Just because Aramaic and Arabic have distinct forms does not mean that in 
Hebrew they were not from the same root. There are a couple of other examples 
like this that I noticed, but I don’t remember which ones they were.
> >... 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.

Has any such statistical analysis been done?  .   .   .   .   .   I didn‘t 
think so.

When I was entering my dictionary into my computer, I noticed that there are 
only a few cases where lexemes are differentiated by the use of sin or shin. 
The two letters together make up one of the most commonly used letters in the 
alphabet. Yes, there is $BR (sin) to look to with expectation and hope and 
$BR (shin) to break apart, but how many others are there? How many should we 
expect to find? Their rarity is noticeable.
> >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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