Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

I sent this originally in reply to Karl offlist. He then sent a very 
similar posting to the list, but slightly edited. Here is my reply to 
the original version.

Peter

On 19/02/2004 19:30, Karl Randolph wrote:

> ...
>
> Either the text I am using is not that good, or $GY) is spelled both ways, as 
> well as $YX, $QD, $TM and a couple of others that I can?t think of right away.
>  

BDB lists &GY) as "great" but $GY)H as "error"; &QD as "bind on" (but
"doubtful", and some emend the text of the one instance to $QD) but $QD
as "watch, wake"; &TM as "stop up" but $TM as its opposite "open" (but
again "doubtful" and sometimes emended because it occurs only once). No
clear evidence here; the last two are more likely to be copyists' errors
than evidence of true linguistic crossover. I think you may have
confused yourself here by using an unpointed text.

(NB & is the official transliteration for sin, $ for pointed shin, and #
for unpointed shin)

> As for the sin : samekh crossovers, the only one I remember is the one 
> indicating dialectal pronunciation in Judges. Can you give some examples?
>  

One that I remember is KA(AS "vexation, anger", which is spelled with
sin in Job only. Another is SFQ which is also written with sin in Job.
SFN is also spelled once with sin, but may also alternate with CFN. Also
SWG and SIYG are sometimes with sin, and not only in Job. But I accept
that this is partly a dialectal issue.

> As for the example of CXQ : $XQ , are we dealing with a pronunciation shift 
> that was reflected in the writing because Hebrew, at that time, was spelled 
> phonetically? With only two exceptions, CXQ as a verb or noun was used only 
> in early books (for the most part, the name Isaac continued to be spelled 
> with a tsada), while $XQ was consistantly used later. The date of that shift 
> appears to have been during the time of the judges.
>  

I agree this is a dialect issue.

> > > ... 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 there are cognates differently pronounced in Aramaic and Arabic 
> does not rule out that they were from the same root in Hebrew.
>  

If they are true cognates, this does rule it out. If you are claiming
that these words, or at least one of them, were borrowed back from
Hebrew into Aramaic and Arabic, it is just possible that there was only
one original root. But it seems rather unlikely that such common and
basic words are loans.

> There are a few other similar examples, but because the font on my computer 
> does not visibly distinguish between sin and shin, I don?t recognize them 
> just by looking at them and I don?t remember which ones they are.
>  

Let me know if you would like help finding a text and fonts which do
display the text correctly.



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