Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

>===== Original Message From Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org> =====
>But would the
>Aramaic first person possessive suffix ever be -i?

yes

>And if the same vowel
>shift had occurred, would there not be O's (omicrons) rather than A's
>(alphas) in "lama sabachtani"?

Not all of them, since the shift outside of Phoenician doesn't seem to have 
affected short-a. Also, as I said, the contact with Hebrew could have played 
a 
role. If the shift was in its early stages, the well-known Hebrew form elohim 
could have had an influence in speeding the change with this particular word. 
I think we also have to question how well Greek writers and/or scribes were 
able to render the Aramaic sounds. If the sound was somewhere between /a/ and 
/o/, and elohim was already familiar, I would think it much easier to drift 
toward the /o/ end in rendering it.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics