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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] changes in 'th'

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] changes in 'th'
  • Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 06:12:03 -0700

On 23/04/2004 04:05, Trevor Peterson wrote:

... I don't see any reason to associate tet with these forms--the emphatics are common to all Semitic languages, and where their pronunciation remains distinctive, it is always a double articulation, in combination with either ayin or alef.


Perhaps Karl was thinking this way because Hebrew tet corresponds historically to Greek theta. But in classical Greek theta was an aspirated plosive, not a fricative. And I remember seeing some suggestion that in Phoenician, from which the Greek alphabet was borrowed, tet was aspirated rather than pharyngealised. I'm not sure how that could be established, except possibly from Greek or Latin renderings of Phoenician or Carthaginian place names or texts. But Hebrew tet does not seem to have been aspirated, because in LXX it is consistently rendered by Greek tau, whereas Hebrew tav is more commonly rendered by theta.

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





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