Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 17/11/2004 05:52, Yigal Levin wrote:

> Dear Karl,
>
> The fact that Hebrew spells the name Alexander (who arrived of the scene in
> 333 BCE) as "Aleksander" is proof enough that at least at that time, Hebrew
> did not have an /x/ sound.
> There is absolutely no proof that Samekh ever had anything other than an /s/
> sound, though it was obviously different originally (in early Canaanite)
> than Sin.
>
> Yigal
>  

Yigal, what is actually the dating of this Hebrew rendering with 
kaf-samekh, or is it kaf-sin? I ask because the Arabic rendering (when 
not Dhul Karnain) has the k and s reversed (and the Al- reinterpreted as 
the Arabic article), al-Iskandar, compare also city names like 
a-Iskandariya = Alexandria, and Iskenderun = Alexandretta in Turkey. And 
that is, I think, evidence that at that time Greek xi was pronounced 
more like [sk] than [ks].

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