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b-hebrew - Re: Fwd: [b-hebrew] Samekh/Sin

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: Fwd: [b-hebrew] Samekh/Sin
  • Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:56:36 +0000

On 21/11/2004 17:37, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:

...

But, if /T/ was ever "th", it lost that value long
ago because, in the Coptic alphabet it is always written with
tau--and there is no theta in the Coptic alphabet, which is
derived from the Greek one.


Loprieno's phonetic transcription of Coptic certainly has no
theta, ...


Thanks for the clarification. The Coptic alphabet, according to http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n2636.pdf, certainly seems to have a theta (although variously names thethe, thita, tutte, tida) which clearly corresponds in shape, position in the alphabet and numeric value with the Greek theta. If this document is in fact based on false information, there may just be time to stop the letter being separately encoded in Unicode, but it looks to me like it is clearly attested.

The phonetic value is of course a separate issue. At one point this is given as [th], i.e. a sequence of the plosive [t] and a regular [h], rather than the phonetic theta. Perhaps the intention is an aspirated t, i.e. t with superscript h. This was also the ancient Greek pronunciation of theta, but I'm not sure when it shifted to the fricative like English th.

... he writes, "this aspiration" (optional aspiration of
t and other letters, leading them to sound like [th] etc) "is still
exhibited by some Coptic dialects such as Bohairic."


I guess this is a description of the pronunciation of the Coptic theta.


... Loprieno suggests that the AfroAsiatic *t. and *s. merge into
Eg. /d/, which in turn is realized as an ejective t. AfroAsiatic
emphatic velars *k. and *x. merge into /j-/ (commonly transcribed
d_), for example: AA *wrk. > Eg. w3d_ */`waRij-/ 'green', Sem *warq
(yaroq, in hebrew). However, this d_ is now closer to Tsade:
Tanis is transcribed Tsoan. Egyptian /d/ (heir of *t. and *s.) is
rendered by Semitic tet (t.) in Hebrew and Babylonian, whereas in
the other direction, Tet is rendered in Egyptian by either /d/ or /t/.


Here I wonder if we are confusing what happened to Afroasiatic cognates with what happened to loan words. These things can be very different, when we are talking about rather distantly related languages. Contrast English cognates (via Germanic) of Latin and Greek words with English loan forms of those words, e.g. "five" (cognate) vs. "quint-" (Latin loan) vs. "pent-" (Greek loan). The phonetic correspondences for cognates are quite different from those for loan words. There are even similar mismatches within Germanic: "ship" (cognate) vs. "skip" and "skiff" (loans from Norse).

This implies that the Egyptian transliteration of Hebrew sofer, or the Hebrew transliteration suf of Egyptian words for reeds, might be very different from how they would be written if they were in fact Afroasiatic cognates.

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






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