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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] logograms--an ode to Hebrew

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: George F Somsel <gfsomsel AT juno.com>
  • To: vadim_lv AT center-tv.net
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] logograms--an ode to Hebrew
  • Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:01:40 -0600

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 17:24:55 +0200 "Vadim Cherny"
<vadim_lv AT center-tv.net> writes:
> Dear Liz,
>
> > Akkadian is derived from Sumerian and
> > that Sumerian and Egyptian hieroglyphs vie for the status of
> oldest
> > written language.
>
> My guess is that Hebrew (or Semitic, for this matter) is an
> artificial
> grammatical structure overlaid on the existing natural ("mumbling")
> language.
>
> > Second, many Hebrew roots have only two letters, qm, b', lk, and
> these
> > are the most common. It is easy to see how these could have
> started out
> > as grunts.
>
> No argument about this. The issue is the language as we know it,
> with very
> strict three-letter roots (two-letter ones received waw, hey,
> ayn-ayn, etc).
> And that language strongly seems based on certain arbitrary
> assumptions,
> foremost--the fixed root length.
>
> But, again and again, what I see as the biggest question is that
> convention
> of specifically three-"letter" roots predates the concept of letter.
> At the
> time when the root length was fixed as three letters, the concept of
> letter
> did not exist yet.
>
> Vadim Cherny
>
> _______________________________________________

Actually, Accadian is NOT derived from Sumerian. The two languages are
not even in the same family. What Accadiaan got from Sumerian was it
syllabary.

george
gfsomsel
___________




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