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  • From: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Why assume the Masoretes recorded spoken Hebrew?
  • Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 11:12:30 +0200

Modern spoken Hebrew completely lost schwa and dagesh, certainly dagesh kal,
in only a century since its reinstatement as living language. Is it plausible
that schwa and dagesh persisted for millennia, to be heard by Masoretes?
Hardly so.

No other language has general plosification of word-intitial fricative, or
the fricative following closed syllable. The dagesh kal does not correspond
to any existing phonological tradition.

So why Masoretes added schwa and dagesh? They did not write grammar, but
faithfully recorded the synchronic phonetics. Could the actually "hear" schwa
and dagesh?

For a possible answer, note that other masoretic marks are only used for
singing. Why assume that schwa and dagesh were intended for speech? What if
the Masoretes intended them only for cantillation, and Ben-Yehuda wrongly
applied schwa and dagesh to spoken Hebrew?

The dagesh kal and schwa are clearly pronounced--exactly where the Masoretes
put them--in singing. After phonological experiments with opera singers
(special thanks to Irene Zarutzki), several facts became clear:

while post-tonic gemination occurs in speech, plosification (dagesh kal) and
vocal schwa consistently occur only in laryngeal singing

since singing requires the consonants to be "coated" with vowels on both
sides, schwa after closed syllable must be vocal

when two consonants occur in a row, stop must be made between them to clearly
sing the second consonant (nata n.bakar; niz.kar). After-stop fricatives tend
to be sung more like plosives.

Syllable-final consonants are softened, "fricativized." The resulting
elongation of "fricativized" consonant turns into semi-vowel, making the
vocal schwa.

Two plosives in a row are not pronounceable. This is why word-initial
plosification is lost after b, k, l prepositions (boker - b(e)voker), but not
after the sustained m preposition (m:boker).

I also tested the singing of the sophit letters. They are indeed sung
differently from the medial counterparts, because their--and only
their--amalgamation with subsequent word-initial consonant, especially with
plosive, requires an epenthetic sound (mele kh(u)zadok). This effect, evident
is singing, is only slightly perceptible in speech, suggesting that ancient
language was more musical.

I presume throughout that Masoretes intended each mark for a single
phenomenon. The dagesh (both hazak and kal) is a stop; gemination or
plosification is straightforward phonological consequence of stop. All schwas
were intended as vocal.

I would appreciate comments and discussion of this topic.


Vadim Cherny





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