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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Why assume the Masoretes recorded spoken Hebrew?

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why assume the Masoretes recorded spoken Hebrew?
  • Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 21:32:22 +0000

On 09/02/2005 09:12, Vadim Cherny wrote:

Modern spoken Hebrew completely lost schwa and dagesh, certainly dagesh kal,
...


Not true. It still has dagesh kal distinction in bet, in pe and in kaf, i.e. quite different sounds corresponding to presence or absence of dagesh kal.

... in only a century since its reinstatement as living language. ...


Not true. The phonetic differences between modern and earlier Hebrew long predate the late 19th century "reinstatement" of spoken Hebrew.

... Is it plausible that schwa and dagesh persisted for millennia, to be
heard by Masoretes? Hardly so.


Totally plausible. Many comparable linguistic features are known and can be proved to have persisted for much longer than this in an unwritten environment.

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.


This sentence is nonsense because it is based on attacking a complete straw man. As clearly indicated by comparison with cognate languages and ancient transliterations, the process in Hebrew was fricativisation of intervocal plosives. This feature is well attested in many languages e.g. Spanish and modern Greek. I don't think anyone claims that what happened was the opposite process you described. The dagesh kal is necessary to indicate unambiguously the plosive pronunciation, because there is sometimes ambuiguity e.g. word initially, and after a consonant because sometimes a short vowel has been lost leading to a fricativised plosive immediately following another consonant.

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. ...


More precisely, SOME other masoretic marks, the accents, are used only for chanting. But there are many good reasons for distinguishing clearly between the vowel points used for normal pronunciation and the accents used for chanting. For example, except for a few clearly understood exceptions, there is one vowel point per consonantal letter and one accent per phonological word - but only if sheva is counted as a vowel point. Sheva is also in a fixed position under the letter and accents are fitted around it. The position of sheva and dagesh is clearly related to an individual letter with which it fits, and not to the whole word or to the stressed syllable of the word as accents are.

... 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?


This is not assumed, this is clearly demonstrated by the argument above - and also by centuries of well attested pronunciation and transliteration from long before Ben Yehuda.


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



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