Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

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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