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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?

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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 Semitic languages had no written vowels?
  • Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 13:48:03 +0100

On 27/04/2005 12:16, Vadim Cherny wrote:

...


My mistake about Egyptian. But, then, how much do we really know about the
Ancient Egyptian vowels? All we know, I think, is mere guesswork. Egyptian
also seems close to Semitic in the root system.


We have learned quite a lot over two centuries since Champollion. But I agree that Egyptian is quite close to Semitic. But many Arabic script languages like Persian, Urdu, Uighur and old Malay are not - except for a large number of Arabic loan words.


And many languages including English omit semantically
significant data - even Russian, which normally fails to distinguish in
the orthography e.g. muka "flour" from muka "torment" (a stress
difference), and vsye "all (plural)" from vsyo "all (neuter singular)".


The Russian examples are incorrect, ...


How so? Except in books for beginners, мука "flour" (stress on а) and мука "torment" (stress on у) are written identically. I know that все "all (neuter singular)" can be written всё, to distinguish it from все "all (plural)", but the dots are in practice usually omitted. If I have got this wrong, please correct me specifically.

... but I accept your point that other
languages omit semantically significant stress. A likely explanation for
this, in my opinion, is that stress differentiated based on syntactical
usage. Thus, English speaker cannot confuse recOrd and rEcord even with
wrong stress because of the syntactical difference. So, stress is meaningful
but usually unessential.


Just as in Semitic languages vowels are meaningful but usually inessential, because they can be derived from the context. Orthographies make the distinctions which are necessary for clear understanding, but sometimes do not make inessential distinctions.
...

I would say that two vowels in Abkhaz are really allophones, originally one
vowel. ...


No. There are many allophones, determined by the phonological context. But there are two vowels which offer a real contrast, as has been proved by certain linguists.

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



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