Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor Peterson" <abuian AT access4less.net>]

----- Original Message Follows -----
From: "UUC" <unikom_ug AT mail.ru>
To: "Trevor Peterson" <abuian AT access4less.net>,
<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written
vowels?
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 15:42:50 +0300

> I don't exclude that some vowelless script predates
> cuneiform. I know this is an unorthodox view. But we have
> too little epigraphic material to be certain otherwise.

True, but we do have epigraphic West Semitic, and its
derivation from Egyptian is fairly well established. If our
comparatively significant body of evidence for Egyptian and
cuneiform script development makes it nearly impossible to
say which came first, then it seems like a stretch to
suppose that West Semitic script predates either one. But
even if it did originate before, why wouldn't they have
chosen a different writing system as the language changed?
If Ugaritic was being written side-by-side with logosyllabic
Akkadian, and as you say at this point the vowels were
differentiated, why would they not have been inspired to
write vowels? It seems to me that your theory requires an
explanation of this point. If a vowelless writing system can
only be explained by an absence of vowel differentiation,
then significant phonemic differentiation of vowels would
have created enormous pressure to adapt the writing system.
And the contact with cuneiform would have compounded this
pressure, because it was clearly evident that a writing
system could accommodate vowels. Indeed, Ugaritic script
does seem to have been influenced by cuneiform in its
wedge-formation. So why not orthographic modifications?
Vowel writing did eventually develop in the form of matres
lectionis, but in Phoenician, for instance, it never seems
to have caught on. Why not, if it is so inconceivable that a
vowelless writing system would work for a language that
differentiates vowels?

> Also, cuneiform is reasonably developed writing. Syllabic
> cuneiform, at any rate, is quite late.

Quite late with reference to what? The origin of language?
If that's the issue, we don't have any evidence of writing
that goes back anywhere near the beginning.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics