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

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  • From: Trevor Peterson <abuian AT access4less.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?
  • Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 15:34:07 -0400

Vadim Cherny wrote:
what if the ancient Hebrew writing was not letters as we use them in

modern languages (and even in some ancient languages such as Greek) giving
every sound, rather it was a syllabery? And that each syllable was a
consonant followed by a vowel?

Cuneiform has diiferent signs for syllables differing by vowel. Hebrew has
no such distinction. I suggest that proto-West Semitic or Egyptian script
was syllabary (there was not concept of individual letters yet), but since
the language had a single vowel, syllables were equivalent to consonants.

You would have to add that a character could represent a letter by itself without a vowel or a letter preceded by a vowel. At this point, there is little practical difference between this and saying that it doesn't say anything about vowels at all. Incidentally, the idea that West Semitic script is a syllabary has already been advanced. I'm not terribly familiar with the theory, but it has been discussed several times on the ANE list. The general outlook is that writing started with logograms, then logosyllabary, then syllabary (West Semitic), then alphabet. But as I recall, the point is supposed to be that the West Semitic syllabary allowed each character to represent a consonant followed by any (or no) vowel, so it's not quite what you're saying, but fairly close.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics




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