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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, 04 May 2005 00:33:44 +0100

On 03/05/2005 20:20, Vadim Cherny wrote:

...

On how many pre-alphabet piel/paal Akkadian examples do you rely? Is the
difference between pre-alphabet Akkadian piel and paal really semantic,
beyond mere intensity? If you date "hieroglyphic" Semitic alphabet to 2000
BCE inscription, I don't think we have a meaningful number of earlier
Akkadian examples of piel semantically different from paal. ...


Well, if you "don't think", I suggest you go away and do your homework about this before you continue with your speculative theories.

... Besides,
Akkadian might be more developed. In the modern time, post-Soviet Ukrainians
try to develop their language from scratch, and do so primitively, instead
of accepting powerful Russian language.


Please lay off the Russian nationalism. Russian is only more powerful than Ukrainian in that it has had more guns behind it. The Ukrainians and most of your neighbours hate you Russians, and for very good reasons, because you have oppressed them and still interfere in their internal affairs. No wonder they don't want your language any more.

I likewise explain every morphological form. They all derived from the

davar form.

Just think of any two nouns which have the same consonants (and no
matres lectionis) but different vowels, and clearly different meanings.
Even an obvious pair like MELEK "king" and MALKA "queen" are
distinguished only by vowels (the final he in the latter is a mater
lectionis, a late development).


Why do you think hey is mater lectionis, and not consonantal suffix? I don't
think this view is universally accepted.


It is universally accepted. Stop saying "I don't think" when what you mean is that you are ignorant of the facts which every serious scholar knows.

...

Well, your assumption is very different to those of most scholars, and
myself.


Would you agree with these points:

- at some time, speechless humans received or developed a primitive language


Yes. But this process may have started before our ancestors were fully human. It certainly happened many tens of thousands of years ago, so is of little relevance to Hebrew.

- primitive language had a single grammatical form, nouns


No. We can only speculate, but just as likely the first words were commands, verbs in the imperative.

- Hebrew developed, ...


Yes

... accumulating grammatical forms


No. Hebrew demonstrably developed from an earlier language which seems to have had more grammatical forms. Hebrew may have added a few new ones of its own, but also dropped many of those of the earlier language.

- earlier stages of development of proto-Hebrew included progressively less
grammatical forms


No.

- at some time in prehistory, very primitive proto-Hebrew had a single
grammatical form, davar nouns


No.

- C'C' and C'C'C' nouns are perfectly suitable for humans beginning to speak


Certainly not. Consonants cannot be pronounced clearly without vowels. Quite probably vowels were initially more important than consonants. But we can only speculate.

...


You are right, I simplified the matter. Let's replace "davar nouns" with
"c'c' and c'c'c' nouns." Would you agree that proto-Hebrew at some time
consisted only of such nouns? This seems fairly obvious. This was a
single-vowel language.


No, I would not agree. This seems to me fairly obviously false.

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



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