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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] yhwh pronunciation

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] yhwh pronunciation
  • Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 23:31:27 +0100

On 20/07/2005 14:47, Rolf Furuli wrote:

...

Or indeed this form could have been pronounced YAHWE, as these letters
predated the wide use of matres lectionis, and most interpreters
understand the final he of YHWH (however it is pronounced) as a mater
lectionis.


I cannot imagine that any Hebrew linguist would suggest that the YHW in the
Elephantine papyri was pronounced YAHWE. In that case we would expect a
final H. ...


Rolf, can I ask you a simple question. Is word final he used regularly as a mater lectionis in the Elephantine papyri? Was it always written for a word final E vowel? I don't know the answer to this question. But if a final he was generally omitted for a final E vowel, the normal way of writing Yahwe would have been YHW, exactly as found. Of course this form would be ambiguous between an ending in -we, -o and -u, at least if waw was at least sometimes used as a mater lectionis by that time.

...

Not at all. There is a general phonological rule by which an original
qamats in this position is reduced to sheva, and a patah is impossible in
this position.


Your words are both right and wrong. The Masoretes used the rule you mention, and it
may have been very old, because the Masoretic vowel tradition seems to go
back to the B.C.E. ...


And our evidence for the pronunciation of names starting Yeho- is largely from the Masoretic pronunciation. Some of these names of course exist in Greek, Latin etc from pre-Masoretic times, but the Greek forms generally start IW- i.e. iota-omega, which shows complete loss of the initial short vowel and so doesn't help us to reconstruct it.

... There is good evidence that the tetragrammaton existed
before the matres were invented, and this means that all the four letters were used as consonants
and not as vowels.


Now this is interesting. Do you have evidence for the Tetragrammaton form, YHWH including a final he, from earlier than the Elephantine letters, so pre-exilic? What evidence? And does it actuall predate the first recorded use of matres lectionis?

The two independent forms of the divine name found in the Tanakh are YH and YHWH. My point was that the form YH in proper nouns as a rule comes at the end of the name. In the few instances were these letters are the first element of the name ( I count 14 such names with a Yah-element that can refer to the abbreviated divine name), there is no vowel following the H. So the particular name is formed on the basis of the abbreviated divine name YH and not on the basis of the full name YHWH. ...


What names are you referring to? I know of no names starting yod-he with no following holam.

... To argue that the "a" vowel (actually qamets and not patah) ...


If a Hebrew word starts with yod-qamets-he with no vowel following the he, by a regular rule the qamets is not an "a" vowel but is pronounced as an "o". But I know of no names or other words which fit this pattern. Of course if you are in fact referring not to a "YAH-element" but to the independent word YAH, the vowel is indeed qamets.

... of this YAH-element suggests that the full name YHWH was pronounced YAHWE betrays a lack of phonological knowledge. ...


Indeed, which is one reason why I did not argue this.

...

The name Yeho$ua is interesting in our context because it has four consonants just as YHWH, ...


This depends what you mean by "consonants". Yeho$ua` as normally spelled has not four but five or six letters, of which four are pronounced consonants and the other one or two are matres lectionis. YHWH has four letters, but I hold that one of these is a mater lectionis, and the word consists only of three consonants. I note that the English pronunciation Jehovah is similar, consisting of four nominal consonants but in fact only three pronounced consonants - because final h is silent in English as normally in Hebrew.

... and because the the first syllable of the divine element has shewa and the second syllable has holem. This shows that the short vowel shewa would be found in such a word with three syllables and not only in longer words. ...


Agreed, but I never disputed this.

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



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