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

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] yhwh pronunciation
  • Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 12:47:17 +0100

On 21/07/2005 11:44, Read, James C wrote:

>Yes, James, this does make sense, at least to me as a linguist. Your
>explanation of how Hebrew W became Greek beta in IABE etc is good, and
>this is good evidence for a pronunciation Ya(h)ve derived from Yahwe;
>the Greek forms IAOUE and IAOUAI also clearly support the pronunciation
>Yahwe. So Rolf is wrong to state that there is no ancient evidence for
>Yahwe.

Do you know where these transliterations come from? Which cultures?
Which dialects? What dates? Which MSS? I just knew about them because
I read about them once in an Anchor Bible Dictionary. But I would
be very interested in learning more about their actual sources.


You might like to look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iaoue where these transliterations are discussed, with links to supporting documentation.


The Greek forms IAOUE and IAOUAI seem to strongly support a trisyllabic
pronunciation with long middle o/u vowel. I think it is reasonably clear
that the initial I is supposed to represent the yodh consonant. And that
the first vowel was an 'a' and that the 'he' we read in b-hebrew is meant
to be in this position 'IA.H.OU.E/AI'. Which all seems to bolster the
evidence we have seen in hebrew names (Yaho/Yahu) that there was clearly a
long o/u vowel understood to rightly reside in the 2nd syllable.


The issue is not this simple. The Greek letter pair OU (omicron-upsilon) was commonly used in transliterations to represent a consonantal W sound, as well as a U vowel, English "oo". Also, by this time AI (alpha-iota) was probably pronounced like a long E, or English "ai". So IAOUE/IAOUAI might represent either Ya(h)u(h)e or Yahwe. I note that U (upsilon) on its own was not used for a consonantal W, so this transliteration would seem to rule out a pronunciation Ya(h)owe.


I'm sure I read somewhere that IABE transliteration was of Samaritan influence
but am not sure of the origin of such a conclusion. But if this is true
would not this just suggest a mere dialectal variation of the more authentic
yehudan trisyllabic version 'YaHoWaH/YaHoaH'.


Yes, this does seem to be true. From that Wikipedia article, quoting the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition:

Theodoret (d. c. 457), born in Antioch, writes that the Samaritans pronounced the name IaBe (in another passage, IaBai), the Jews Aia.

By your argument, the more authentic version must be Aia.


Finally, I find it difficult to entertain the idea that the final 'he' was
nothing more than matres lectionis because the consonant was clearly part
of the orginal root 'HWH' which is the verb in question. ...


Well, here you have not recognised that the final he in the root HWH, as in almost all "lamed-he" verbs, is in fact a mater lectionis, which is never pronounced in any form of the verb. In fact these verbs were originally "lamed-yod" or "lamed-vav". Gesenius (GKC 75a) writes: "In Hebrew, instead of the original VAV or YOD at the end of the word, a HE always appears (except in the ptcp. pass. Qal) as a purely orthographic indication of a final vowel". There are a few verbs (e.g. GBH., TMH., MHH.) where the third root consonant is a real pronounced he, distinguished in writing by a mappiq, but HWH is not one of these.

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



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