Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

This is a good point. Pronunciation when?

Personally, I think that when the alphabet was first 
developed, it stood for one letter, one consonant. Only 
later, and I think this happened during the Second Temple 
period and later, were additional sounds added to the 
letters.

Secondly, I suspect that each consonant had a vowel 
following it, like modern Japanese. However, the vowel 
was not specified.

Third, how early were the matres  lectionis invented? I 
think it was very early. I saw photographs of one 
inscribed stone, first in a book (for the life of me, I 
don't remember which one) later on a flakey internet site 
(this time larger and in color) showing a woman blowing a 
recorder/flute and a man dancing. The inscription below 
is in Proto-Sinaitic, read left to right, 

L( QBR.Z.LHSR.H(DW.DMYT.LMRT 

(periods for dots between words, space for a missing dot). 
Apparently Proto-Sinaitic could be written either left to 
right or right to left. With a couple of minor variations, 
this is good Biblical Hebrew. From this inscription, it 
looks as if matres lectionis were in use already during 
Proto-Sinaitic times.

So what was the original pronunciation of YHWH? If the W 
was a matre lectionis, it could have been YaHoWHe, or if 
the indication of a name would be Hu pronunciation at the 
end, YaHoWHu, shortened when combined in a name as YaHoW-, 
as in YHWXNN pronounced YaHoWXaNaNe or something like that.

Too bad we can't interview native speakers. That would 
clear up a lot of theses questions.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Uri Hurwitz" <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>

> 
>     What compounds this issue  is the fact that YHWH as a deity was 
> definitely attested in the Mesha Inscription, that is, the end of 
> the ninth century BCE; there is no reason to assume  that this was 
> a brand new deity. It may well have been worshipped some centuries 
> before that as the Egyptian  "The People of YHW" strongly suggests, 
> even if the expression refers to a toponym.
>    During these centuries, before the name became taboo, its 
> pronounciation may well have changed, both according to regions and 
> with time. So when the attempt is made to reconstruct it one may 
> well ask  --  to what period,  to the way it was pronounced by the 
> Masoretes, by writers of the DSS, by scribes in the Persian period, 
> by those who erected the first temple?
> 
>   Uri

-- 
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