Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 02/08/2005 20:31, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> ...
>  
>
> > > ... True, Greeks generally omit he, but, as I wrote to Peter, that
> > > happens in the words that have other consonants. ...
> > >      
> > Not only in such words. Remember King Jehu, who in Greek becomes EIOU,
> > IHOU or IOU.
> >    
>
> But he is not omitted at all in these examples. It became iota or epsilon
> that is sometimes assimilated into o, making Iou.
>  

No, EI is a unit representing the first vowel of Yehu, like the eta in IHOU.

> Iao, on the contrary, has nothing for the first he if alpha is for schwa. If
> alpha is for he, as I suggest, then the word is not the verb. In the verb
> ihie, Greeks would not hear he as alpha, but as epsilon if light or perhaps
> as chi if heavily guttural.
>
>  
Greeks would hear he as a consonant, not a vowel, because it is a 
consonant. But they had no way of representing it in their script, so 
they omitted it. Or perhaps they simply heard nothing. But they didn't 
hear it as a vowel, and never transcribed it as a vowel.

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