Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 9/17/05, Karl Randolph wrote:

> If the article gives the same arguments that you just
> did, arguments based on assumptions that cannot be
> confirmed, then I'll just have to conclude that the
> article gives speculations and no more.

Which assumptions do you identify above that are simply
"speculations" and no more and cannot be confirmed? 
Could you please identify them specifically?  

In fact, from what I can see, most of what I wrote above can 
be confirmed simply by reading any text in Arabic, Aramaic, 
and Ugaritic, of which only Ugaritic is not a living language.  
Furthermore, many of the sound shifts noted above are 
sometimes present in various dialects of spoken Arabic.  It's 
one thing to say something cannot be confirmed.  It's another 
thing to be given specific languages where reading texts of 
that language will demonstrate and confirm what I wrote, and 
just not read them.  I asked you now twice, without answer, 
and I ask again now, did you read any sizeable material in 
Aramaic, Arabic, and Ugaritic?  Ugaritic should be especially 
suitable, because like Biblical Hebrew, it is a dead language, 
but unlike Biblical Hebrew, comes mostly without vowels or 
Massoretic notes, so it's perfect for your type of reading.  The 
corpus is also available (from what I understand, almost 
completely) online:

http://www.labherm.filol.csic.es/sapanu2003/UDBTEXTS.pdf

The above website also has a concordance (in Spanish, but
that can't stop anyone):

http://www.labherm.filol.csic.es/sapanu2003/CUW.zip

For good measure, I'll also include a link to their list of
publications:

http://www.labherm.filol.csic.es/sapanu2004/publicaciones.html

> Why try to prove something that is unprovable, which
> at the same time cannot be disproven?

You tell me.  You're the one that I perceive is trying to prove 
the following assumptions or assumptions that would be 
false if the following are not assumed:

1) The Massoretic marks of Sin and Shin were not present
in the original language in which the Torah was written and
do not differentiate between semantic meanings.
2) There are no other similar letters to Sin and Shin which
were phonemically different in the original language in which
the Torah was written but were written with the same 
grapheme.
3) There are no other similar letters to Sin and Shin which
were phonemically different in a more ancient stage of the
language but by the time that the Torah was written had 
already merged into a single phoneme.

Yitzhak Sapir