Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 19/09/2005 04:43, MarjorieAlley AT cs.com wrote:

> Hi ---
>
> I am curious about why the hard pe in the Hebrew names Pinchas (English 
> Phinehas) and Peleg are spelled with a phi instead of a pi in the LXX.
>
> Why did the LXX spirantize the pe when they transliterated the names?  Does 
> this reflect a different Hebrew pronunciation of the names or is there some 
> other reason?
>  

The answer is a simple one: Greek phi was not a "spirant" or fricative 
at the time when the LXX was translated, but was an aspirated plosive, 
in fact just like English p.

I note that LXX generally used kappa for Hebrew qof and khi for Hebrew 
kaf, also tau for Hebrew tet and theta for Hebrew tav. This is probbaly 
because the "emphasised" consonants qof and tet were not aspirated in 
Hebrew and so rendered as the non-aspirated kappa and tau, whereas kaf 
and tav, and probably also pe, were aspirated in Hebrew and so rendered 
with aspirated khi, tau and pi.

At a later stage, sometime during the Hellenistic period, the aspirated 
plosives changed into fricatives - in all environments in Greek, but not 
word initially in Hebrew. The anomalies which Karl notes may date from a 
time when these changes were in progress.

> And I wonder why the English transliteration carried over the phi for 
> Phinehas, but not for Peleg?
>  

I suspect this is because more familiar names like Phinehas were kept in 
their traditional Greek or Latin forms, whereas less well known ones 
like Peleg were conformed to the Hebrew.

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



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