Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
> 
> On 9/18/05, Karl Randolph wrote:
> 
> > Now I have another problem, and that is the lack of time. I don't
> > respond to all the letters on this list that I want to for the same
> > reason. And of the letters I respond to, I often give short,
> > incomplete answers assuming understanding to only certain
> > points brought out by the letter I'm responding to. The number
> > of times I have to respond to misunderstandings shows the
> > fallacy of that practice.
> 
> You'll save probably a lot of time of misunderstandings if you
> become aware of the cognate evidence.  In any case, what you
> are saying is that I showed you the evidence, but you have no
> time to review it because it is so large.
> 
My objection to the use of cognate languages starts at a 
different level than just looking at the mere amount of 
study that has been spent on it.

To give an example from another field: I was taught that 
science was recognizable from other studies by the use of 
the scientific method. That method, as defined by Dr. G.G. 
Simpson et. al., limited science to the study of observable 
phenomena where the observations must be repeatable. 
If a study does not meet both criteria, it cannot be 
scientific. Then Dr. Simpson defined evolution as the 
belief that all life descended from simple common 
ancestors by natural means over long periods of time. By 
definition, this is inobservable. Illogically he had 
contradicted his definition of science in his definition of 
evolution, yet he called it a scientific fact. Because 
evolution as defined violates science as defined, it cannot 
be a scientific theory. No mountain of data is going to 
impress me as long as this foundational objection is not 
met.

Similarly, no mountain of data from cognate languages 
will sway me as long as certain questions remain 
unanswered. First, why should be assume that if certain 
patterns exist in cognate languages, that they were 
originally in Biblical Hebrew and not merely imported into 
post Biblical Hebrew? You mentioned similarities 
between Ugaritic and Arabic; seeing as both had northern 
Semitic origins, what's to prevent their similarities having a 
common source, one not shared by Biblical Hebrew, or 
even early Aramaic? Seeing as Aramaic fulfilled the same 
function in the second half of the first millennium BC 
as Latin did a thousand years later, was it, like Latin, 
typified by a frozen spelling that masked changes in 
pronunciation, among which were new phones and 
phonemes? You are making assumptions that I don't 
share.

> > > Biblical Hebrew is inseparable from the Massorah.
> >
> > I was taught (correct me if this information is wrong) that
> > even today it is considered good form in a synagog to read
> > Tanakh in unpointed Hebrew. And the scrolls used have the
> > Masoretic text only without points. That is the text I have
> > been using. What I use is not an artificial construction on
> > my part, rather it is downloaded and I use it unchanged.
> 
> The scrolls have the Massoretic text only.  But reading them
> without the Massoretic system is not "good form."  In fact, a
> good case can be made that you're supposed to read them
> with the Aramaic targum interspaced and some early
> manuscripts with Massoretic cantillation have the Torah
> interspaced with Aramaic targum.
> 
Were these latter scrolls for worship, or aids for study 
only? I seem to recall an earlier discussion that claimed 
that the DSS often added materes lectiones as study 
aids, but the official scrolls in the temple tended to 
leave them out. So likewise, the examples you give are 
for study, not worship.

>...
> 
> > 3) continuation of #2, when new phones and phonemes appear
> > in a language, new letters appear in the language to express the
> > new sounds. E.g. Umlauted vowels.
> 
> This is just wrong, especially for Semitic writing.  A good example
> case is the Arabic alphabet:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Arabic_alphabet
> Of course, I guess you'll argue that Arabic now didn't have these
> 28 phonemes until the 7th century CE when they were
> first clearly differentiated.  But how can you then explain that the
> different phonemes developed exactly along the same lines as
> Ugaritic?
> 
Assuming that that wikipedia article is accurate, we find 
that the Arabs originally wrote in other languages, in the 
same manner as Europeans wrote in Latin rather than 
their vernaculars for centuries. When the Arabs for 
religious reasons wrote large documents in Arabic, they 
had the graphemes to indicate their recognized 
phonemes. Since then, has their spelling frozen?

I find a similar situation today in Cantonese: even though 
it is a recognizable language, most of the people who 
speak it write in Mandarin. Unlike pre-seventh century 
Arabic, it does have characters to indicate Cantonese 
words, so many that it is possible to write complete 
sentences without using a single character shared with 
Mandarin, yet it is rare to find Cantonese writing.

> > These are historically attested to uses of alphabetic writing,
> > therefore when we find Hebrew, which had phonetic and fluid
> > spelling for eight centuries (Moses to the Babylonian Captivity),
> 
> You don't know how Hebrew was spelled in the time of Moses and
> it is not "historically attested" then, whenever you think Moses lived.
> 
We simply have to trust the scribes, that they accurately 
transmitted the text. If we can't trust the scribes, then we 
should shut the door on the study of Biblical Hebrew, and 
claim that detailed study of Hebrew starts with the DSS.

That these major documents from the dawn of alphabetic 
writing when graphemes were freely added or subtracted 
to fit the spoken language, their use of 22 graphemes is 
evidence that the language originally had 22 recognized 
consonantal phonemes. Just as Arabic when the first 
major documents were written in it, it had the graphemes 
to indicate its 28 consonantal phonemes, so Torah's 22 
graphemes indicate its original linguistic structure for 
the time of the writing.

> > when it used only 22 graphemes, that is not only lack of evidence
> > for the greater number of phones found in later Hebrew, it is also
> > evidence of lack, that those phones were never in the language
> > until later. Not proof, but evidence none the less.
> 
> Yitzhak Sapir

To summarize, data are useless unless they can be 
integrated into a theoretical construct. If the data can be 
integrated into more than one theoretical construct, then 
the question becomes which is the correct theoretical 
construct? The answer may be a third theoretical construct 
that neither of the first two considered.

You start with the theory that the later writing with 
indicators for more than the 22 consonantal phonemes 
show that these extra phonemes always existed in the 
language. I claim that starting with the returnees from the 
Babylonian Captivity that they bastardized a language 
that they did not natively speak, but one that they used in 
the same manner as Latin in the medieval period. Already 
by the time of the LXX the pronunciation no longer 
reflected Biblical Hebrew, rather closer to the Aramaic of 
the period. Without access to native speakers from the 
relevant periods, we cannot answer which theory is 
correct. Both theories provide for a consistent integration 
of the data. That your theory is today more widely held 
does not mean that it is correct.

Karl W. Randolph.

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