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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] consonant vowel order of )EHYEH & YAHWEH

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] consonant vowel order of )EHYEH & YAHWEH
  • Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 23:21:15 +0500

On 27/09/2005 04:39, Read, James C wrote:

...

However, try as I might I just cannot humanly pronounce this word with such syllabic separations without inserting a vocal schwa between the two syllables:

Ya (cv) H: (cv) WeH (cv(c))

Maybe this is just a limitation of my personal pronuniciation capabilities but the form Yahweh as a bisyllabic word would seem to break the rules of the consonant/vowel structure of b-hebrew words.


I think this is because of your limitations as an English speaker, because in English the sound [h] is never used at the end of a syllable. However, for speakers of some other languages e.g. Arabic which use syllable final [h], and for those trained in phonetics like myself, this syllable final [h] is not a problem at all. And it doesn't seem to have been a problem for Hebrew speakers at one time - but it may have become one later, for there is a tendency in later editions of the Hebrew Bible to replace silent sheva under he and under other "guttural" consonants with a non-silent "composite sheva". But this is certainly not an argument that there was originally a vowel in the middle of the divine name.

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






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