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

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  • From: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • To: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] consonant vowel order of )EHYEH & YAHWEH
  • Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 22:06:12 +0300

Now, when you pronounce waw in YHWH as v, syllable-final guttural hey is no problem (I don't suggest that pronunciation, just following your example) if you distinctly syllabify the word, yh.vh or even yh.(bh)h. When, however, you use soft w-u, such stop is almost lost, and hey disappears.
Since, however, hey does not take schwa, hey was vocalized, and yeh.wa became ye.ho.wa.

When sheva under a guttural consonant becomes vocalised, the vocalisation is always a composite sheva and always matches the preceding vowel. So there is no way that an "o" vowel, or any kind of long vowel like the holam often postulated, could have found its way into the divine name by this kind of process.

The first vowel is more or less "a," thus composite schwa is with "a," too, as you correctly noted.
Short a do become o - short o. Consider davAr - *dAvar - dOivor. In Ashkenazic, first kamatz elongated to holam, while the second kamatz, now in closed unaccented syllable, actually shortened to short o sound. The same process created kamatz-katan out of kamatz. I wouldn't bet about the English pronunciation, though the effect seems to be there, but Russian examples are plenty: малина is more or less pronounced молина.

Vadim Cherny




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