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

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  • From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • To: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>, "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 20:21:15 +0100

Oh come on Vadim! This example only shows the difference between an
unaccented
*written* o in Russian. But any old fool can see that the accented written o
and
the unaccented written o represent two completely different phonemes and so
this
example has no more relevance than my pointing out the difference between the
s in
bees and the s in lots.


-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Vadim Cherny
Sent: Mon 10/3/2005 8:06 PM
To: Peter Kirk
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] consonant vowel order of )EHYEH & YAHWEH

>>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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