Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 04/10/2005 02:25, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> > Oh come on Vadim! This example only shows the difference between an 
> unaccented
> *written* o in Russian.
>  
> The example shows that unaccented long a can be pronounced as short o.


No, Vadim, vice versa in your Russian example. In Russian the phoneme 
"o" when it becomes unaccented is pronounced as a short "a" sound, or in 
fact more like English short "u", but in any case indistinguishable from 
unaccented "a". So, if Russian did have any relevance here, it would not 
support your theory. But then I don't accept that it has any relevance, 
for the overall phonological systems of Russian and Hebrew are extremely 
different.

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