Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

The beth without dagesh is almost but not quite like the british 'v'. It 
would have 
been more similar to the Spanish 'v' which is almost an Enlish 'v' but not 
quite 
there and in some words it sounds more like an English 'b' and in others it 
sounds
more like an English 'v' depending on the sounds that come before and after 
it.
The reason I hold this opinion is because the sounds of beth with and without 
dagesh 
must have been close enough for them to have been almost indistinguishable at 
some 
point in history. The only phonemes I am aware of that ehibit this behaviour 
are 
the Spanish examples I cited above.

Similarly I believe the hebrew daleth resembled the Spanish 'd' which is 
often heard 
as an aspirated 'd' but quite the 'th' sound of 'the'. Again, this is because 
of phonetic
reasoning.

In the case of the sin/shin it is possible that the ancient hebrews did not 
hear a great 
enough difference in their pronunciation to merit using two differing 
graphemes. Rather 
like the case of the two different 'l' sounds that exist in English. It is 
evident that 
they exist but the difference has not been big enough for me to ever hear an 
English 
person complain that there should be another grapheme to differentiate the 
two.

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Alexander Oldernes
Sent: Sat 10/8/2005 4:44 PM
To: b-hebrew
Subject: [b-hebrew]  Apparently Redundant Letters
 
Some of the Hebrew letters appears redundant, because the pronunciation has 
changed into sounds that are already used by other letters.

Redundant letters makes it hard to remember how to spell a word.
Therefore it's a good practice to distinguish the sounds of the letters, 
making it easier to remember the spellings.
We may not be sure of the original sounds, but I think it's important to 
indicate that these letters originally had different sounds.

I have always tried to distinguish these letters by pronouncing them 
differently.
The problem is that there are so many sources with different opinions on 
which sound is closest to the original pronunciation.

Therefore I would like to hear the general understanding among the b-hebrew 
readers.


My perception is based on "A modern grammar for classical Hebrew" (Garrett), 
and I have the following understanding of the apperantly redundant letters...

Beth (withouth dagheh) - V as in "very"
Waw - W as in "wish"

Gimel - GH as in "aghast"
Gimel with daghesh - G as in "good"

Daleth - TH as in "the"
Daleth with daghesh - D as in "dot"

Taw - TH as in "thin"
Taw with daghesh - T as in "tin"
Teth - T as in "tot"
Teth may have been pronounced more on the palate than its counterpart Taw, 
which seems to have been pronounced with the tongue on the back of the teeth 
and with a slight breathing.

Kaf with daghesh - K as in "keep"
Qof - a K at back of throat
The letter Qof was probably pronounced further back in the throat than Kaf.

Sin - S as in "seen"
Samekh - S as in "sack"
Sin is a softer S than the Samekh. I haven't managed to distinguish these two 
sounds.

Alef - The grammar book says this letter had "almost no sound". I believe it 
was a glottal stop (a very brief silence, air through the glottis is stopped)
Ayin - The grammar book says this letter is a glottal stop. I believe it's 
more like the Arabic Ayn - a voiced pharyngeal fricative, without a glottal 
stop.

Wikipedia has audio example of glottal stop and voiced pharyngeal fricative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Glottal_stop.ogg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Voiced_pharyngeal_fricative.ogg

If I have understood it correctly the name Be'er in Numbers 21:16 is to be 
pronounced Be-(no sound, glottal stop)-er,
and Ba'al in Judges 2:13 is to be pronounced Ba-(voiced pharyngeal fricative, 
withouth glottal stop)-al.


I look forward to hearing your perception on this subject.


Regards
Alexander Oldernes
Norway
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>From leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il  Sat Oct  8 14:13:31 2005
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Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 20:13:04 +0200
From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
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<6B84A53BD25BCA46B070A05DD8C8C9F874EEE2 AT KUDBEX01.kuds.kingston.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Eden
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Just a few points:

1. No one is claiming that "Eden" was a desert. Gen. 2:5 ff. FIRST tells of
the earth beig waterless and of God raising a "mist" (let's not go back to
that one!), and THEN says that God planted a garden in Eden and put man
there.

2. Vs. 8 clearly states that the garden was "eastward" (miqqedem). Assuming
that Genesis was written by an Israelite (Moses or otherwise), this would
NOT refer to the sources of the Nile.

3. Of the four rivers mentioned, the only two that are known are the Tigris
and the Euphrates. Whatever one thinks that "head" means, this refers to
Mesopotamia. The Gihon and the Pishon are not known. Identifying them with
the White and Blue Nile is pure conjecture.

4. The end of ch. 3 makes it clear, that after man was banished from the
garden, God made it unfindable, and guarded it with a cherub and a flaiming
sword. Anyone who takes the biblical story literally enough to search for
the garden in "real" geography, should take this litearlly as well. In my
opinion, what the book is saying, is that the garden is NOT in our "real
world", so don't bother to look for it.

5. Once again, those who take the story literally, should remember that
there was a great flood which probably wiped out most landmarks, anyway.

6. For those who don't take the story literally, the only "historical"
question is not where the garden was, but what ancient traditions influenced
the author when he composed his story.

Just my 6 cents worth.

Yigal

----- Original Message -----
From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 10:52 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Historical origin of Eden


>
> Vadim,
>
> I am particularly interested in your recent claims that head of nile river
> is
> more plausible candidate for biblical garden of eden.
>
> I have recently seen a documentary, 'The Real Eve', where a genetic
> scientist
> traces all women back to an original Mother in the East of Africa. She did
> this by means of an anomaly whereby mitochondrial DNA is handed down from
> mother to daughter only and not from father to daughter. Her research
> shows
> that all mankind came from East Africa and that all the worlds races came
> from
> splitting groups in Arabia after migrating from East Africa. The
> documentary
> claims that the human family would have had to cross over the red sea into
> Arabia from East Africa as the desert was far too unforgiving.
>
> However, I believe that the Nile river with it's source of fresh water
> would
> have been a much more forgiving route through the desert. No doubt during
> the
> long journey our ancestors would have passed down their memories of the
> lush
> tropics at the head of the Nile river and this would explain why all the
> world's
> cultures seem to have a story about a golden age which involves some kind
> of
> paradisaic conditions where everything grows in abundance.
>
> I've been looking at the area of the head of the Nile river with
> maps.google.co.uk
> which gives nice satellite images, and the lush area seems a much stronger
> candidate than the arid babylonia.
> I am interested in your theories on the four rivers that flow out of the
> garden
> of Eden.
>
>
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