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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Initial "Beged Kefet" consonants always have a...

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  • From: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • To: "Dr. Joel M. Hoffman" <joel AT exc.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Initial "Beged Kefet" consonants always have a...
  • Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2005 19:17:55 +0300


I'm actually shocked that people do believe that the Tiberian forms
(which, we have seen, do not match the LXX forms or the other
Masoretic forms) reflect pronunciation from 1,000 years earlier.

That shock is easy to avoid. Just consider the environment. Ribkah and Milcah are two words with very different environment in Greek: clear vocal sound after non-aspirated beta makes Rib(e)ka. Epenthetic sound became long in open syllable, Rebeca. That word, in turn, is accented according to the regular rule of Greek grammar, as RebEca. That caused post-tonic gemination, RebEcca.


Of course that's the most obvious conclusion. The name originally had
three syllables, and by the time the Tiberian Masoretes recorded the
pronunciation, it had two.

R'v'cah, theoretically three syllables. One schwa became silent, though.

Of the other possibilites, the most likely
is that the LXX does such a poor job recording transliterations that
we should not draw any conclusions from it. (In general,
transliterations are terrible guides to language, as I discuss at
length in my book, and as is well-known by linguists. If people want,
I'll try to post the evidence on-line.)

In general? Any problem with German or Russian names transliterated into English?

Vadim Cherny




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