Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Peter,

> > ... This root was recognized when BDB was put 
> > together; it mentions an Arabic cognate meaning 
> > to "perforate, pierce, slit the partition 
> > between the nostrils, or the lip, or the lobe 
> > of the ear." The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew 
> > also recognizes the root, as do translations 
> > (NET, HCSB).
>
> It is worth pointing out, even though no doubt 
> Karl will be sceptical in view of his comments 
> on ayin and ghayin, that there is good evidence 
> for these being separate roots in that they have 
> Arabic cognates with different spellings. The 
> Arabic cognate of the word meaning "devote, 
> destroy" is Õ-Â starting with the Arabic letter 
> hah (as in "haram" meaning "unclean"), whereas 
> the Arabic cognate of the word meaning 
> "perforate, pierce" etc is ‘- starting with the 
> Arabic letter khah, note the extra dot which 
> indicates a velar or uvular fricative rather 
> than a pharyngeal fricative. It is a regular 
> rule that both of these Arabic letters 
> correspond to Hebrew het, and indeed they were 
> probably pronounced differently in Hebrew at the 
> time when the Bible was written, in the same way 
> as ayin and ghayin were probably pronounced 
> differently.

HH: That's a very interesting argument. Thanks 
for the observation and for the help with 
pronunciation. I don't know Arabic, though I have 
studied the alphabet and a few things in grammar.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard