Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Karl, this all discussion began when Chris Weimer asked
about Ayin and Ghayin, finishing, "Could ayin/ghayin
have been the same letter much like sin/shin was, but fell
out of use before diacritics? What about the disapparence
of the uvular h?"  Yigal Levin responded alerting him to
an article in JBL.  Then, in response to Yigal's summary
of basic Semitic phonetics, you claimed the following:

">From the historical record (which many
doubt) Moses wrote in the 15th century BC,
so he probably used "proto-Canaanite" glyphs
while David and the united kingdom used
"Phoenician" glyphs (did the Phoenicians
learn the alphabet from the Hebrews? Why
not?). At a time when alphabets, when they
were adopted by different languages, they
regularly added and subtracted glyphs to fit
the phonetic patterns of their languages,
Ugaritic being an example of this, it makes
no sense that Biblical Hebrew did not do so,
except that the original 22 glyphs
represented the 22 consonantal phonemes
extent in the Hebrew language of the time.
Then the ayin/ghayin and sin/shin
bifurcations are additions caused by the
Babylonian Exile when, to a large extant if
not totally, native speaking of the Hebrew
language died out."

The rest of the message really had little
to do with Chris Weimer's or Yigal Levin's
posts, dealing instead with literacy and your
personal interpretation of Proto-Canaanite
script, even though you admit you haven't
had access to high resolution images of
such script and have no wish to buy such
even though it could apparently affect your
understanding of the Biblical phonetics and
the Bible as a whole in fundamental ways.

In this particular ongoing discussion I have
provided a lot of evidence from a whole lot
of different periods regarding the possibility
of Hebrew assigning more than one phonemic
value to any specific letter.  I had provided the
earliest Aramaic inscription that also happens
to be a bilingual inscription where the
corresponding transcriptions of personal names
is highly suggestive of this method.  I notice now
that this being the earliest Aramaic inscription,
this would go against your claim that "alphabets
... regularly added and subtracted glyphs to
fit the phonetic patterns of their languages."  It
seems pretty clear that Aramaic did not.

You have provided no evidence that I can tell,
as far as any similar document that supports
your assertion.  The basic assumption is that if
only a 22 letter alphabet is used, only 22
phonemes are involved.  You have never
substantiated it.  Most people on the list are
not convinced.  You have repeatedly tried to
bring in Mosaic authorship as an issue in this
discussion, including the last posts of yours,
although Mosaic authorship is not an issue
at all, but rather whether the author, be it
Moses or anyone else, used an alphabet that
had a one-to-one relationship with the
phonetics of the language at hand.

You have provided "two pieces of evidence"
for the "Shin/Sin bifurcation":

> > > I have already indicated two, but let me repeat: 1) the
> > > number of times that sin and shin make phonemic
> > > difference is very rare, no more than for other letters
> > > where the same spelling has drastically different
> > > meanings, and 2) there are a number of words, where
> > > they are spelled once with a sin, another time with a
> > > shin yet the same word with the same meaning, or one
> > > derivative with a sin and another with a shin. The latter
> > > indicates that both were the same phoneme, hence most
> > > likely had the same pronunciation as well.

I have responded to this.  I asked you for specifics.
You want me to provide a complete list of words where
Shin and Sin are etymologically related.  Why don't you
provide your list where the Shin and Sin are the same
meaning but misspelled?  Do you mean the $m/there
vs. &m/put example?  I followed this up and you failed
to follow it up further.  As for point #1, can you provide
statistics for the following: 1) the number of times
shin/sin make phonemic difference, 2) the number of
times other letters make phonemic difference.  In any
case, I cannot start by providing you a whole list, but
I will start with two examples I have raised again and
again and which you ignored, laid out this time in
minimal pairs according to Massoretic pointing and JPS
translation:

Hosea 9:14 ma$kil - miscarrying
1 Samuel 18:14-15 ma&kil - successful

2 Samuel 10:6 wayi&kruw - and hired
Genesis 43:34 wayi$kruw - and were merry

I want to see how you view these words
developing and what particular specific
Aramaic influence brought about this
development, somewhat of the detail you
see in etymologies regarding the evolution
of various words through different stages
of language.  If you wish to state the
sound law that you are proposing and what
conditions brought it about, that would be
fine too.

As for the  $m/there and &m/put example,  I have
raised a follow up question for your example
asking for a demonstration of how the Aramaic
influence brought about this situation in your view.
You did not follow up unless I missed it.   It is hard
to answer your  examples when you never answer
examples I raise and when you raise an example
but then don't follow up my questions.  Because
James and I were willing to follow up each other
in the posts regarding the Shin/Sin, James was
convinced.  Maybe I will be convinced if you
follow up.

Here are minimal pairs in Massoretic vocalization
with the above roots,

The above reply to Yigal made use of
Ugaritic, using it as evidence of something
it was not evidence of, even though you
do not know Ugaritic, and as this discussion
has shown, are unwilling to learn.

The above reply also made use of the little
evidence you have from online sources
regarding Proto-Canaanite script.  It is
perfectly legitimate for you to wish to spend
your money on better purposes and to never
venture to a library that has an appropriate
book on any of the subjects discussed, but
you don't have to demand the right to view
the material online.  Not all the good stuff
is available online or for free, and most of
the good stuff costs money.  Scholars who
really wish to investigate inscriptions even
go to take a trip to the particular museum or
collection where it is held to investigate the
minute details first-hand.  So I think it is
ridiculous for you to wish for "non blurry
images so that you can investigate the
evidence yourself and not rely on scholars'
conclusions."  Is the manuscript of the
Torah you are using transcribed first hand
by you from the relatively recently made
online available photographs of the Aleppo
Codex or did you rely on transcriptions
made by other scholars?

You say if I provide online evidence you
will look at it, but I provided online evidence
of Ugaritic, and you refused to look at that.

If you want, you can buy the Arad Inscriptions
by Aharoni for $48 where you can see an
example of H) in an Hebrew text in ostracon
18:

http://www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~AHAARADI

If $48 is too much for you, you can go here:

http://ralphriver.blogspot.com/2005/08/arad-18-and-temple-of-lord.html

Sorry, it's either $48 or relying on scholars.  Life
isn't always fair.  I shouldn't be limited to online evidence
(that it is questionable whether you will actually review)
just because you don't want to spend $48, or any amount,
in fact, on something that is important to your study.

Perhaps this site will be of use.  I haven't looked at it yet:

http://www.inscriptifact.com/index.html

As for )$, how in the world do you get "fire" or "metal"
from "QL )$ QR) )L R(W" or "HKW HXCBM )$ LQRT
R(W"?

As for Mesha, why do you think it isn't Hebrew?  How
do you know the Massoretes didn't change the consonantal
text if they also changed the vocalization?  Many of the
special linguistic features of the Mesha Inscription are
also represented in the Samaria Ostraca.  Is the Samaria
ostraca also not written in Hebrew?  How do you define
Hebrew?  I asked this several times, with no response.

As for the Massoretic consonantal text going hand in
hand with the vocalization, you said this:

> That is irrelevant. All the grammars I have seen are for
> beginning students with the expectation that they will
> never graduate to reading Hebrew without points. None
> that I have seen will prepare a student for the variations
> in the consonantal text found in Tanakh. None prepares
> for the fact that the points are demonstrably wrong on
> occasion. In short, the grammars teach towards an ideal
> that is not always found in fact.

If you want a book that prepares you for variations in the
texts as well as the fact that the points are demonstratably
wrong, you should use a book on Textual Criticism, not a
book on grammar.  The issue at hand is much larger than
"variants within the Tanakh."  What about different
manuscripts of Tanakh?  Does the Samaritan Pentateuch
figure in your "variations in the consonantal text found in
Tanakh"?  Tov's book on Textual Criticism notes that the
Samaritan version of Gen 31:40 reads "xrp" instead of "xrb."
Which Medieval consonantal text, the Samaritan Pentateuch
or the Massoretic Text do you think is more accurate?  There
are much much more changes than this in the Samaritan
Pentateuch and many more beyond in the DSS.  So while
you seem to view the issue as comparing various forms
within the Massoretic Text, like I said, you are bound
to the text that the Massoretes gave you, not to any
older text.  Consider the Isaiah verse recently cited.  The
Karlsruhe/Reuchlinianus text reads "wysyrny" in 8:11 and
the Isaiah A also reads a "y" immediately after the "s".
The missing (or additional) y goes hand in hand with the
Massoretic (or non Massoretic) pointing of the word.

> The Masoretic pointing preserves one tradition that had
> developed over a millennium when there were no native
> speakers of Biblical Hebrew. Transliterations from other
> sources indicate that this was but one tradition among
> several.

The above can be equally said for the consonants.  But
more than that, the difference between them and you is
that they were relying on a tradition ultimately deriving
from speakers of the language.  Those speakers had a
much wider knowledge of Hebrew than you.  When they
approached an unclear passage, they didn't vocalize it
based on context and comparisons with other verses, but
based on context and comparisons with their usage of
Hebrew.  Given an arbitrary passage it is possible and
perhaps even likely they would have come to different
conclusions than a person today reading an unvocalized
passage.  The Massoretic vocalization while heavily
influenced by centuries of non-native speech of Hebrew,
still maintains a connection with their conclusions.  The
knowledge and considerations to be found in their results
is much much greater than any disagreement on some
specific instance of vocalization and definitely greater
than anything that you can come up with based on
reading the Bible unvocalized and inventing the system
anew, just without any knowledge of Biblical Hebrew at
the beginning of the chain, like the Massoretes had at
the origins of their tradition.

> >     The only way to prove they were the same letter is to
> > start reading the Bible with the assumption they are not the same letter
> > and come to the conclusion that this doesn't work.
>
> Which is exactly what I did.

No, according to this:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2005-August/025625.html
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/attachments/20050825/0ca4815b/attachment.bat

you said, in the context of the XSD thread:

"It was from learning modern languages such as German that I
developed the concept that each lexeme has one basic meaning,
the meanings for some lexemes are quite broad, ... Then I studied
Hebrew. The dictionaries widely available and in use at that time
were BDB and an English translation of Gesenius. Immediately I
started trying to reconcile these dictionaries with the rules I had
learned for studying other languages, as I figured that Biblical
Hebrew followed the same basic rules that all other spoken
languages follow. ... While you see a matured work in what I write
now, they are based on ideas I already had by the time I was 19
years old."

It doesn't matter how many times you read the Tanakh.  If you
read it all the time with the assumption that roots with shin
are related to roots with sin, you won't evade circular reasoning.
You are assuming what you are trying to prove as an
assumption to your reading, so no matter what you read, or
what conclusions you made in your dictionary, you will always
come to the result of your assumption, because you are basing
yourself on it.  At best, you will come to a contradiction, in
which case you will conclude that your assumption is false.  You
can never conclude that the assumption is true.

In light of the above, how can you claim that you started reading
the Bible with the assumption that Shin and Sin were unrelated
and coming to the conclusion that they are?  Perhaps you can
list the step-by-step examples I need to look at to come to your
conclusion, so that in scientific manner, I can reproduce your
results?

Just saying:

> Maybe, as the grandson of immigrants whose mother
> tongue was not English, and living and working among
> many other immigrants whose mother tongues are not
> English, after having lived overseas where people did not
> speak English, I may be so used to seeing the patterns of
> language acquisition and use that I am taking for granted
> that people know and understand those patterns.
> Apparently you don't know them.

Well I am the grandson of immigrants whose mother
tongue was not English, and I work amongst people
who speak English but whose mother tongue is not English,
I am myself a fluent English speaker although my mother
tongue is not English, and I have no idea what you are
talking about.  If you take things for granted, you are not
giving me a method that is reproducable to get your
results.  Any kind of study depends on the ability of
others to reproduce your results.  I provided a method
to arrive at a conclusion that th/dh where in some cases
related by sound law using "internal evidence" from English.
I ask for you to provide a simple example from the Bible
for Shin and Sin.  For example, I could provide the
example that Jer 33, 26 relates to Abraham, Yi&xaq,
and Jacob.  This would be evidence for some shift
between & and C.  This in fact makes a lot of sense for
those who relate Sin with an [s] value as opposed to an
[sh] value.  What non-controversial examples do you have
that can prove the relationship between the Shin and
Sin as you propose?

Lastly:

> If you can point me to a consonantal text that is both better
> and older than the Masoretic text, I will gladly use that
> instead. In the meanwhile, an unpointed Masoretic text
> is better than nothing.

No, an unpointed text used in faulty methodology is worse than
nothing.  Saying "I don't know because I don't have enough
data" is worse than saying "I don't know but I'll invent data
where it is missing."

Take the Biblical Scrolls from Qumran for starters:
http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/series/DiscoveriesintheJudaeanDesert/?view=usa

There's nothing older, so if that's your goal, and it's unavailable
at a nearby library, it is worth the money.

Yitzhak Sapir