Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Karl,

Your last words are true, we have no way to know the old pronunciation, or,
as one of the Israeli scholars on the list earlier suggested (I do not
remember who), the pronunciations. (Diachronically speaking a language and
word pronunciation tend to change.) The Masoretic shewa of the first
syllable need not show that the vowel of that syllable in B.C.E. would
resemble E, since the default prununciation of shewa in the days of the
Masorets (who used the shewa) was "A".

The theophoric names beginning in YEHO- contain the first part of the divine
name, and there is no way to know whether the O of the second syllable is an
original vowel or whether it represents the third letter (WAW) of YHWH. So, 
only two things
seem to be quite certain, namely, that the name had three syllables and that
the vowel of the second syllable was O.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 6:43 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Theophoric Name: Y:HOWYFQIYM


> Peter, Yigal et al:
>
> It is this "Yeho" pronunciation both as a prefix and a
> suffix that makes me suspect that the Name was originally
> pronounced as "Yehoha" or something similar.
>
> The argument that the waw and yod use as materes
> lexionis was only a late development has been shown to
> be mistaken, as there are examples of such in the Moabite
> Mesha stone, as well as an example in late proto-Sinaitic.
> However, such use became much more common later,
> much much more common.
>
> The lack of native speakers makes this question
> impossible to insist that one's understanding is the
> only one that is correct and all others false.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.