Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Rolf,

> 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".
>  

HH: Thanks for the reminder.

> 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.
>  

HH: You have confused me here. Are you saying that the Hebrew equivalent 
of Jehoiakim (the name in the subject header) had three syllables? Then 
you would not be counting the initial shewa as a syllable. This may be 
the way shewa is treated in counting meter. If the Massoretes pronounced 
the shewa as an "A," how would they have avoided  having four syllables?

Yours,
Harold Holmyard

> 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.
> >    
>
>
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