Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Yitzhak:

While you know English fairly well, here is a case where 
there was a misunderstanding because you don't know 
English that well.

I wrote, "as I understand it" as an admission 
that I may be wrong. Similar statements are 
regularly used as an up front admission that 
the person is treading on ground upon which 
he is not certain, or, in my case, dealing 
with a language of which I have only very 
sketchy and superficial knowledge. Had you 
known English very well, you would have 
recognized that statement as being one 
indicating uncertainty.

Further, I indicated in the context that how 
modern Hebrew is pronounced is irrelevant to 
the question as to how pre-Exile Hebrew was 
spoken. You did not pick up on this latter 
point.

Thus it was a surprise to me when you made a 
big issue out of modern Hebrew and how it is 
pronounced.

Further, because of your misunderstanding of 
English, your whole argument fell apart.

Karl W. Randolph.


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
> 
> 
> On 2/6/06, Karl Randolph wrote:
> > >
> > > You said that you were taught that "Het" sometimes drops off
> > > the end of the word.  The fact is that in no definition you may
> > > want of Modern Hebrew does Het drop off the end of the word.
> > >
> > Yitzhak:
> >
> > I was not taught modern Hebrew. I don't know modern
> > Hebrew. As long as you are not taking those facts into
> > account, I don't know what you are talking about. All I
> > know is that you are not discussing the issue at hand.
> 
> Ok.  That explains it.
> 
> In an earlier message you said:
> "In modern Hebrew, as I understand it, there is little
> difference between the pronunciation of a final alep, he
> and ayin. Even a final chet is often lost.
> [...]
> Alep I believe is mainly a place holder for a vowel, as
> part of a diphthong. Ayin a full glottal stop.  A final he is
> a consonant followed by a voiced vowel. As such, $M)
> [Aramaic for "the name"], $MH [her name] and $M(
> [rumor] have different pronunciations, whereas from
> the way I was taught in class, they all had the same."
> 
> Look it up yourself at:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2006-January/027630.html
> Your recent statement: "I was not taught modern
> Hebrew. I don't know modern Hebrew." is practically as
> if you admit that you don't know the stuff you were
> discussing in the above message.
> 
> This is why I thought you said you were taught Modern
> Hebrew.  So, you just don't understand Modern Hebrew
> correctly, having never been taught it.  You were the one
> who brought up examples from Modern Hebrew to
> support your point about the non-pronounceability of
> some sounds.
> 
> Later you wrote perhaps as a clarification:
> 
> "All I referenced was the pronunciation I was taught in
> class of Masoretic Hebrew."  So anyway, in Massoretic
> Hebrew, as in Modern Hebrew, the final Het is never lost.
> 
> In any case, all the points I raised are direct responses
> to sentences made earlier by you:
> 1) "Other evidences include letters like eyin and alep, in
> order to be recognizable, would have had to end with a
> vowel sound."
> 2) "The evidence for Biblical Hebrew having had a CV
> structure is again theory.  When read in that way, many
> words are unpronounceable except as CV syllables,
> hence my theory."
> 
> The above statements suggest:
> 1) Aleph, Ayin, He, and Het are unrecognizeable,
> not differenciable, and unpronounceable in some
> instances.
> 2) If you can't pronounce certain sounds unless
> followed by a vowel (ie, a CV structure), Ancient
> Hebrews couldn't either.
> 3) If some sounds were of a CV structure, the
> entire language must have been a CV structure.
> 
> The above statements all relate to the reasoning
> you gave to your theory.  If any one of the above
> points doesn't hold, the final conclusion "entire
> language must have been a CV structure" can't
> be reached.  I showed evidence against every
> one of those points.  Why isn't that evidence
> that shows that the conclusion you support
> can't be reached using the evidence you cited
> as supporting evidence related to the discussion
> of the issue at hand?
> 
> Yitzhak Sapir

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