Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 2/6/06, Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 05/02/2006 01:09, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> > ...
> > Nevertheless, a change from mostly a use of -h at the end of
> > the word to reflect masculine possessive to a -w at the end
> > does reflect a sound change, whether it happened earlier or
> > concurrently. ...
>
> Possibly, but not necessarily. ה he is used as a mater lectionis
> for word final "o" sound in some biblical Hebrew words, especially
> the name שְׁלֹמֹה Shlomo which may be an early spelling
> preserved. So this may well have been the original spelling
> convention for word final "o", which was later usually replaced by ו
>  vav. So there was not necessarily a change of pronunciation.

I think you misunderstand me.  I am referring to the possibility
that a pre-exilic -h was a consonantal -h (just like feminine
possessive is still consonantal -- mappiq) and may have even
had a following vowel as well.  I am not referring at all to -h
representing a long "a" vowel at the end of the word that
changed to -w with the "Canaanite a -> o shift."

> So you are partially retracting your earlier statement "No one
> agrees that "Biblical Hebrew" was spoken before the Babylonian
> Exile. Practically all philologists agree that Biblical Hebrew as it
> is spelled today in the Bible represents a stage not earlier than
> the Persian period." It seems that only one of the three
> possibilities makes biblical Hebrew into something intrinsically
> post-exilic, aside from spelling conventions.

I accept that you can perhaps make certain assumptions by
which you might argue that the spoken language that is
represented in the pre-exilic inscriptions was virtually the same
as the probably spoken language that is represented in the
consonantal text of the Torah.  However, I think those
assumptions are unwarranted given the evidence and that they
border on harmonization that attempts to overlook evidence (the
little evidence we do have) that points the other way (that the
language is not virtually the same even if very similar).

I also agree that the above quote of mine was poorly phrased.
I meant to concentrate on the lack of agreement rather than
on the lack of individuals who hold that opinion.  "Not everyone
agrees" is a better, more accurate way to phrase that particular
sentence.

> I have on my computer a complete copy of the Hebrew Bible
> transliterated into Latin script.  Does this transliteration make
> this into a work of the late 20th or early 21st century?

Transliteration doesn't change the text.  Update of spelling does.
I think if you read Shakespeare or Chaucer with an updated
spelling and even vocabulary (as is most often done), you're not
reading Middle or Shakespearean English.  You're reading a
translation into Modern English.  That doesn't make the current
spelling of Shakespeare or Chaucer representative of earlier
English or even usable for the purposes of determining the
sounds of various words.  Even Shakespeare which to my
understanding is considered an early form of Modern English
and whose spelling is relatively similar to modern spelling
(although it is not sufficiently similar that most publications of
Shakespeare are still in modernized form) was pronounced
very differently.  So I guess you could argue whether by
definition it is the same or a different language or stage of
the language -- that in both cases it is Modern English --
but for the use that the spelling was used in this discussion
-- to determine pronunciation -- the update of spelling is
significant and does prevent you from being able to
determine the more ancient pronunciation.

> But if it was perhaps not spoken before the Exile, it is surely
> even more certain that it was not the regular spoken language
> after the Exile.

Note that I originally stated that probably something very similar
to the language represented behind the consonantal text of the
Torah was spoken in pre-exilic times.

Yitzhak Sapir