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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] CV syllables, was music in Hebrew

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] CV syllables, was music in Hebrew
  • Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 00:23:02 +0000

On 06/02/2006 19:31, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
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."

This is a possibility. But you have no way of knowing whether a pre-exilic -h was pronounced -ha, or (clearly pronounced) -h, or -o, as both endings can be written exactly the same in unpointed texts. So you have no evidence of a change from -ha to -o.

...
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 don't think I am making assumptions. I am simply pointing out that the evidence is very slight indeed and by no means proves a real difference of pronunciation.
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.

Thank you. I am happy to agree that there are diverse opinions on this point.
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. ...

I don't think you actually know what you are talking about here. I am not an expert, but this is the situation as I understand it here in the UK. Chaucer is published and read both in its original middle English and in translation into modern English, because the middle English is too difficult for many readers. But Shakespeare is almost never translated into modern English, but is printed and performed more or less as written. Words in Shakespeare are never substituted, and in general archaic spellings are not updated. But modern editions do distinguish "u" and "v", and "i" and "j", although these pairs of letters were not distinguished in the first printed folios of Shakespeare. In other words, modern editions of Shakespeare (and similarly of the contemporary King James Bible) use different spelling conventions from the original. But they cannot be considered as translations into a different form of English.

Surely, Yitzhak, you recognise that by updating such spelling conventions in Shakespeare it is not being translated into fully modern English, and by updating the Torah to match modern Hebrew spelling conventions it would not thereby be translated into modern Hebrew. Even if you write a WAYYIQTOL form with a full complement of matres lectionis, it doesn't thereby become a modern Hebrew verb form.

... 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.

Well, I will accept that an update in spelling might reduce the ambiguities. Shakespeare wrote one of his heroine's names as "Iuliet". The original pronunciation of that is perhaps ambiguous, it could have been four syllables "eye-oo-li-et" (although no doubt you can tell whether it actually was from the poetic structure), but the later spelling with "j" disambiguates the pronunciation to "joo-li-et". So I suppose you could say that that update in spelling has obscured the possibility of an originally different pronunciation. But you can't argue that the original pronunciation was in fact different just because the old spelling would have allowed it to be different. Yet it seems to me that by your method of reasoning the change of spelling implies that "Iuliet" must in fact have been pronounced "eye-oo-li-et".

...
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.

Thanks for the reminder. I can agree with this.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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