Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

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/