Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 08/02/2006 03:09, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> On 2/7/06, Peter Kirk wrote:
>   
> > 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.
> >     
>
> The standard reconstruction of this particular development is: *-ahu > *-au
>   
> > - *o^.  Now, both Davila (blog post in Karl's response and his Orthography
> >     
> article that he quotes there) and Sarfatti, "Hebrew Inscriptions" (Maarav 3/1,
> 1982 -- a source Davila references in his Orthography article and which is
> my source for the above reconstruction) assume this change  to have
> occurred by the "Biblical period."  But I am not sure what is the basis
> for assuming the development had proceeded through the *-au and
> *-o^ stages in pre-exilic times, as opposed to *-ahu being the pre-exilic
> pronunciation while *-au and *-o^ are the post-exilic ones.  This is not
> something that cannot be proven -- all we need is an example of -h
> representing -o^ in pre-exilic times for which there is no explanation or
> reconstruction as having a consonantal value.  I am not sure there is
> such an example.
>
>   
Well, how about Shlomo(h) and Shilo(h)? They may not be attested in 
pre-exilic inscriptions, but surely no one would reconstruct them with 
consonantal value.

I accept that the time of this change is uncertain. But, because -h can 
represent either long -o or -ahu, these spellings are not evidence 
either way.
> > 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.
> >     
>
> Compare:
> http://ise.uvic.ca/Texts/Rom_M/Scene/1.1 (Modern) or use your own text.
> http://ise.uvic.ca/Texts/Rom_Q2/Scene/1.1 (1599) which says it is peer-
> reviewed, but seems to have been scanned and still have sections that
> have not been corrected after the scan.
>
> This was simply an observation based on the above.
>
>   
This "modern" version is not properly modernised, for it still uses 
"thou" and obsolete expressions like "marry". So it is not in fully 
modern English at all. It is simply Shakespeare's text with modernised 
spelling.
> > 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.
> >     
>
> Why not?  What makes something into a translation rather than a mere
> "updating"?  If you replace "Early Modern English" words in a given
> document with "Late Modern English" words why is that not translating
> even if you maintain to use in the replacement only the later evolved form
> of the "Early Modern English" word?
>   

If I replace "thou" forms with "you" forms, that is arguably translating 
into fully modern English. If I simply change the orthography e.g. 
"liue" to "live", "necke" to "neck" and "Iuliet" to "Juliet", that is 
does not make it fully modern English. A text like your 
http://ise.uvic.ca/Texts/Rom_M/Scene/1.1 which has made only such 
changes is not in fully modern English.

> Also, in Shakespeare as perhaps the KJB, there are different
> considerations of maintaining the original text or poetry which I am not
> sure were present for Persian period Judaean scribes who were using
> pre-exilic period documents.
>
> In this connection, the following article may be informative:
> http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,62049_1_10,00.html
>
>   
This is an interesting article by a well-known linguist. But it clearly 
makes the point that no one actually modernises Shakespeare in the sense 
of replacing obscure words and obsolete grammar, although some people 
have called for it to be done. But what they actually do is to update 
the spelling, as in the example you found.

> > 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.
> >     
>
> But it may no longer be the Biblical verb form, if you give me different
> vocalization than the original was meant to have -- you may be giving me
> a literary construct that never had existence in spoken language except
> for liturgical purposes.  So you can't claim that it is still the same or
> probably the same.  You may still claim that it might be the same, but
> with differences in spelling, this might be an improbable position.
>
>   
Yes, just as early modern English texts with late modern spellings are a 
literary construct, and may indicate pronunciations which were never 
used in Shakespeare's time. But, whatever the spelling, this slightly 
adapted Shakespeare is still a 16th century work and not a 21st century one.
> > 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".
> >     
>
> It is a fact that the pronunciation was different:
> http://www.bartleby.com/224/1502.html
>   

Thank you for this link. But the pronunciation changes listed here do 
not include word initial "y" sound to "j" sound, a change which happened 
long before the time of Shakespeare. In fact it didn't happen in English 
at all, but in French, for nearly all of our words starting in "j" are 
borrowed from or via French and were already pronounced with the English 
(not French - the softening of French "j" to "zh" is a later phenomenon) 
"j" sound when they were borrowed. So Shakespeare's heroine's name was 
never "yoo-li-et", certainly never "eye-oo-li-et" or "ee-oo-li-et", but 
always, ever since it the name was borrowed into English "joo-li-et". 
Note also the Italian spelling Giulietta, pronounced "joo-li-etta".
> And I think the spelling partly reflects that.  Also, following the above
> article on Shakespeare and Sarfatti, there are examples of slight changes
> in meanings in various words.  Two examples from Sarfatti - "(wd" is an
> adverb in the Bible but a noun (remainder) in the pre-exilic inscriptions.
> ")dm" is in some cases the indefinite pronoun "someone, anybody" -
> "()rwr h)dm )$r yptx )t z)t" while in the Bible only ")y$" serves this
> purpose.  This suggest that even if the Bible is in part pre-exilic
> in origin (a statement with which I agree), perhaps a certain level of
> modernization of the lexicon also took place.
>
>   
I don't deny this possibility. I simply consider that the evidence for 
it is rather weak. Your points above can easily be explained as dialect 
and register differences within the pre-exilic language.

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