Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 2/8/06, Peter Kirk wrote:

Hello Peter,

In a comment to a message to Karl, you wrote:

> But it can be answered by pointing out that in all periods of
> Hebrew from early inscriptional right up to modern there is
> inconsistency in spelling, especially of long I and O vowels,
> between full spellings with matres lectionis and "defective"
> spellings with no letter (rather than point) marking the vowel.
> We know that in Masoretic and modern Hebrew the difference
> between full and defective spelling does not imply a
>  pronunciation difference.

First, if I write in Modern Hebrew qtl, qwtl, and qtwl, the
use of the mater lectionis is going to make a difference as
to how I interpret the word: past tense, present tense, or
imperative.  So the last sentence above is simply not true
all the time.  In fact, the entire paragraph above can be
characterized as such.  Yes, not all spelling differences
and inconsistency is necessarily a product of pronunciation
difference.  But the fact that not all are such doesn't answer
the possibility that some are.

Now, this particular thread of discussion with you began, when
you responded to my statement that "No one agrees that
'Biblical Hebrew' was spoken before the Babylonian Exile."
Later, I corrected my phrasing to say "Not everyone agrees."
It is important to remember that this paragraph was a response
to Karl's paragraph that ran as follows:

> What I have asked for is evidence from when everyone
> can agree that Biblical Hebrew was spoken as a native
> tongue, namely from before the Babylonian Exile. All I
> have been given is theory, which I question, and data
> from much later periods.

When we consider what sounds the language of the
consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible represents, we cannot
(directly) use pre-exilic materials, and conversely, we cannot
use (directly) elements in the language of the Hebrew Bible
to make conclusions about pre-exilic sounds.  First, it is not
something "everyone can agree about."  Far from it. But I
think that even you'd agree that even those who "agree" with
it, will be making a methodological error in so doing.  The
only use we can make is in offering a reasonable
reconstruction that explains both, relates the pre-exilic
inscriptions to their position in the development from
Semitic, and similarly relates the Biblical Hebrew words
or spelling to their position in the development from
Semitic, possibly as a later stage than the pre-exilic
inscriptions.  Karl wanted to do something else -- to use
hypothetical 'evidence' from pre-exilic times for the sounds
of the language in order to directly interpret Biblical Hebrew
passages in their consonantal form as preserved in the
Massoretic Text.  He also wanted to deny something else
-- the use of post-exilic evidence of language sounds to
understand the consonantal form as preserved in the
Massoretic Text.  While the latter is probably more
acceptable, the first -- even if such hypothetical evidence
existed -- is not proper methodology.

> 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.

But you don't know how they were spelled in pre-exilic times.
So how can it be proof that -h in pre-exilic times was used for
-o^ ?  This is a good example of how spelling in the Hebrew
Bible cannot teach us about pre-exilic conventions.

> 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 know how well we know that -h can represent -o^, and
whether it is not based on the assumption that -h in pre-exilic
inscriptions was pronounced -o^ rather than as a consonant.
Sarfatti specifically mentions that -h came to represent -o^
because the above change (-ahu > -au > -o^) was not reflected
in the orthography.

> 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.

Well, maybe it is translation but instead of into Modern English
-- into a literary construct?

> 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.

At one point he does argue the case for translating certain hard
words, sparingly, saying he sees no harm with it:

"I conclude that the case for modernization is supported by only
about 5% of Shakespeare's vocabulary." and "If pushed, I am
prepared to take one small step in Susan Bassnett's direction. I
see no harm in translating those cases where a really difficult word
becomes the focus of dramatic attention, and where there would
be no poetic loss. 'No, not a grise', says Cesario (aka Viola) to
Olivia, talking about pity being akin to love (TN 3.1.121). Turning
grise into 'step, whit, bit', or some such word is something that
directors often do anyway, without anyone (bar a few scholars)
noticing."

And we are not talking about consistent widespread modernization
of the language.  For the issue under discussion, it's sufficient that
only in some obscure words did modernization take place in the
Bible.

> > 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.

It's a 16th century work in some respects, and a 21st century
one in other respects.  As a reader, without the original, you
don't know which parts are which.  You can't study the 16th
century language -- definitely not for the purpose of determining
vocalization -- from the literary construct creation.  Again, it
is important to remember the context of my original remarks
was essentially Karl's paragraph above.

> 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.

You can't compare the possessive pronoun -- which is
known to be in Semitic and was not borrowed into Hebrew from
a different language.  We know the authors of the pre-exilic
inscriptions didn't borrow the -h suffix from some other language
where it was pronounced "h" and yet in Hebrew the suffix was
pronounced "w" or vice versa.  This whole example just doesn't
make sense and doesn't correspond to the case we have here.

> 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.

I think this further weakens your case.  You are saying, in effect,
yes, the pre-exilic inscriptions, while few, do suggest that a
different "dialect" than the one preserved in the Hebrew Bible,
and yes, this "dialect" could develop later into the language
represented by the consonantal text, but we should still
consider the possibility that there were two dialects already
in pre-exilic times, one attested in the inscriptions, and one
not attested but essentially the same as what is represented
in the Hebrew Bible.  Well, yes, it's a possibility, but it sounds
very improbable.

Yitzhak Sapir