Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 08/02/2006 19:11, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> 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.
>   

You misunderstand me. I was not referring to cases like qtl, qwtl and 
qtwl, which in modern Hebrew are clearly different words (different 
forms of the same verb) with different pronunciations. I was referring 
to cases, which I know do occur in modern Hebrew as well as in biblical 
and probably inscriptional, where the same word with the same meaning is 
spelled in different ways e.g. by different authors - but without 
implying a different pronunciation. Similarly "liue" and "live" in a 
Shakespeare text (from the two versions of Romeo and Juliet you linked 
to), and "colour" and "color" in modern English, are pronounced the same 
despite the variant spelling conventions. Well, you seem to agree by 
saying that "not all spelling differences and inconsistency is 
necessarily a product of pronunciation difference". But that implies 
that spelling differences and inconsistency is not evidence of 
pronunciation difference: there is indeed a possibility of a 
pronunciation difference (but then there is that even if the spelling is 
unchanged) but also a very good chance that the pronunciation was unchanged.


> 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. ...

I don't entirely follow you here. But I suppose my point is that it is 
possible to make the "reasonable reconstruction" you mention without 
hypothesising any changes of pronunciation between inscriptional Hebrew 
and the language of the Torah, only a change in spelling conventions. 
Now very likely there was at least some difference between how the 
writers of the inscriptions pronounced their texts and how the writers 
of the Torah pronounced theirs (whether differences in time or only of 
dialect). But as the spelling differences can be explained apart from 
pronunciation differences, we are left with no convincing evidence 
concerning any supposed pronunciation differences.

> ... 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.
>   

I do not want to support Karl's arguments. You have seen my responses to 
him.
>   
> > 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.
>   

No, I can't be sure. But, although we have little evidence of how 
pronunciation changed, if at all, we do have reasonable evidence of how 
spelling changed. This would make it extremely unlikely that Shlomo and 
Shilo were spelled with final vav, or with no final letter, before the 
exile. Well, perhaps there is a little circular reasoning there. But are 
there examples of word final vav for any vowel in inscriptional Hebrew? 
If not, we have to assume either that there are no words ending in -o in 
inscriptional Hebrew, which is rather unlikely given how common they are 
in later Hebrew, or else that they were spelled with final he.
>   
> > 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.
>   

This seems improbable to me unless some explanation can be given for how 
-h came to represent -a and -e. The simplest hypothesis is that -h was 
first written as a mater lectionis for any final vowel, or at least for 
-a, -e and -o. The suggestion that its use for -o came about by a quite 
different mechanism from its use for -a and -e is improbable by Occam's 
Razor.
>   
> > 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?
>
>   
I would not call a change in spelling conventions a translation at all, 
for there is no change in the spoken form.
> > 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."
>   

OK, he agrees that to translate Shakespeare into modern English would 
not be a very bad thing. But this remains a witness to my point that it 
is not standard practice. Even what you presented me as a translation 
into modern English is in fact just an update of spelling.
> 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.
>   

This is possible. But maybe you are confused about what the issue is. 
Substitution of a few obscure words is a quite independent process from 
large scale change in pronunciation.
...

> > 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.
>   

I agree that the version with the original spelling would be the more 
helpful for studying 16th century English. But even if we had only the 
orthographically modernised version to work with, as with the Torah, we 
could learn a lot about 16th century English and how it differed from 
modern English, especially in grammar and lexicon although not so 
clearly in pronunciation.
>   
> > 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.
>   

My point about the loan words was not that they are a parallel with the 
Hebrew but to correct your error that Shakespeare would have pronounced 
"Iuliet" with an initial I or Y sound, rather than J.
>   
> > 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.
>   

That's not what I was saying. What I was suggesting was that pre-exilic 
Hebrew, like almost any language, was not monolithic in its lexicon or 
orthography, and so one would expect some variation between different 
sources and different registers of language without interpreting this 
variation as necessary evidence that they were composed at different times.

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