Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

The original thread has been declared off limits on this list.  The thread
had essentially had two sub-threads under the same heading.  With
Peter, some approach on my and his side could be seen through the
discussion, and I think overall it has been informative as well as cordial
and has lead me to research more into the subject, which is for me
always a good thing.  If the moderators feel that continuing this
discussion is best done off list I will do so and post the results in an
offlist website for those interested to see.  However, given that both
other participants to the discussion posted their comments to the list
afterwards, and that the problematic sub-thread was probably not the
one with Peter, I am posting this to the list.

Hello Peter,

You wrote: "there is no way of telling from inscriptional Hebrew which
final he's are pronounced and which are silent."  Now that is an
interesting statement.  Why would you insist that we have no way of
telling only which final he's are pronounced?  What about medial
he's?  How do we know that they are pronounced?  We may ask
the same of any letter and dispute the transliteration into Greek as a
different dialect than the primary one.  How do we know if final n's
are silent or pronounced, for example?  In my opinion, unless it is
possible to show that a particular final he must have been silent,
there is no reason to believe otherwise.  This doesn't just apply
to pre-exilic times.  It applies to post-exilic times as well.  It applies
to the spelling of the Torah and to the rest of the Bible.  It applies to
Qumran.  But each of these must be tested within their own spelling
convention.  It goes for any letter, not just final he, of course.

This is why the issue of determining a use of the final he as a vowel
that cannot be explained as consonantal is important.  Simply relying
on what scholars all "know" is not sufficient.  In general, the standard
work on the subject appears to be Cross and Friedman's "Early Hebrew
Orthography."  This work is divided into four main chapters each on
Phoenician (EPO), Aramaic (EAO), Moabite (EMO), and Hebrew (EHO)
orthographies.  Now for a few quotes:

EPO: )nk = Heb. )anoki. ["I"]
EMO: )nk = )anoki. ["I"]
EPO: bt )by - Read Probably: "bet )abiya". ["house of my father"]
EMO: )by = ")abi". ["my father"]
EHO: $lxk - "$olxak" ["thy sending"]
EHO: hyt - "hayat" ["was"]
EHO: (t - "(at" ["now"], a colloquial form, corresponding to the longer 
literary
word, (attah.  There can be no doubt that the final accented a would have been
indicated in the orthography as it is regularly after the 10th century in all
Hebrew inscriptions.  In this case, as in a number of others, the evidence
indicates that the long and short forms of the same word existed side by side,
the long forms being displaced in common speech and surviving only in literary
works.  In the past many scholars (including the Massoretes) have generalized
a particular vocalization, artificially forcing the common speech and the
elevated language into the same linguistic mold, and incidentally playing
havoc with recognized orthographic principles.  It is noteworthy that (t = 
(atta
has been preserved in the text of the Old Testament, Ezek. 23:43 and Psa 74:6.
EHO: )y$ - ")i$" ["man"] If the reading and the interpretation are
correct then the
yodh is a true internal m.l. ... Under the circumstances, it cannot be
determined
whether or not this word actually is )i$, "man".

(From the respective conclusions:)
EPO: The preceding analysis is sufficient to show that the Phoenician
orthography
of the 10th-9th centuries followed rigorously consonantal principles.  No 
forms
occur in which it is necessary or probable to suppose the presence of
m.l. in the
final position, much less medially.
EAO: These facts necessitate a new view of the origin and development of the
use of final m.l.  To regard their development as the spontaneous outgrowth of
historical spelling must be discarded at least in part.  There is
small chance that
historical spelling had so completely encrusted Aramaic writing in the short
period between the borrowing of the alphabet and our earliest Aramaic
inscriptions. ... It is simpler to assume that an occasional historical 
spelling
(e.g., the dropping of the final a of the first person pronominal
suffix, *iya > i)
suggested the principle of final vowel representation.   ... he for
final a (perhaps
suggested by consonantal he following a in the feminine singular suffix, or 
some
similar form).
EHO: The epigraphic evidence for Hebrew orthography indicates that before the
9th century, Hebrew was written in a purely consonantal script.  In
agreement with
Phoenician principles of spelling, final vowels were not indicated in
the orthography.
... Some time after the 10th century ... a system of final m.l. were
introduced and
from that time on, all final vowels were indicated in the orthography.

---

The above indicates some of the curiousities of the work.  The word (atta 
"now"
is seen by Cross and Friedman to have no final vowel because there is no
final he in the pre-exilic spelling.  They assert this on the basis
that final vowels
were always written in the Hebrew orthography.  But this example forms one of
many others that are supposed to lead to the conclusion whether or not final
vowels were used.  The same can be said for the relatively similar examples
in Phoenician and Moabite ")nk" and "aby".  They even recognize the original
consonantal force of the he in feminine singular words.  Yet they assert (in 
the
discussion of "now") that final a must have always been written down.

That the -ah of the feminine suffix had originally consonantal force may be 
seen
from the following posts at sci.lang:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.lang/browse_frm/thread/80dff4f8cf5d1c53/
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.lang/browse_frm/thread/971da5160ced6d68/

Overall, though, they outline that /h/ was pronounced in final position
in some Arabic dialects.  The comment on the 98th sura is interesting but it
is apparently written by someone just learning the Quran.  Perhaps this is
the old classical rhyme that Gursey mentions on the other thread.  I'm not
sure who Gursey is, but he is a regular poster on sci.lang and has posted
on other places such as the linguist list.

Similarly, the -h directional suffix is probably consonantal in
Ugaritic as there
are only very rare cases of possible "m.l."'s in Ugaritic.  It is also
seen to be
related to the Akkadian -i$ suffix and had originally in PS been pronounced
*-isa.  In private mail, I have written to you that the PS form of
"his king" would
have been "malkuhu."  It appears, now that I have read the article on Semitic
in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages (2004), that
the current reconstruction is "malkusu(:)", whereby prevocalic *s < h in 
Common
Semitic but preconditioned by the verbal root structure such that it
was not lost
as a root letter in verbs if it could be conjugated as unvocalized.

The third person pronouns have been analyzed already quite clearly.

There are some very few examples which remain:

zh - this.  It is hard to suppose here anything but a vowel after the z.
ph - here. This word is spelled in Ugaritic as a "p".  However, it is
hard to make
conclusions because this word is almost unknown elsewhere so it is not clear
what it's etymology is.  This appears in a grave curse that also
includes the word
")rwr" - "cursed", with a medial -w- that is likely m.l.
kh - such. This word probably had originally a long -a sound as in Aramaic
and Akkadian ka(h).  It is however similarly unclear whether the -h
was originally
consonantal because the etymology is unclear.  This appears in the Balaam
inscription.
&wkh - placename, "Socoh."  This placename appears in the Shoshenq list
which may be of help in resolving this issue as well as a "lmlk" stamp.

As for names like Yedidyah, or Shlomoh, you are assuming that the
Biblical spelling in certain cases preserves the pre-exilic spelling.  Well,
that is true, and we know that because of pre-exilic texts with which we
can compare.  But then, you assume that in other cases not directly
related to cases with which we can compare, the Biblical spelling also
preserves the pre-exilic spelling, and that you can tell when the Bible
does or does not preserve the pre-exilic spelling in those cases
without pre-exilic evidence with which to compare.  That is something
that remains unproven.

Similarly, in the case of lamed he verbs you assume that a Massoretic
m.l. -y- ("baniyti") is originally consonantal but a Massoretic m.l. -h
("yibneh") is not.

And if you want to doubt m.l. before the 9th century, well then, you are
now disputing Cross and Friedman's analysis which is essentially what
you said all scholars "know" except me.  There is nothing wrong of
course with questioning,and demanding answers.  Other scholars have,
and mostly until now I have read some of their criticisms before I now
read some of Cross and Friedman's work.  However, given the relatively
consonantal aspect of the script, I think the question you should be
asking is when is a letter not consonantal, rather than when is a letter
consonantal.

Yitzhak Sapir