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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] WAYYIQTOL/YIQTOL/WEYIQTOL [was Kamatz katan; ...was: Translating]

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  • From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] WAYYIQTOL/YIQTOL/WEYIQTOL [was Kamatz katan; ...was: Translating]
  • Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 10:16:41 -0700

Rochelle:

On 10/10/06, rochelle altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il> wrote:
Karl,

I did not state that BH as we have it shows all the forms.

I do know that the Paleo- frags among the DSS use variant forms.

But even the oldest DSS post date by centuries the changes that
Aramaic imposed on Hebrew by the fact (as I read it) that the
returnies were more at home in Aramaic than Hebrew.

Corrupted? .... You can't call that "corrupted." A living language changes;
Hebrew was a
living language at the period you are talking about.

Depends on how you define "living language".


For example, one question that's been floated out here is how far back does
the use of ADONAI go? From the meter, well, it's used in pre-Monarchial
psalms... so. I'd hazard 12th-11th-centuries BCE at the very least.

I've seen this as an argument for a tri-syllabic pronunciation of YHWH
(I personally think that the W is the mater lectionis).


Best regards,

Rochelle

Maybe I should have been more clear about "corrupted". Most of the
time when I think of "corrupted" in this context, I refer to changes
that new influences had on Biblical Hebrew so that it was no longer
the language of David, Isaiah, even Jeremiah. There are two major
changes: 1) the pronunciation, the returnies pronounced the language
according to the Aramaic pronunciations of the alphabet, not
necessarily the Hebrew pronunciation from pre-exilic times, and 2) a
simpler, more direct use of the language than that employed by
pre-exilic writers such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Psalms, Proverbs and
others. I observe both changes. Those are also indications that Hebrew
was no longer learned at one's mother's knees, but living in the same
manner as Latin is still a living language.

Which leads me back to my original question, what evidence is there
that there were four waws/vavs in pre-exilic Biblical Hebrew? I know
of no pre-exilic epigraphic evidence for it.

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.




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