Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Peter:

Thanks for the list.

On 11/28/06, Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org> wrote:
... (left of repeating details)
> So I suppose you could argue that Hebrew speakers used sin where there
> was an Aramaic cognate with sin, but shin where there was a cognate with
> shin or no direct cognate. But this doesn't explain Hebrew words like
> (&H "make", which has no known Aramaic cognate: why sin and not shin here?
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
> Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
> Website: http://www.qaya.org/
This is exactly what my theory predicts. Simple rules based on Aramaic
pronunciations that would cover the majority of uses, telling when to
pronounce shin, when sin.

Now the next question based on the above, where there are no cognates,
such as in the case of (&H, are the majority of them written with a
sin, or is there a distribution between sin and shin?

Finally, human endeavors such as language always contains exceptions,
so one cannot expect that all words follow the patterns, the majority
are good enough.

Karl W. Randolph.