Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On 12/12/06, Vadim Cherny wrote:
> Thank you. I couldn't find Arabic text to check, but my English translation
> says nothing of narrowings and openings, but specifically mentions the u, i,
> a sounds.

Well, it is trying to translate the text.  The categories are broken
up according
to the three Arabic vowels.  So it's not that far off.  However, the
important thing
to realize is that "great U-sound" doesn't mean "long u".

> I don't understand, how could qamats be "wide narrowing" and patah "wide
> opening". And how is tzere a "short break"?

Consider how your lips are placed when you pronounce each of the vowels
"u", "i" and "a".  A tsere, whose sound is very similar to an "ey" sound, has
the lips placed very similarly to the lips when they make an "i" sound.  In
the same way, the "o" sound has the lips place similarly to to an "u" lip
position.  If you pronounce an Ashkenazi qamats, (not the same thing as
a regular "o" vowel!), you will see how the same lip position is still 
basically
maintained.  Anyway, I'm not sure if "Narrowing" or "Break" is a good
translation but it is the best I came up with.

> > The schewa is not said to be always vocal.  What the text means is that "a
> schewa can be a vowel like any of these seven qualities, under certain
> conditions."
> In my Hirschfeld's translation, "shewa is sounded with all these [vowels]
> under certain conditions."

Keep in mind that Hirschfeld in trying to translate the text probably does
not understand exactly the Tiberian Massoretic pronounciation to which
Judah Halevi is refering.  He also is probably more interested in the
philosophical portions than the nitty gritty details of pronunciation.  So 
this
part of the text suffers a lot.  However, the translation shows that the text
doesn't say that the schewa is sounded with all these vowels.  "Vowels"
is an addition by the translator, and "vowel qualities" would have been a
more accurate completion.  Also, "under certain conditions" definitely does
not say what you originally said which is "the schewa is always vocal."

As you can see, every sentence in this section of the Kuzari requires a
whole paragraph to explain it.  I am not entirely clear on the details of how
the "forms" work in the ensuing discussion in this section, and until I am I
would rather not translate any more portions.  But those parts that I have
translated are definitely what Judah Halevi meant.  The Hebrew version I
am using is a version of Ibn Tibbon's translation, so in this case, the
translator lived very near the time period of Judah Halevi and knew what
Judah Halevi was talking about.

Yitzhak Sapir