Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Peter:

On 1/16/07, Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org> wrote:
...
> But I think Karl could rescue his theory than sin and shin were
> originally one phoneme by abandoning his suggestion that there are no
> sin-shin homonyms, and accepting rather that most of the sin-shin pairs
> arise from resolution of homonym pairs, as I in fact assumed. So I don't
> think these data help us to resolve the question of whether sin and shin
> were originally separate in Hebrew.
Did I say that there were none? I never intended to say that and sorry
if there is such a misunderstanding.

As far as I recall, what I said was that the frequency of such pairs
is far lower than what I expected to see, had sin and shin always been
separate letters. Add to that that some of those pairs exhibit
semantic links based on actions and meanings, further indicating that
they were originally linked as one letter, not two. Further adding
that it was written with one letter, not two, from a time when adopted
alphabets were often adjusted to fit the adopter languages, all
together give evidence, though as far as I recall I have never claimed
as proof, that the sin and shin were originally one letter.

> --
> Peter Kirk
> E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
> Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
> Website: http://www.qaya.org/

Thanks again.

Karl W. Randolph.