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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] verb forms - Isaiah 56:6-7 was dying you shall die
  • Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:17:27 -0500

Isaac Fried wrote:
Uri,

The relationship between Hebrew and Arabic is enigmatic and I am not prepared to be sucked now into this murky vortex.

I don't know why the Arabs say ANA where the Hebrews say ANI, or why the Arabs say ANTA where the Hebrews say ATA, or why the arabs say ANTI where the Hebrews say AT, or why the Arabs say ANTUNA where the Hebrews say ATEN.

One thing is crystal clear (at least to me), which is that the inflections of the Arabic QATALA are, as in Hebrew, invariably a root plus a personal pronoun referring to the perpetrating agent or actor. At one time they were distinct words, but then they came near and got fused into one word.

I don't discount the possibility that at one time at some place ATU was used for ANI, for the simple reason that the personal pronouns are, in my opinion, by themselves compounds. Everything in nature is a compound, even atoms are compounds.

My comprehensive answer to your remark is as follows:

1. At first the personal pronouns were just the U (SHURUK) and I (XIRIK) sounds. They are still such (and gender independent) when put between the radical letter, say LUKAX = L-U-KAX, 'he was taken', LUKXAH = L-U-KX-AH, 'she was taken'. The O, E sounds were introduced later, and are still absent in Arabic.

2. The stand-alone personal pronouns are compounds of the substantives (existence markers, fundamental concepts) AN-NA, AT-TA, AK-KA (AH-HA, AX-XA), AM-MA. Thus: ANI = AN-I, ANOKI = AN-O-AK-I, ANAXNU = AN-AX-AN-U, HU = AH-U, HI = AH-I, HEM (HIM) =HI-AM, ATEM = AT-HEM. All is left in ATAH is a silent H, and even this fell off in AT.

3. In the same way, on the face of it, the arabic ANTI = AN-AT-I.

4. The personal pronoun ANI is used for 'I', but ATI is left frozen in compounds. If LAKAXNU is obviously LAKAX-ANU, then LAKAXTI is obviously LAKAX-ATI. For some reason Hebrew uses LAKXU = LAKAX-U, instead of LAKXEM = LAKAX-HEM.

5. In the Genitive, Hebrew uses instead of ATA, AKA, as in SHELKA = SHEL-AKA, 'yours'. In place of AT it uses AK as in SHELAK = SHEL-AK, and instead of ATEM it uses AKEM as in SHELAKEM = SHEL-AKEM.

6. Personal pronoun additions are piled up in Hebrew: LKAXTANI = LAKAX-ATA-ANI, 'you carried me off', LKAXTIHU = LAKAX-ATI-HU, 'I carried him off', and so on.

How do I know all this? If you come to think of it, it cannot be otherwise.

HH: Of course it can be otherwise. The verbs could always have had suffixes and prefixes. Separate independent pronouns are used together with verbs with prefixes and suffixes sometimes.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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