Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

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