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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] verb forms - Isaiah 56:6-7 was dying you shall die
  • Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:08:23 -0400

Uri,

You are right. Since school days I am being constantly reminded that the Dagesh forte in the TAV of ATAH is to account for a "missing" or "assimilated" NUN. But I have hard time accepting this. Is it conceivable that the NAKDANIM would mar the sacred text for a reason that is practically utterly irrelevant? Do we care as we read the Torah that at some point AT was possibly ANT, and BAT was possibly BANT? If I remember correctly this is also the reason given for the Dagesh following MI- and HA-. Do you believe it? The speculation that the discarded NUN did not go away quietly but rather left a faint remainder in the form of a "slight emphatic pronounciation as still heard in Masoretes time" is not easy for me to accept either.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Apr 18, 2007, at 9:53 AM, Uri Hurwitz wrote:

Isaac Fried wrote, inter alia:
"Uri, The relationship between Hebrew and Arabic is enigmatic

and I am not prepared to be sucked now into this murky

vortex. "...

Arabic preserves many Proto-Semitic features which are

common to all Semitic languages. Just one small example:

Heb. ATTAH compared with Arab. ANTA. Notice the Dagesh

forte in the Heb. Tav which compensates for the original Nun

that had been there and is preserved in the Arabic. In Hebrew

it was assimilated to the next letter, but marked its former

presence by the slight emphatic pronounciation as still

heard in Masoretes time and marked by them as a dagesh.

To cite just one more example :the exact same process

occurred in verbs. Notice the imperfect of NPL in Qal, where

the Nun drops and is commpensated with a dagesh.



As for the pre-historical devlopment of Semitic languages

or human languages in general, this is the realm of sheer

speculation.

Uri








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