Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On 8/24/07, kenneth greifer wrote:
> This idea might sound silly, but a person could learn to read Biblical
> Hebrew without the vowels like a deaf person learns to read and understand a
> language without imagining any sounds connected to the words.

There were no scribes in the ancient world that were deaf from birth.  All
learned the language from birth by speech.  Deaf education is a modern
concept.  Even so, in any language, the deaf person will have to realize
the range of meanings and words including the different vocalizations.
He will have to understand that a consonantal spelling of "rd" (in English)
could be "raid", "red", "reed", "road", "ride", "rode", "rude", "rid", "rod",
"rad".  Some of these are homonyms; some would be spelled the same
even with "mater lectionis" ("raid", "reed", "rid").  Ten different readings 
for
one consonantal spelling.  He may not need to associate different sounds
but he will need to have some kind of understanding of the missing vowels.

Yitzhak Sapir