Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>]

PB: James, you didn't read all those books I gave you yet. 

JCR: That may be closely related to the fact that I don't 
have them ;-) Seriously though, while I will keep your 
list for future reference (and I'm sure web surfers who 
come across it in the archives will appreciate it as 
well) I'm in the Ukraine at the moment and my current 
chance of getting hold of any of those books in the near 
future are totally non existent. I'll try and remember 
for next time in the UK and near an institution with a 
decent library.

IF: In this stage the spoken dialects "diphthongized" a certain number of  
vowels so /aleph/, /he/, /yod/, and /waw/ became semi-consonants,  
used often to indicate diphthongs after accented vowels in open  
syllables. The /aleph/ functions as a glottal stop while the /he/ is  
a glottal off-glide,

JCR: My personal theory on /aleph/ and /he/ is that 
they were originally very much pronounced consonants. 
Laziness of speech could have led to beginning /aleph/ 
and final /he/ not being pronounced and leaving only 
the vowel in the pronunciation. As scribes were to 
copy the text 'as is' they would not have had the 
authority to leave out any /aleph/ or /he/ just because 
it wasn't actually pronounced any more.

Any thoughts?

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James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science 
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew       -  thesis1: concept driven machine 
translation using the Aleppo codex 
http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc  -  thesis2: language acquisition simulation

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leave out any /aleph/ or /he/ just because 
it wasn't actually pronounced any more.

Any thoughts?

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-------------------------------------------------------

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew       -  thesis1: concept driven machine 
translation using the Aleppo codex
http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc  -  thesis2: language acquisition simulation

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