Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yaakov Stein" <yaakov_s AT rad.com>]

> The Fekherye inscription, the earliest Aramaic inscription, is a
bilingual inscription in Aramaic and Akkadian from the 9th century BCE.
The inscription already shows the use of mater lectionis

The Bilaam Barbeor text, in some Aramaic-Hebrew dialect, probably within
a century of the Fekherye inscription,
use the final H and W, but no indication of vocalization inside words.

The Shiloah inscription, and inscriptions from Arad already have
indications inside words.

Thus there is good evidence that in Hebrew the ending indications
(mainly H, but also W) came first,
and the interior indications came later.

There is less evidence of the chronology of other languages,
although it would seem that Moabite, Amonite and Philistine
used fewer indications at about the same time.

Y(J)S