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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: david.l.steinberg AT rogers.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Biblia Hebraica transcripta
  • Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:21:40 -0400

David,

One thing is crystal clear, to wit, that there never was a pair of xet and ayin letters in the Hebrew script system. Never. The myth of the double letters [or one letter selected to represent two ancient distinct meaningful sounds] originated precisely from the desire to explain the seemingly puzzling situation of the existence in Hebrew of such pairs of words as NAXAL, 'water source' and NAXAL, 'settled', inevitably drawn from an apparently common root. But it is all in vain, unnecessary and even counterproductive. For a brief moment you [or for that matter the venerable Blau] may find respite in the expediency of xet1 and xet2 --- in the claim that the two words come from "different" roots NXL of a merged X, but then there comes the example of numerous other, seemingly unrelated, words stemming also from equal roots, and for which there is no claim of double letters. How do you account for all the different words spawned by the root DBR? Are there five "different" DBR roots? [Gesenius thinks the root DBR has the essential meaning of 'arrange in a row', which is a step in the right direction, but still too specific to be useful.] It leaves also unresolved the question of what is the "difference" between the two similar roots NXL, and what it means for the two roots to be "different". Also, who is to say when xet=xet1 and in what instances xet-xet2?
In fact, this deus ex machina contrivance of a double Hebrew xet and ayin letters results, methinks, from a profound misunderstanding [yes, even by the )ILANOT GDOLIM upon which you lean for support] of the nature of the Hebrew root and it but helps to obfuscate the relationship among Hebrew words derived from the same root. I would discard the double xet and double ayin hypothesis swiftly and entirely.
There is no denying that the root (LM is a variant of BLM [BLIMAH], GLM [GOLEM, GELEM], HLM, XLM [XALOM], KLM, CLM [CELEM], $LM [$ALEM], TLM [TELEM], all essentially meaning 'tall and massive, of substance and body'.
There is no denying that the root NXL is a variant of NHL. Water may NHL=NXL on the face of the earth, or a person may NHL-NXL on the face of the earth, from the root perspective the two phenomena are one and the same.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Mar 4, 2008, at 3:39 PM, David Steinberg wrote:

Isaac -



1 It is clear that /Chet/ in written Hebrew corresponds to two
proto-Semitic consonants which, to avoid typographic problems we can
write /kh/ and H. Similarly '/ayin/ in written Hebrew corresponds to two
proto-Semitic consonants which we can represent as /^c / and /gh/.



2. Most scholars have been convinced by Wevers (Wevers J. W., / Heth/ in
Classical Hebrew by in /Essays on the Ancient Semitic World/ ed. J. W.
Wevers and D. B. Redford, University of Toronto press 1970) and Blau
(/On Polyphony in Biblical Hebrew, / Israel Academy of Sciences and
Humanities Proceedings, vol. VI no. 2 1982) that the original dual
pronunciation /Chet/ and '/ayin/ was only lost in the Hellenistic period
-- i.e. these letters were polyphonic in the pre-exilic, Persian and early Hellenistic periods. E.g. see Sáenz-Badillos/ /p. 69
(Sáenz-Badillos/ /A/, A History of the Hebrew Language/ by, Cambridge
1993), Kutscher pp. 17-18 (Kutscher,/ /Eduard Y. , /A History of the
Hebrew Language/ edited by Raphael Kutscher Published by The Magnes
Press, 1982) and Rainey (Jewish Quarterly Review XCI pp. 419-427,
Jan.-Apr. 2001). See also Consonantal Polyphony in Biblical
http://www.adath-shalom.ca/history_of_hebrew3.htm#polyphonyHebrew*__*



3. You can make the argument that you should ignore etymology in
defining the semantics of Biblical Hebrew words as is being done in
/T//he Dictionary of Classical Hebrew/ , David J.A. Clines, editor.
However even a synchronic approach cannot ignore the phonemic structure
of the language as it existed at the time of text composition.



4. In practice, in the cases of discontinuous semantic ranges of
biblical roots containing /Chet/ or '/ayin, /it seems useful to look at
the etymological background to see whether it might account for what se
see in the Hebrew.



5. Re the specifics see HALOT (/The Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the
Old Testament // by Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner ; subsequently
revised by Walter Baumgartner and Johann Jakob Stamm ; with assistance
from Benedikt Hartmann ... [et al.]. Leiden ; New York : E.J. Brill, 1994)



naHal HALOT

Ugaritic nHlt --take in possession; nHl heir

Hebrew -- basically the same semantic range



Nkhl -- apparently gorge in Ugaritic and definitely in Akkadian

Hebrew -- basically the same semantic range



^c lm ('ayin, lamed, mem)

1. ^c lm = concealed in Arabic and possibly in Ugaritic with parallel
meanings in Hebrew
2. ghlm = dark, obscure in Ugaritic with possibly st same meaning in
Job 42:3 etc
3. ghlm = Ugaritic to be agitated, Arabic to be filled with
passionate desire.
4. Note the word for boy is derived from ghlm not ^c lm.





David Steinberg <mailto:webmaster AT adath-shalom.ca>

http://www.houseofdavid.ca/

David.Steinberg AT houseofdavid.ca <mailto:David.Steinberg AT houseofdavid.ca>

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