Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

Vadim,

It is indeed worthwhile giving the Hebrew dagesh problem a fresh,  
unbiased and unfettered consideration, free of past dogmatic  
encumbrances.
It is possible that sin evolved from shin by some dialectical  
pronunciation differences, but I tend to think it is rather an  
intentionally introduced visual discriminatory device --- the editor  
needed an extra letter in the D, Z, T, Y, S, C, $, T group. The name  
SARAH, for example, with a sin LOOKS good because it calls to mind  
SAR, 'nobleman', but it obviously looks bad with a samek.  Isaiah  
plays on this in 1:23, saying
שָׂרַיִךְ סוֹרְרִים
"Your princes are rebels".
Occasionally this interchange is accompanied by an interchange of the  
filler letters, for example, SB), 'drink to excess', and SB(, 'eat  
one's fill'.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 8, 2008, at 5:59 AM, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> As some of you might remember from the previous discussions on this
> list, I advocate the theory that dagesh (both kal and hazak) is a  
> stop.
> Specifically, dagesh hazak is a post-tonic geminative stop, and dagesh
> kal is interconsonantal stop meant to force syllabification. Both
> dageshes are designed to prevent jamming: hazak prevents jamming of  
> the
> post-tonic vowel (mitlAb'sh - mitlA.bbesh) and kal prevents jamming of
> first consonant in the cluster (ni-zcar - ni-'car, but niz.car).
>
> With that in mind, I'd venture an explanation for shin-sin difference
> which I haven't seen before. Dot in shin-sin functions like soft-hard
> signs in Russian. A {she} syllable, for example, would be pronounced
> with the soft sign like sh[ee].  The point is, shin and sin is the  
> same
> letter, the difference being purely environmental.
> Sameh, then, is [s] while sin is softened [sh]. It is possible that in
> some words with harsh meaning sameh evolved into sin due to hard
> pronunciation (e.g., savah with sameh - svah, bars, with sin).
>
> I'd like to welcome your opinions.
>
> Vadim Cherny
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