Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] About Dagesh's

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Yaakov Stein <yaakov_s AT rad.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] About Dagesh's
  • Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:42:56 -0400

Yaakov,

I don't know what caused B to turn to V, and P to turn to F, maybe the Hebrews fell in love with the dainty Greek way of speech. I notice that what is called 'grave' in English is said 'Grab' in German, which they also call 'Gruft', which we in turn call 'crypt'.
Notice the curious rendering in Exodus 2:21 of Σεπϕωραν [Sepforan] by the LXX for ZIPORAH the wife of Moses. It has a P and an F! See it for yourself at
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/grie/sept/sept.htm
Unfortunately, I know nothing about the Horite language.
My point is that the dgeshim plus nikud is an amalgamation of differently purposed marking systems. To try and figure out the intention of the dgeshim we should, methinks, look at a text striped of all nkudot, with only the inner dots left, in order to restore it to the way it possibly appeared to the Torah readers before Ben- Asher's invention. Such dots are not needed [and would certainly not be permitted] today as every congregant has a well punctuated book placed in front of him, and is ready and eager to pounce on the public reader at the smallest provocation. It is testimony to the intricacy of biblical Hebrew that even experienced readers keep erring in the vocalization of the text, but I know one reader who will never make a mistake.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Jun 19, 2008, at 4:27 AM, Yaakov Stein wrote:


I think that BK"P became hard thereby only incidentally, but now we
are stuck with this phenomenon and need to say DIBER, not DIVER.

Isaac,

I quite agree that in spoken language we can forget about the idea that
dagesh doubles the letter
(although I try to emphasize this when reading tora).
Similarly, we can forget about the shva na and nax distinction (with the
same remark).

What was never clear to me was WHY the dagesh changes some of the
BGDKPT letters in the way is does.

What is the connection between the B and V sound ?
Between the P and F ?

It would be much easier to understand if the P became B
or the F became V by adding voicing (as a strenghtening).

Do you have any ideas why these particular couples are related ?

I heard several years ago in a lecture on Semitic languages that
these dagesh letter changes were probably brought in from the
Horite language, which has many more such combinations.
Do you know anything about that ?

Yaakov (J) Stein
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page