Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 8:25 PM, Kevin P. Edgecomb wrote:

> By segholization I mean the shift from nominal QaTxL (where x represents
> short a/i/u) to QeTeL, a process that clearly began before the lists I
> noted, but was apparently still underway.  Jersome knew shamshon, not yet
> shimshon, and so on.  I personally tend to differentiate between "vowel
> length" as interior to usage with each vowel (tsere vs seghol), and "long
> vowels" or "short vowels", the longer or more open vowels being the /a/,
> /o/, /u/ vowels, and the shorter, more closed being the /i/ and /e/ vowels.
> So, this kind of length/openness is an issue of quality, not quantity.
> There is very undoubtedly a specific linguistic terminology for this, though
> I don't know it.  My original usage in the blog post was only to point out
> that segholization and a general shortening of vowels of which it is a
> symptom had begun prior to the appearance of the given lists, sometime in
> the early to the mid-first millennium.  Such transliterations are the only
> objective evidence for such a vocalic change.  It's unfortunate that they're
> seldom of sufficient quality to be trusted to reflect contemporary
> pronunciation.

Where in the transliterations, though, do you see any example of this
shortening?

Yitzhak Sapir