Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

     It may be useful to keep in mind that the discussion about
pronunciation 
of words in BH refers only to the written texts as they
came down to us.
 However, one should not forget the obvious, namely
that up to a certain point
 actual people spoke the languages which they
wrote down. In the case of
 the MT we know that it ceased  to be spoken
quite a few centuries before
 the Masoretes codified the  texts. BH had
been replaced long before with 
Mishnaic  Hebrew and mostly with Aramaic.
 
 

  Of course there had been different versions before.  But when
viewed from certain perspectives, the similarity of the DSS and the LXX
to the 
MT are remarkable. Despite thousands of important textual
differences, and abundance of variations, there are hardly any 
differences in the 
 historical narrartives, for instance.  Further, the
text of biblical quotations 
in the Mishnah, codified  ciraca 200 CE, is the consonantal text of the MT 
which followed more than half a milleneum later.
 
 It is common knowledge that pronunciation changes with time, but
not always. There are some  remarkable features of the MT vocalization
which deserve renewed attention:
  In addition to earlier vowel markings in Akkadian
and in Arabic which employ
 only three vowels: A , U, I ,  the MT does
present E  as in the Seghol or 
Tsere and Hataf- Seghol. There is no
reason to doubt that such vowel 
existed in the ordinary pronunciation
of people, as it
exists in colloquial Arabic.  ( This is
why the English reader may be confused by variant transliterations of 
the article "Al-..." or "El..." as in the name "Al-Arish" or "El-Arish.")
 
Interestingly the MT preserved some ancient forms of declensions - such
as "kalbi" or "malki" that may have  preserved the way they
had been pronounced thousands of years earlier. This despite the fact
they are derived 
from the Segholite KeLeV or MeLeKh. But even such
nouns, in their standard M plural preserved ancient plural form in the
long Kamatz under the middle consonant, before the regular "...IM"
ending, thus emplying really a double dual.

  
However, the very opposite happened in other cases. In  the personal
name Shimshon, it is the LXX translation which preserved the original " A"
in the first vowel, rather than the later "I" in the MT.  Compare to the 
Arabic "Shams" for sun.

   
Such an example demonstrates the internal changes 
which
occurred in pronunciation of  written words between the Hellenistic period
 when
the LXX was composed, and the time of the Masoretes centuries later.

    Uri Hurwitz                                                    Wilmington 
 Vt
 
                     
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
           
        
        
        
        
        
        
        


          
                  
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
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>From if AT math.bu.edu  Tue Jun 24 19:55:26 2008
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From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:55:02 -0400
To: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
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Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Interchange of L/lamed with R/resh in Biblical Hebrew
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David,

It is your turn now to bring us some examples to what you call
"phonemic analysis" in Hebrew. But please, please, please don't send
us to some obscure paper in some forlorn festschrift of which there
are only seven copies in the entire world.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Jun 24, 2008, at 6:12 PM, David Kummerow wrote:

>
> Dear Isaac,
>
> I'm afraid that your semantic analysis comes across to me as simply
> gibberish. The method is pure subjectivity. Like I said, we cannot
> discuss evidence such as Q$R and G$R before you accept the basics.
> However, you dismiss the basics of phonemic analysis. Phonemics is
> indeed a linguistic science despite your claim that it is not: it
> follows a clearly articulated methodology and produces results
> which may
> be reproduced and/or falsified. A textbook on phonemics or an
> introductory course would answer your question: "How can the
> elementary
> particle of language be defined in terms of this transcendental thing
> called 'meaning'?"
>
> Every language that I am aware of may be analysed phonemically. Your
> claim is that BH cannot be. That claim requires substantial
> justification in the face of the overwhelming crosslinguistic
> evidence.
> In any case, BH has indeed been traditionally analysed following a
> method of normal phonemic analysis, the results of which produces a
> coherent linguistic system. I see no reason to abandon this in
> preference for a method which is entirely subjective, is relevant only
> for one language, and produces very questionable results.
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
>
>
>> David,
>>
>>
>> I looked up 'phoneme' and this is what I find "In human language, a
>> phoneme is the smallest posited structural unit that distinguishes
>> meaning". Here lies the devil, in 'smallest', 'distinguishes', and
>> 'meaning', all barely definable or ascertainable. How can the
>> elementary
>> particle of language be defined in terms of this transcendental thing
>> called 'meaning'? And, all in retrospect relative to its change? I am
>> really terribly sorry, but this can not pass for science. I know that
>> phoneme is a YSOD MUSAD in indo-European linguistics, but I truly
>> believe that we should abandon talk about it in Hebrew.
>>
>> In the indo-European languages "distinguishing meaning" may be
>> passable
>> but not in Hebrew. If the roots Q$R and G$R have the same meaning,
>> then
>> Q and G are here equal phonemes [but different phones?], but if
>> the two
>> roots differ only slightly in meaning, then Q and G are only barely
>> distinguishable phonemes [something between a phoneme and a
>> phone?]. In
>> Hebrew it is not all-or-nothing. In any event, all this is too
>> bewildering to me and I am afraid that you get yourself entangled in
>> something not worth getting even close to.
>>
>> This is why I prefer the use of 'equivalent'. The letters G, H, X,
>> K, Q
>> are equivalent in the sense that if you substitute them in a Hebrew
>> root, the root retains its basic meaning. Thus, the Hebrew roots G$R,
>> [H$R], X$R, K$R, Q$R are equivalent, spawning words of only finely
>> differentiated meaning. The words QE$ER, 'knot, relationship' and
>> GE$ER,
>> 'bridge', are different words, yet they are still the same. A GE
>> $ER is
>> but something that M-QA$ER, 'connects', the two sides of a river. The
>> root H$R is not in use, but one can not understand what X$R [see XA
>> $R-AT
>> MAYIM of 2 Samuel 22:12, and XI$UR of 1 Kings 7:33] means without
>> understanding that it is but a variant of Q$R. Thus, XA$R-AT
>> (ABIM, is
>> but QA$R-AT (ABIM, clouds tying into each other to form an unbroken
>> canopy. The root K$R spawned the more abstract KA$ER and KA$IR,
>> 'fit',
>> being but QA$IR, 'connectable'.
>>
>>
>> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>
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