Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin Riley" <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>]

I thought the use of 'h' to mark lenited sounds was given up because it is
unnecessary?  Lenition is regular, and as long as you double the letters
where Hebrew uses a dot, it is as easy as reading Hebrew.  I am confused by
the use of 'aspirated' in this context, as I thought the difference was one
of stop Vs fricative in both Hebrew and Arabic, not aspiration Vs
non-aspiration.  Especially as it seems likely that it was the non-lenited
stops that were aspirated.  Anyway, I would agree that using 'th' for tet is
inappropriate.  I was taught to pronounce it as in Arabic, and the only
Hebrew I hear these days is from my supervisor, whose family is from Iraq,
so I was surprised that most Hebrew speakers do not do the same.  Does that
mean that qof and kaf are also not distinguished?

Kevin Riley
 
-------Original Message------- 
 
From: Jason Hare 
Date: 1/02/2009 8:53:42 PM 
 
So, you've got 
Tet = th 
Thaw (that is, tav without dagesh) = th 
 
How can ת be represented in its soft form the same as ט? I just don't 
Get the fact that two different people have suggested this, as if 
There were a SOFT nature to tet, which is actually an emphatic 
Consonant, corresponding to the Arabic ط rather than the aspirated ث 
(corresponding to ת) or the non-aspirated ت (corresponding to תּ). How 
Can emphatic ט be represented in transcription as aspirated th? 
 
Additionally, all of these suggestions for using h in the soft 
Consonant forms would really just lend to the confusion of actual heh 
ה within words. How do we present הבהיר in these consonants? "hbhhyr" 
- What a mess! It's so much clearer to see HBHYR as 
Heh-bet-heh-yod-resh. 
 
Again, I'm all for keeping the "standard" as it is. It's just clearer. 
 
Jason Hare