Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

-------Original Message------- 
 
From: Gabe Eisenstein 
Date: 17/02/2009 12:16:00 PM 
 
Traffic seems low so I thought I'd sneak in a dumb beginner's question 
-- actually two related questions representing areas of my ignorance. 
 
The first concerns the differences in consonantal pronunciation between 
Biblical Hebrew and what I know as "Sephardic" and "Ashkenazic". (For 
Simplicity I would like to sidestep other intermediate possibilities of 
Medieval or Mishnaic Hebrew, but you can tell me about them too if you 
Like.) I know that one example of the three forms is T=th,t or s. And I 
Know or think I know that BH w became v in S & A. 

**********
K: I am not familiar enough with Ashkenazi to even attempt to do that.  I
will leave it for someone else.  By Biblical Hebrew I presume you mean as
recorded by the Massoretes, and not as it was spoken in the C8th or earlier.
 There is very little that can be conclusively established about
pre-Massoretic Hebrew.  There have been long discussion on this list about
the possible double values of (ayin and heth.

*************

The second concerns the rules for reading hard vs. Soft b/g/d/k/p/t when 
You are looking at text without points (dagesh). About all I know is 
That an initial letter is (always? Usually?) hard. Are the rules 
Complete, so that the dagesh is just an aid for people like me; or is 
There some ambiguity that makes the dagesh necessary? 
[While you're at it you can explain to me what the hard/soft difference 
Sounds like in the case of gimel and daleth.] 

***********
K:  There are no rules that I know of for telling where a dagesh goes when
they are not used.  If you know Hebrew, you know when they should be there.

Soft gimel and daleth are like the 'd' and 'g' in Spanish or Greek.  The
daleth is like the English 'th' in 'that'.

****************
 
I found a chart online that seemed to suggest that some of the hard/soft 
Differences didn't exist in BH, but emerged later. Is that right? 

*********************************
K: The consensus is that they emerged after the Exile.  No one is completely
sure of that.  But they were part of the language that the Massoretes
recorded.

******************************
 
Two examples that have me puzzled are: 
 
Rabbi Aqiba vs. Rabbi Aqiva -- which one is right in the sense of what 
He called himself? 

******************************
K:  Single 'b' always becomes 'v' in the middle of a word.

*******************************
 
Shabath (shabas, shabat) -- why isn't there an analogous form shavath? 
(I'm sure it has something to do with the "doubling" of the b, but I 
Don't understand how you know that it's "doubled" when the text only has 
One.) 

***************************
K:  The letters are never softened when they are double.  That is why there
is no need to write 'th', 'kh', etc.  If initial, they are hard, elsewhere
if not doubled they are soft.  The doubling in transcription represents
dagesh.  If there are no dageshes marked, you need to know enough Hebrew to
know where they are.  I believe it is possible to do that, but I am nowhere
near close enough to know for myself.

Kevin Riley

****************
 
Thanks, 
 
Gabe Eisenstein