Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ratson Naharadama <yahoo-arch AT heplist.com>]

I'll try to be brief but get as much info stuffed in here as possible, 
while keeping it as non-technical as possible. This is why come of the 
explanations may not be as detailed and explained as they should be. 
Feel free to ask for clarifications if the need arises.

Just as the `Arabic Khaa (h(aa = ?) is the fricative version of the K 
sound, `Arabic ghayin (g.ayin = ?) is the fricative version of the G 
sound (G sound as in the word "goat"). Further, K is the unvoiced 
version (the vocal cords are not used to make the sound) of the voiced G 
sound (the vocal cords are used to make the sound), the `Arabic Khaa is 
the unvoiced version of Ghayin (all 4 sounds are articulated from the 
same spot in the mouth).

Another example of this sound relationship between letters is the more 
English familiar T, D, TH (the TH sound of "thin" and "think"), and DH 
(the TH sound of "mother" and "that"). T and TH are both unvoiced while 
D and DH are voiced. TH and DH are fricative while T and D are 
stops/plosives. All 4 of these sounds are pronounced from the same 
location in the mouth, they differ in whether they are voiced or not, or 
whether the tongue completely or only partially stops air flow at the 
spot of articulation.

The Ghayin sound is often spelled in English orthography using the 
letter combination GH. In more scholarly books, it will be spelled with 
a G with a dot above (G.). If this is not available in their font, the 
G. will be replaced by a G with an acute above (G'). Hopefully, if you 
are using a Unicode font in your email viewer, these examples are 
viewable, otherwise you may be seeing boxes, or question marks (or some 
other odd placeholder) for the letter examples.

The sound of Ghayin is like the sound of KH (as said before, pronounced 
at the same place as K), but let the vocal cords vibrate as the air 
passes them. This will make the KH sound take on a G-like sound. If you 
have taken French, and know how to pronounce a uvular-R (gutteral-R), 
that sound will sound similar to the Ghayin sound (if you were to move 
the point of articulation forward --- off the uvula and onto the soft 
palate where G and K are pronounced --- you would get the Ghayin sound).

When an ear which is not familiar with the Ghayin hears that sound, that 
person brain tries to associate it with whatever familiar it is closest 
to. For most English ears, that sound is G. For Greeks, the same thing 
is true, it sounds like a G to them, even though it is not. Both the 
places Baghdad and Gaza have a Ghayin in them, but because of this 
unfamiliar-sound-association, the Ghayin sound got assigned a G sound 
when brought into our language.

Something similar to the above happens when an ear unfamiliar with the 
PH sound hears it uttered. For the English speaking ears, the PH is 
either interpreted as an F sound, or as a P sound.

Hebrew began with a Ghayin sound. When Hebrew used the old 22 letter 
alphabet (not the current aramaic square one), some letters (just as in 
the "English" alphabet) pulled double duty: Shin was used for both Th 
(as in "thin") and Sh (however, the letter shape actually was that for 
thad, not shin which looked like a delta with wings); Chet was used for 
both Hh (a throaty H-like sound) and Ch (similar sound to Kh, but not 
the same); Tsadi for Ts and Tz; `Ayin for Ayin (a voiced pharyngeal 
sound whose only real English equivalent is the way some people 
pronounce the slang "aiight" and vowel-initial words in certain contexts 
in country music singing) and Ghayin (the old hebrew alphabet uses the 
shape of Ayin, but the current aramaic square alphabet uses the shape 
for Ghayin); Zayin for Z and DH (the th of "that"). There is no strong 
evidence showing whether Hebrew ever had a Daad sound (D. = ? ) like 
Arabic has --- the possibility exists, but more research continues by some.

Over time, several of the sounds in Hebrew started to fall out. A 
biblical reference to this is the Shibbolet story. At this point in 
Hebrew history, the TH (the second sound of the Shin letter) was falling 
out of the language and was becoming replaced by the S sound (which was 
carried on the Samek letter). Eventually, TH fell out completely and 
Shin now carries the SH sound and a redundant S sound. Arabic, on the 
other hand, maintained the TH in the language and words that are spelled 
with Sin (the modern S sound of Shin) are spelled with Thaa in Arabic. 
One of the big unfluences to accelerate the loss of these Hebrew sounds 
was the growing adoption of Aramaic (or, rather, the Isra'elite version 
of Aramaic). However, by the time of the Septuagint, Ayin and Ghayin 
sounds were both being carried by one letter, and Gaza and Gomorrah were 
examples of two words (actually, place-names) where the letter was 
pronounced as Ghayin. The closest thing that could be put down with the 
Greek alphabet was gamma (a G letter), so Hebrew words (mainly names) 
that contained a Ghayin sound were written down with Gamma, and those 
that contained the Ayin were written down without a letter (there was no 
clear enough Greek replacement letter).

In Samaritan pronunciations, sounds have degraded much more. There are 
many redundant sounds and lost sounds. All sounds lost in Jewish Hebrew 
are gone in Samaritan Hebrew. H, Ch, and Hh are gone from pronunciation. 
Beyt and Waw are both pronounced B. Samaritan Hebrew also lacks the 
fricative duality of the BGDKPT letters. Letters that have dagesh in 
Jewish Hebrew are doubled consonants in Samaritan (doubling --- or 
gemination --- is a feature of most semitic languages which changes the 
meaning of the word). The BGDKPT letters in the old Hebrew language were 
always B, G, D, K, P, and T sounds (respectively) and only began to have 
their fricative counterparts after Babylonian exile and the Aramaic 
language began to be used. It was also after the exile that the aramaic 
square alphabet was adopted (originally in the imperial aramaic form).

--
Ratson Naharädama
Denver, Colorado