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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Dagesh - a different sound or aspiration?

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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: "R. Lehmann" <lehmann AT uni-mainz.de>
  • Cc: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dagesh - a different sound or aspiration?
  • Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:11:47 +0100


And this:
- in some environments (yeshobhebh), the aspirated versions are nearly
unpronounceable.

By no means it is. At least not for a German native speaker ;-)


I think this has to be the most sensible and valid point of this discussion I have read so far. All too often you see discussions of this kind with most parties drawing conclusions on what is pronounceable in their own native language.

Just about any sequence of phones is pronounceable given the right stimulus. When two truly phones can't be pronounced in sequence we deal with it with the universal adaptivity of vowels which are such agreeable little creatures that they can make friends with any consonant they come across.

When it all comes down to it what we have is:

a) a reasonable idea of what the sequence of consonants was
b) an attempt by a group we call the masoretes to record the vocalisation of their time period unambiguously
c) as many theories about the original pronunciation as there are readers of Hebrew

James Christian

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