Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

The timing of the sound changes in Greek is still disputed, but generally I
think that aspirated and voiced stops are considered to have become spirants
by about the C3rd CE, probably before.  How much of that is reflected in the
Septuagint is anyone's guess.  My main point was that the change in Greek,
and also the alternation in Spanish of bdg between voiced stops and
spirants, is not accompanied by any change in the alphabet.  The Masoretes
seem to have wanted to maintain the consonantal text intact and also
indicate the pronunciation for chanting/reading.  Hence the use of dagesh
and all the other marks.  If the similar change in Aramaic occurred before
the Aramaic alphabet was adopted, then the double pronunciation of the
bgdkpt letters in Aramaic would have been carried over into Hebrew without
any need to change letters.

Kevin Riley 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vadim Cherny [mailto:vadimcherny AT gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, 24 August 2009 6:01 AM
> 
> Thanks. What about the absence of dagesh from LXX? Ok, we can take it
> that beta in LXX can mean both [bh]  and [v], but there are Latin
> transliterations where we would expect b and v differentiated.
> 
> I don't know about Spanish and other languages, but isn't [b/v]
> differentiation of beta in Greek relatively modern, the ancient
> pronunciation being just a bit aspirated?
> 
> Vadim Cherny
> 
> 
> Kevin Riley wrote:
> > The second is the consensus.  And whether it 'goes against our
understanding
> > of the alphabet' or not, it is also found in Greek and Spanish, as well
as a
> > number of lesser known languages.  Where lenition is predictable from
the
> > context (e.g  between vowels) it is not marked in any way.  The evidence
> > from modern Aramaic dialects/languages as well as the traditional
> > pronunciation schemes for Hebrew support this conclusion for Aramaic and
> > Hebrew.
> >
> > Kevin Riley
> >