Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

I've tried to stay out of this but I can't resist any longer.

Basically, these are the simple linguistic facts of the matter:

1) We know Hebrew mainly through Greek
2) We know Greek mainly through Latin
3) We know Latin mainly through our translations from Latin
4) When we transliterated Hebrew names from Latin the limitations of  
the naturally sounding sequences of phonemes and of our alphabet  
caused us to lose/change features of the latin vocalisation
4) When those before us transliterated Hebrew names from Greek into  
Latin the limitations of naturally sounding sequences of phonemes and  
of the Latin alphabet caused them to lose/change features of the Greek  
vocalisation
5) When those before they transliterated Hebrew names from Hebrew into  
Greek the limitations of naturally sounding sequences of phonemes and  
of the Greek alphabet caused them to lose/change features of the  
Hebrew vocalisation
6) Add into this the hearing factor (I've been living in Ukraine now,  
on and off, for 3 years and while I can hear the very subtle  
difference in their L's I still can't pronounce the difference very  
well. To them there is a world of difference. Just as to us there is a  
world of difference between 'r' and 'l' but to others not so great) to  
make the situation worse
7) We have some old documents which refer to the system but it is not  
altogether clear if we are reading them or understanding them right

In short, any kind of 'concensus' is practically meaningless to any of  
the list members or to any earnest student of Hebrew who wants to hear  
evidence of the matter so they can decide for themselves.

I vaguely recollect delving into this at some point to see if there  
was some kind of consistency to any of the theories and comparing with  
Greek transliterations of Hebrew names I saw that consistency of any  
kind just goes right out of the window. I think this is especially  
true of a text which was meticulously copied consonant by consonant  
thus resisting evolution of language while the pronunciation of the  
language itself did not have such a restraint. Would you not agree  
that whatever convention the Masoretes decided on it is an almost  
impossible task to define a consisent system of any kind whatsoever  
unless you are willing to write everything in IPA.

However, even if we wrote everything in IPA we would need to provide a  
database of recordings of which phones we associated (at this time)  
with each IPA symbol so that later generations could reliably decide  
the matter with any kind of conviction.

In fact, the question then arises "Is IPA complete? Will it still be  
complete (using the same symbols) after 2000 years of linguistic  
evolution?".

James Christian

Quoting 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
> > >
>
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