Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi,

Quoting Petr Tomasek <tomasek AT etf.cuni.cz>:

> On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 02:48:20PM +0300, Vadim Cherny wrote:
> > What is the consensus opinion of the original functioning of begedkefet
> > pairs:
> >
> > 1. A difference in aspiration b/bh, or
> > 2. Completely different sounds b/v ?
>
> Well, b/v are not "completely different" sounds neither. :)

Yep. See the Spanish language as an interesting example of this. The  
Spanish letter 'v' to the untrained English ear will sometimes sound  
like a 'v' and sometimes sound like a 'b'. There is also a Spanish 'b'  
which is distinguishable enough (to the trained ear) to never be  
confused with the Spanish 'v' when it sounds like an English 'b'.

Some don't really hear or distinguish the difference between a 'w' and  
a 'v'. And some don't distinguish the difference between an 'l' and an  
'r'. In Ukrainian there is a hard 'l' and a soft 'l'. The difference  
is as minute as making a small space between your tongue and the roof  
of you mouth.

James Christian

> What is clear, is that letters of bega"d kefa"t with and without dagesh
> do not present two different phonemes but rather are alophones
> (in masoretic biblical hebrew). The reason why they are at all marked
> is likely due to the fact, that hebrew was not the mother tongue of the
> masoretes, in which a phonemic distinction existed between b/v (or whatever
> fonetic value they had).
>
> BTW, I'd recommend reading the following article:
>
>    Richard L. Goerwitz. "Is Tiberian Səgôl a Phoneme?" in:   
> Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of the   
> International Organization for Masoretic Studies. E. J. Revell   
> (ed.). Cambrigde University: Scholars Press 1995. pp. 155-170.
>
> P.T.
>
> --
> Petr Tomasek <http://www.etf.cuni.cz/~tomasek>
> Jabber: butrus AT jabbim.cz
> SIP: butrus AT ekiga.net
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