Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

In English we commit absolute atrocities and somehow manage to  
convince ourselves that a particular letter is the same sound.

Consider, for example the 'th' sound. Is it one sound? Are you  
absolutely sure about that? Now say 'thought'. Now say 'the'. Still  
convinced they are the same sound? Say them again but this time listen  
to yourself very, very carefully. The beginning 'th' sounds are  
different and produce different speech signals when analysed with a  
fourier free transform. One is a fricative version of the other.

What about the letter 'l'? Now say 'label'. Is the first 'l' the same  
as the last 'l'? Are you absolutely sure? Listen very carefully  
because this one is a more subtle difference.

In short, what are completely different sounds are often categorised  
by listeners as the same sound merely because the alphabet tells them  
it is the same sound. This does not stop them from spotting that a non  
fricative pronunciation of 'the' somehow sounds funny though.

James Christian

Quoting joel AT exc.com:

> > 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 ?
>
> Even the question, as posed, prejudices the answer.  Just becuase in
> English and similar languages B/V are more distinct than B/Bh doesn't
> mean that the same is true in every language.  The stop/fricative
> difference can be just as (un)important as aspiration.
>
> > The second supposition runs against our understanding of alphabet.
> > Presumably, letters were introduced to reflect sounds, and it is rather
> > unlikely that two very different sounds, b/v, were recorded with the
> > same letter.
>
> Using the same letter for B/V is essentially the same as using the
> same letter for B/BH, to say nothing of S/Z (as we do in English), or
> S/K (also in English), G/X (some Russian words), etc.
>
> > If we take dagesh as post-LXX phenomenon, we're still faced with the
>
> Surprisingly, while the Dagesh as a diacritic is post-LXX, it more
> than any other Masoretic symbol finds support in the LXX, at least as
> a marker of double letters.
>
> -Joel
>
> Joel M. Hoffman, PhD
> http://www.lashon.net
>
> Author of And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning
> http://www.AndGodSaid.com
>
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