Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

P.P.S. Your data from Akkadian only shows neighbouring people working at the
same level of perception. That of the level of the syllable. The fact that
they discerned more is not indicative of the perception of those who
implemented the Hebrew alphabet. It just shows that the two groups perceived
a different number of unique syllables at a level high enough to be worth
encoding the difference. Again. The sooner you acknowledge this the sooner
we can start having a serious linguistic discussion.

James Christian

2010/1/22 Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>

> Extending the name from YitzHaq's GIGO Hebrew thread to "GAGA":
> GAGA Hebrew ?! (was Perception . . .)
>
>
> The 'perception' proposal in a recent thread seems to have missed
> some fundamentals. The problem is/wasn't the Hebrews perception.
> Nor does our perception have anything to do with it either. Nor
> does our perception of their perception have anything to do with
> the character of the language.
>
> Does JamesC realize that his "no distinguished-vowel-perception
> proposal" is a proposal for a ONE VOWEL language?
>
> If the Hebrews did not differentiate any meanings based on vowel
> sounds as they perceived them, then by definition they can be said
> to have ONE VOWEL PHONEME. There is only one 'vocoid
> sound-unit' in their system. And they wouldn't need to write it since
> it wouldn't distinguish any meaning.
> By definition they would not distinguish any word based on a 'vowel'.
> I.e., no meaning would be distinguished by a vocoid sound
> (continuant open-mouth, sound). In phonetic waves,
> it would include any and every vowel sound to outsiders.
>
>
> JamesC's Hebrews and Phoenicians  would only have 22 syllables:
> the 22 symbols of consonant+ unwritten vocoid continuant.
> This would produce what could be transcribed as 'A, BA, GA, DA, ...
> 'AGA, BA-GA, GA-GA, DA-GA, etc.
> (where the symbol 'A' would mean any continuant sound between
> consonant sounds. Here, "A" does NOT refer to 'lower-tongue vocoids'.
> And it does does refer to any particular continuant sound. Just to any
> vowel sound.)
> OK, enough already. I hope it's clear what a ONE-VOWEL language
> would mean.
>
> This borders on being a non-human language.
> Linguists would also view this as preposterous inside a language
> family where older, genetically-tight sister languages have established
> three-vowel systems. For a theoretical discussion of the possibility
> of "one-vowel languages" see
> "Logic and Philology: Incommensurability of Descriptions of One-Vowel
> Systems" by Alexis Manaster Ramer and Belinda J. Bicknell
> Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 149-156
> Cambridge University Press
>  * Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4176302
>
> That is why I am a little 'hard' on the Hebrew proposal.
> It is NON-VIABLE.
> Which is a polite way of saying that GAGA Hebrew is
> wrong, not to be followed, not to be listed as a possibilty
> among possibilties.
>
> So if the Hebrews understood a meaning difference between
> [yashab], [yesheb], [yashob], and [yashub], if they perceived
> those as four different words, or at least two different words,
> then by definition the vowel sounds were
> meaningful, and thus phonemic. Minimal pairs exist
> by the multitude: sim, sam, "put!", "he put" (minimal pair on a vowel),
> sam sham (minimal pair on a consonant that was underdifferentiated
> by the Hebrews). [PS: minimal pairs are how linguists go about
> establishing what the internal perceptions of language users are.]
>
> This requires a conclusion that the Hebrew alphabet system was an
> under-differentiated system that only wrote consonants, not vowels.
> Underdifferentiation of various types is commonplace in writing systems.
> (In fact underdifferentiation is a logical necessity of alphabets, but we
> don't need to discuss this here.)
>
> The good news:
> We should  credit the Hebrews and Phoenicians and Canaanites with
> a brilliant invention. They revolutionized a horrible writing system that
> had been known out west in Canaan.
> Akkadian had a HORRIBLE writing system since
> they built a mult-syllabic inventory of syllables in the hundreds.
> They used extra syllable-signs for different vowels and for closed
> syllables, too. (Yes, ancient Semitic languages had closed syllables
> long before the Exile, but that is another thread.)
> The Canaanite alphbets decided to write consonant-only and dropped
> the vowels from the writing system.
> Ugaritic partially paralleled this, though they did 'keep' a three-symbol
> distinction for alef. Which incidently shows the three-vowel phonemic
> status for that closely related language, as Spinti mentioned at the
> beginning of the thread.
>
> there is not much to add. The people of Ugarit (14-12c BCE) had
> three vowels (meaningfully perceived sound-units)  in their phonology
> but only wrote consonants. the Phoenicians only wrote consonants,
> the Hebrews only wrote consonants. the Aramaens only wrote
> consonants, the Arabs only wrote consonants.
> It was a brilliant revolution over the Akkadian syllabaries,
> and has worked up to the present day, as long as we don't promote
> or teach someone "GAGA Hebrew".
>
> BRKT ('blessings' 'braxot')
> Randall
>
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth AT gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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