Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

I didn't read all of this carefully. I skimmed it and noticed no references
to data. You mentioned 'reflections in other languages that we know the
pronunciations for'. Care to expand? Care to provide any real data? Any
contemporary transliterations in a language with an alphabet with vowels?

I know of, erm, let me see 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 * 0 = .... erm none!

James Christian

2010/1/23 Ratson Naharadama <yahoo-arch AT heplist.com>

> Regarding the question of how we know Akkadian, and other dead semitic
> languages, relied on 3 basic vowels (usually labeled a, i, and u):  This
> is done through analyzing the words, how they changed through time and
> region, and their reflections in other languages that we do know the
> pronunciations for. Because of the set structure of the human mouth,
> from which we can fairly confidently assume that these languages were
> being articulated, the mutation of the words can be reasonably
> accurately be predicted and "back predicted". Such things as the
> y-consonant frequently degrading into an i-vowel, the w-consonant
> frequently degrading into a u-vowel are the first big hints to what the
> value of those vowels are. That these vowels are regularly interchanged
> with different logograms and phonograms as if they all represent the
> same vowel is also a big hint, after the process of elimination, that
> there were 3 basic vowels from which these languages structured their
> words.  How these vowels affected neighboring consonants, and how
> consonants affected neighboring vowels reïnforces these big-hints.  That
> these words are transcribed and sometimes borrowed into other languages
> which retain the basic vowels (sometimes coloured through the known
> processes that would colour them between these languages) reïnforces it
> further (especially when a word gets borrowed into several widely
> different languages directly from the source language, and each of these
> borrowings are consistent with each other).
>
> This same kind of analysis has been used on many different language
> families (most particularly the descendants of the PIE and Proto-Semitic
> languages), and new written discoveries over the decades has shown that
> the predictions made by these linguists have been fairly accurate.  With
> the analysis — which was briefly given a few examples in the first
> paragraph — there comes a point where one stops saying "it is possibly
> that" and starts saying "it is highly probable that" or even "we
> confidently say, with very little chance of error, that."
>
> It is because of the fixed structure of the mouth, and the regular way
> in which certain utterances are perceived by the hearer's ear (one of
> you is very fond of "perception") that the predictability of this works
> so well.
>
> Might I recommend to listers that they read or listen to some of the
> work of Seth Lerer and John McWhorter.  I choose them in particular in
> this case because you can get lectures by each of them from The Teaching
> Company (TTC) so you don't even have to actively read any of their
> books, just lazily lay back and listen. :) One is Seth Lerer's "History
> of the English Language" (second edition), and the other is John
> McWhorter's "Story of Human Language."  Both of these lectures touches
> on how linguists do what they do, both give plenty of spoken examples,
> and McWhorter's lecture does go into the Semitic languages as well.
> Both lecturers work consists of 36 half hour lectures (so there is
> plenty of information).  A quick search has shown me that you can
> download these using torrentz.com, but it looks like these may be
> pirated copies, so be aware that doing so would be illegal (which is not
> recommended).  Instead, you may want to go to teach12.com which is TTC's
> website.  Of course, you can always get their books (and other people's
> books) on the topic, as well. :)
>
> --
> Ratson Naharädama
> Denver, Colorado
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