Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 2:02 AM, James Christian wrote:
> Please don't tell me were going to start applying circular logic again.
> We know Hebrew had three vowels because Akkadian had three vowels, we know
> this because Ugaritic did, we know this because Hebrew did... ad infinitum.
> Excuse! Baking powder! Any unambiguous transliterations please?
> Long silence. Waffle about comparative linguistics from people who evidently
> still haven't understood the implications of their claims. At the end of it
> all. Still no evidence! Still no transliterations!
> James Christian
> P.S. And yes! I already know in advance. The best I'm likely to see is more
> literature suggestions which themselves still contain no evidence.

No, James.

This has nothing to do with Hebrew or Akkadian directly.  In fact, I
don't see how
any of what you wrote has anything to do with what I wrote.

You have suggested:
a) The inventors of the alphabet did not record vowels.
b) Therefore, the inventors of the alphabet did not "actively"
differentiate vowels.

I have given you an example of:
a) A people (those of Ugarit) who did not record vowels in an alphabetic 
system
they invented.
b) The same people (those of Ugarit) "actively" differentiated vowels
in the same
language they recorded using the alphabet when writing in a syllabic system.

It is amazing how far you'd go to simply refuse to even read evidence against
your position.

Yitzhak Sapir