Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Dave Donnely wrote:

> So I have a new question for either Rolf or Yitzhak.
> If the word I normally pronounce "Jerusalem.
> is actually pronounced  "[yaru:$@laim]"
> Is it possible that the word that I normally pronounce "Yehonathan"
> is actually pronounced "Yahonathan"
> OR TO USE DIFFERENT WORDS,
> Is the simple shewa under the Yod in Yehonathan
> actually pronounced with an "a" SOUND?,
> just as the simple shewa under the Yod in the word that I pronounce
> "Yerusalem",
> is actually pronounced like the "a" in "[yaru:$@laim]"
>
> I assume that it might be easier to derive Yehonathan
> from the "questioned proposed punctuation" "Yahweh",
> if the simple shewa under the "Yod" in Yehonathan actually has an "a"
> sound.

No, this is where the "usually" in "usually pronounced as a" becomes relevant.
Under the Y in YHWNTN, the vocalization is o - [yoho:n@:'th@:n], where @
is again qamats.  Before a guttural (alef, he, het, ayin) the schewa takes the
vowel of the guttural, in this case an o.  In this case, you can compare the
English Jonathan.

I personally think that this vocalization of the schewa has ancient
historical roots.
In Amarna EA 69 (Byblos) we find nu-xu-u$-tu = Tiberian Hebrew [no'xo:$eth]
- http://www.archaeowiki.org/EA_69 - and was not originally limited to 
gutturals
- as in Gomorrah = Tiberian Hebrew [(amo:r@:].

Whether or not one accepts that this vocalization of the schewa is
that ancient,
we see it in this specific case also in the LXX transcription of the
name Jonathan -
IWNAQAN.

Yitzhak Sapir