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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Holy Name Unpronounced
  • Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:43:13 +0100

Dear Dave,

We do not know exactly the timbre of the vowels in the days of the first and second temple. Nor do we know their length. When I said that shewa probably was pronounced as an "a"-sound by the Masoretes, this was not meant as a definite phonetic description. But it was meant to show that today we know very little about the vowel sounds. Moreover, an "a"-sound in Norwegian is different from an "a"-sound in English. We believe that shewa was a very short vowel, and in some words where there is a vocal shewa, it is not pronounced, or pronounced so quickly that it is difficult to distinguish the sound. For example, the numeral two is not in modern Hebrew pronounced as SHETAYIM but as SHTAYIM, although the shin has a vocal shewa.

Regarding the name Yehonatan, we simply do not know how it was pronounced.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



On Mon Mar 8 06:58:10 EST 2010
I wrote to Rolf Furuli, and asked him:

Hi Rolf,

You wrote:


For example, there is evidence that the vowel shewa used by the Masoretes
was pronounced as an "a"-sound and not an "e"-sound.


I then asked Rolf:
"Rolf,

If what you write above is true, wouldn't that indicate that Jerusalem
would have been pronounced Yarusalem (at one time)?"
_________________________________________________________________________

Yitzhak Sapir ended up answering my question
he wrote;
"[yaru:$@laim] is the Masoretic pronunciation."

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.

Dave Donnelly
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