Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> 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.

Hello Dave and Rolf,

I feel the above needs correction on practically every sentence.

The word $tayim is pronounced in Masoretic Tiberian Hebrew as [e$taim] -- the
shin without a vocal schewa.

For example, the R' David Qimhi writes:
"... except for the word $TYM, $TY, and so Ben Asher reads at the head of the
word an initial aleph so that the shin will be quiescent, and this aleph is a
'stolen' guttural, for it is called this way since it is not written,
and so too the
Eastern communities read it ..."
See the top of the left column in the following for the full comment:
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=42248&st=&pgnum=97 (Hebrew)
or here: http://books.google.com/books?id=bSQ9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4 (Hebrew)

For a longer discussion see p. 215 of Yeivin's Keter Aram Tsova and Eldar's
Torat Haqri'a Bamiqra, p.166.

In modern comparative Semitics, we might compare it to Phoenician )$NM
and Arabic ithnani, ithnatani.

This happens to be a good example that shows us just how much we do know
about the vocalization.  So much has been written about the Masoretic
vocalization, including a lot of first hand monographs by the Masoretes
themselves, that we do know quite a lot about the pronunciation.  Therefore,
the above comment that "today we know very little about the vowel sounds"
is simply flat out wrong.  In any case, Modern Hebrew should not serve as a
guide, and in Modern Hebrew it is not just "two" but many words which have
initial consonant clusters.

In the case of the vocalism of the schewa specifically, and the vowels in
general, we have a lot of material also including by the Masoretes
themselves.  For example, on the schewa, we have in Diqduqe Hateamim:
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38509&pgnum=53 (Hebrew)
"... and when [the schewa] comes in the beginning of the word without a
gaya, it should be sounded as a small patah - quickly ... and if it it joined
with a gaya at the head of the word as a long patah ... but if it joined with
aleph-he-het-ayin, its way should be as the way of the second letter of the
word ..."  The description here is corroborated by many other sources
from the Masoretic period and traditions.

Regarding words in Biblical times we must fall back upon reconstructions,
based on comparative Semitics and the surviving traditions.  However,
this is only a general statement and in the case of names we often have
direct transcriptions.  For the name Jonathan, we have not only the Greek
in the LXX but also Akkadian transcriptions:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1356297 (English)
Now, the Akkadian transcriptions have their limitations as well - so although
we have IA in the transcription, the sign could actually stand for any vowel,
and although we have IA-A and HU-U in the transcription, the Akkadian system
did not establish vowel length and it was up to the scribe's preference 
whether
to follow with another vowel (useful also because as in the case of IA, there
was polyphony involved).  The Akkadian transcriptions therefore provide for
IAHUNATANU and HUNATANU.  I compare this to YHW$( vs HW$(.  In any case,
together with the LXX this provides for quite a bit of information on how the
name was pronounced in different periods of time.

Yitzhak Sapir