Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

> Whether to include all this other data and its relevance to the study
> of Biblical Hebrew is already a matter of interpretation.

Actually, including the languages is not interpretation, it’s data.
Arabic has a CVCC noun malki ‘my king’ and udhni ‘my ear’.
Hebrew has mlky, malki ‘my king’ and ‘zny, ozni ‘my ear’.

That is data that needs to be explained, with some questions to be
answered through the collection of additional, confirming data:
Are the correspondences regular and widely attested? (Yes)
Are the correspondences ‘genetic (developing within the respective
language)’ or ‘borrowings’?
(answer: genetic—they and many more are part of a core Semitic
vocabulary attested in ‘West-Central Semitic’ [malk-] and
pan-Semitic [udhn-/uzn-].
When did the languages split, (nearest millenium would be more than
accurate enough)?
Did Arabic and Hebrew split before attested ‘Biblical Hebrew’? (Yes.)
How did the vowel patterns develop? What is the correspondence
between –z- and –dh-? Is –dh- a phoneme from before Bhebrew? Etc.

>For example, does my knowledge of German help me in a study of Norwegian?
>. . .
> But there are cases where relying on German would give the
> wrong answer.
> That’s the picture we face with Biblical Hebrew. How many wrong answers
> have we gotten by relying on these other languages? How do we know?

You have missed the point. We are not dealing with semantic etymology
here, but with structure. Like the Arabic and Hebrew above, it doesn’t
matter if the meanings have shifted, the genetic correspondences still
need to be explained. And internal development within each language can
tell us a lot. One of the nice things about the MT is that it’s
morphology can be tested against other Semitic languages to see if it is
genetically Semitic or an artificial reconstruction after the fact or a
a contamination from another language. We don’t even need 100% certainty
for this, it is sufficient to show the broad strokes in order to recognize
the various processes at work. I suggested that you look at the CVCC nouns
because they are ‘easy’ (like Schroedinger, Bohr, and DeBroglie who worked
with hydrogen to get a basic picture), or you might like to explain the
‘long consonant’ of the so-called pi``el, fa``ala, pa``el. Or the long vowel
of the feminine plural noun suffix or West Semitic Qal participle.


>> Languages are like living
>> organisms, they grow and change, but they are also connected. One must
>> come up with a theory that reasonably explains the relationships. E.g.,
>> both vowel and consonant phonemic length are necessary in order to
>> explain these languages.

> You think I don’t know these facts? Isn’t that one reason I think that
> Biblical Hebrew originally may have been a CV language?

No, I’m sorry, I don’t think that you know these things, nor that you've
understood what I had just written. For example, ‘phonemic length in a
consonant’ patterns with a CVC and CVCC- system. And a prefix like
hishta-Hawot ‘to bow down’ [root H-w-y, with both –w- and –y- 1Sm15:30
and frequently] shows an ancient verb pattern inherited from before the
Arabic-Hebrew split that attests to CVCC hisht- (istaf`aal in Arabic).

> However, when one studies so many languages as is in
> a typical Semiticist’s program, he never masters any of the languages.
> This is a question of mastery.

I detect an ‘ad hominem’ argument here. And what is to prevent a student
from throughly mastering one, two, or three of these languages, while
also developping a working acquaintance with the others? I found reading
Ugaritic quite enjoyable and easy since I was already a fluent speaker
of both Hebrew and Arabic. That does not mean, of course, that one reads
the Ugaritic as either of those languages, simply that the cognate
vocabulary is relatively easy and the structures even easier. And that
doesn’t mean that we don’t have many holes in our knowledge of Ugaritic.
Some things about its structure are known, including its Semitic three-
vowel morphology. But at the end of day, it is a deciphered language
without an on-going chain of usage, like Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Ge`ez.


> As for me, I think in Hebrew when I read the text.

Psycholinguistic studies show that even Chinese readers have phonological
brain processes while reading. Assuming that you are not Helen Keller,
I doubt that someone without a working phonology of Hebrew will truly
internalize it to the point of thinking in it.
Have you ever talked to yourself for a few hours in fluent BH? One hour?
If you haven’t, your claim doesn’t mean anything, and even if you have,
how do we know that it is not self-deception?
Now I will admit to making mistakes when using a language internalized as
an adult, even in English. (I can usually correct them myself, but mistakes
are part of real language communication.)
Last summer I gave an hour lecture to an intermediate class all in BH
discussing the relationship of Ps 2 and 110. A visiting professor was
following along and asked about a particular structure afterwards. I smiled
approvingly and said, ‘Yes, good ears. That was a post-Biblicism. I felt a
twinge when I said it, but like all communication, the point is not to stop
and correct or explain anything rare or a mistake.’ He agreed, and was
quite pleased with the class.
As a joke we tell students that they will need to make 30,000 mistakes in
order to learn a language well and they need to let teachers make 10000
mistakes. (Maybe it’s closer to 100,000 mistakes for learning a language,
but why discourage someone?)

>> Maybe another relevant question would be to ask the opposite:
>> how many times has someone mis-read the text? If someone were reading
>> the consonantal text with only CVCVCV patterns,

> Boy are you hung up on pronunciation!

It’s just a measurable point of testing your English Hebrew claims.

[RB]
>> or if one doesn’t
>> recognize an infinitive absolute structure being used for a finite verb,

[Karl]
> After reading the text and learning that many of the grammar claims that
> I had been taught in class were wrong, I decided to put grammar on the
> back burner and concentrate on vocabulary and meaning. I also noticed many
> times that the Masoretic points are wrong as far as vocabulary and meaning,
> therefore untrustworthy. How many of the infinite absolute forms were
> wrongly pointed as infinite absolutes when they should have been other
> forms?
>
> Also, because the grammar is different than what we expect from our
> background in western languages, are we making expectations that Biblical
> Hebrew doesn’t follow? (By “western languages” I include modern, Israeli
> Hebrew.)

There are several misleading points in the immediate comments above.
Already on this list you were presented with
Ecc 4:2 shabbeaH ani
and Esth 9:1 nahafox hu (vnhpwk hw’)
and Est 9:5 ve-abbed (+ transitive objects). Plus others.
Scholars learn from new information.
May I suggest that you read your “friends” Gesenius 113 y-gg, Jouon-Muraoka
123 t-y where within 7 pages of discussion of the BH phenomeneon Muraoka
adds, “The use of the inf. abs. in place of a finite verb is widespread in
cognate Northwest Semitic idioms.”, or Sola-Sole’s L’infinitiv semitique,
or Huesman’s articles in Bibica 37 (1956) 271-95, 410-434. This e-list does
not need to repeat lengthy, published, conclusive discussions.

And the references to Western European languages is really an old dodge.
The infinitive absolute construction in not a Western European phenomenon,
it is not a modern Hebrew phenomenon, so it becomes a ‘red herring’ to
suggest it as an explanation. But citing it does become evidence that you
do not understand it and that your ‘thinking’ in BH is 'deficient', to
be polite.

Please note the consonantal texts above.
Do you know le-shabbeaH as a qal verb anywhere? Can you explain the
morphhology of nhpwk anyway except as a nif`al infinitive absolute?
Won’t you agree that the natural interpretation of a transitive ‘-b-d is
a pi`el, where in context the plural is not signalled in the consonantal
text, resulting in a natural infinitive absolute reading? I cite the above
grammarians for you to learn that these are the tip of an iceberg and
not an isolated phenomenon, not a Western European phenomenon, not
a modern Hebrew phenomenon, and not an appeal to authority.
Just the best readings of a lot of texts in BH, el-Amarna Canaanite,
Phoenician, and the MT.
However, it was not a part of Aramaic in the Second Temple period
(Sefire 8c BCE may have had an example, I can’t remember and
don’t have time to look up.)

> we have to drop all claims as “No one that I know, who is competent
> to evaluate such data…”, “consensus”, “Hebraists”, “people who are so
> acquainted”, and other arguments that you use. Those are all
> ‘personality’ arguments. It is your reliance on personality arguments
> that makes me think your position is weak.

As I explained, if someone does not have the background to evaluate
something, then they need to learn from those who do. A weak argument
would be to admit that one does not have the background to evaluate the
evidence AND that they nevertheless reject all testimonies from those
who do.

> Was Hebrew the language for which the alphabet was developed?

The alphabet was most probably not developed for BHebrew, and is certainly
not a good starting point for argumentation. But this is ultimately irrelevant
to the discussion, see your next comment cited immediately below.
[[aside by RB: The ‘sin’-‘shin’ phenomenon relates to another
phoneme that is also attested in South Arabic. I suggest reading
Steiner on the lateral-fricative (1977) and later discussions.
You will also want to read Blau on `ayin/ghayin, Het/khet.
What I can agree with is that Hebrew agreed with Phoenician in collapsing
*‘th’ and *‘sh’. Jud 5:11 yetannu appears to be a dissimilation referring
to a dialect where ‘sh’ was not used. Since we know that ‘th’ was in the
linguistic vicinity and in Aramaic of the time, the ‘t’ appears to reflect a
northern dialect of pre-monarchial Hebrew without ‘sh’ for this verb,
otherwise, yeshannu would probably have been used. Assuming that that
northern dialect was using ‘th’, we can conclude that Judean Hebrew (BH)
did not have ‘th’. (I don’t expect to write the history of NWS languages
on list in order to demonstrate the probability/possibility of this,
just accept
that at this point we agree on 'th/sh' merger.)]]

> If so, did the inventors of the alphabet follow the usual pattern of
> making one letter for each phoneme, and no more than one phoneme per
> letter?

No, they didn’t. No vowels are written. Yet at Ugarit, El-Amarna, and in
Akkadian, vowels were written and are phonemic. The Semitic languages all
had a minimum of three or more phonemic vowels. Therefore, your starting
ASSUMPTION is misplaced, contradicts known evidence,
and cannot be used as evidence or any kind of credible theory.
It’s a "non-theory".

>As the language changed, was the original pronunciation of the consonants
>hard or soft?

I assume that we agree on ‘hard’ begedkefet in First Temple Hebrew.

> I also saw a few transliterations of transliterations of Hebrew
> names from Ninevah that seemed to indicate that the names had CV
> pronunciation.


Why don’t you evaluate their transcriptional accuracy and probability?


> As for when Hebrew pronunciation changed, I think it occurred during the
> second temple period, much of it happening before the LXX was written. If
> true, that means that later data will not reflect Biblical Hebrew
> pronunciation.

Actually, even this is a linguistic mistake. Changes in a language can
be studied and become evidence of the kinds of changes, the influences
of the changes, the relative dates of the changes, and the predecessors
of the changes.

> A final piece of evidence is that when poetry is pronounced with a CV
> pronunciation, including even the “materes lectionis” as consonants
> with each followed by a vowel to make syllables, there is a rhythm
> present that does not exist for other pronunciation schemes.

One would need to follow this up and compare the cognate morphologies
for such claims. Some of these words will undoubtedly prove to
be un-sustainable where they represent genetic splits from before BH.
Others will be contradicted within the orthography itself because of
‘male’ and ‘Haser’ spellings in the consonantal text.
And then your rhythm theory will need changing, like the older
discussions of ‘syllable counting’, not too different from your ‘letter
counting’.

> There are many ifs in the above scenario, but you can’t rule them
> out.

Like all historical research, one deals in probabilities. When something
drops below a perceived 50% it is ‘possible’, but not ‘probable’,
below 5-10% it becomes unlikely, below 1% it becomes an academic
curiousity, etc.
A CV, no CVC Hebrew, ranks down in the mists below 1%, even as a “proto-
Hebrew” (earlier splits from before Hebrew is Hebrew already show CVC
within the cognate languages).
That is why it may be important to point out that (1) zero competent scholars
accept a certain position, and
(2) the advocate of a certain position may not be competent to deal with
the full scope of the evidence.

And students need to know where certain claims for learning the language
are historically unreliable.

braxot
Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
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