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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Initial Consonant Clusters in Biblical Hebrew
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:26:16 EDT


Yitzhak Sapir:

You wrote: “However, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Whenever we gave
solid linguistic evidence that Jim Stinehart's theories were untenable, he
simply


ignored it.”

Au contraire, I am now trying to refine my views of the Patriarchal
narratives to comply with, rather than ignore, linguistic theories that are
backed
with evidence from secular history. In this connection, I would like to
know if you agree with the following scholarly linguistic theory, which would
tremendously help my case:

“The evidence comes primarily from an observation known as the CODA/ONSET
ASYMMETRY. In many languages, consonant clusters simplify by deleting the
first consonant, but never the second one (Wilson 2000, 2001, Steriade,
forthcoming): /patka/E[paka], not [pata].” John J. McCarthy, “The Gradual
Path to Cluster Simplification” (2008), linguist at University of
Massachusetts, Amherst.
_http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1083&context=linguist_faculty_pubs_

(http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1083&context=linguist_faculty_pubs)


That linguistic theory is extremely beneficial to my case. The original
Kassite pronunciation of the first two syllables of the Kassite name of
Kassite Babylonia [of the Ka$-$u people] was likely Ka-$ra. [Ka-$ra ius a
variant, not surprisingly, of Ka$-$u, where –iyar or –ra is a Sanskrit
comparative
suffix, effectively meaning “better than the rest”, with such suffix
having been added on to the Sanskrit/Kassite noun ku-$a/Ka$-$u, meaning “the
fine, sharp qualities of a mountain”. The Kassites had swept down from the
towering Zagros Mountains in western Iran to conquer the rich, famous,
low-lying
plain of southern Mesopotamia, and their names of gods and kings often are
based on Sanskrit words from India. So mountain imagery and Sanskrit words
are fully predictable for the Kassite name of Kassite Babylonia in the
mysterious, agglutinative language of Kassite.] It is likely that the
Kassites,
like the Hittites and English speakers, could easily pronounce this specific
initial consonant cluster: witness in English shrill, shrew, shrewd,
shrimp, Shrek, shroud, etc. But Akkadian speakers were like the Hebrews, and
generally avoided initial consonant clusters, with this particular initial
consonant cluster never being attested in the Hebrew Bible. Based on the
foregoing linguistic rule set forth by linguist John McCarthy, it is entirely
predictable, obeying all the linguistic rules, that Ka-$ra in Kassite would
come
out as Ka-ra in the Akkadian cuneiform of the Amarna Letters (in letters
from Kassite Babylonia). Note that the first offending consonant, $, gets
dropped, not the second offending consonant, R, pursuant to the foregoing
linguistic rule. Yet note also that Ka-ra in Akkadian cuneiform is fully
consistent with the original two syllables of this Kassite name as having
initially
been Ka-$ra [ultimately going back to Sanskrit ku-$a, a word that
emphasizes the many “sharp” qualities of a mountain].

In my opinion, that is the key to solving a millennia-old Biblical puzzle.
Ka-ra in the Amarna Letters reflects, if a bit dimly, an original Ka-$ra.
That makes perfect sense for the Ka$-$u people, where Ka-$ra has an obvious
connection to Ka$-$u, whereas Ka-ra, at first glance, doesn’t look anything
like Ka$-$u at all. [I won’t go any farther than this, because I’m
starting to get dangerously close to my prior thread that was closed.]

What I’m saying is that I am trying to follow the linguistic rules here as
to initial consonant clusters in various ancient languages, not ignore such
rules. These linguistic rules in fact greatly strengthen my theory that the
Patriarchal narratives were composed in the Late Bronze Age, and undercut
the non-linguistic scholarly view that the Patriarchal narratives are 1st
millennium BCE fiction replete with glaring historical anachronisms.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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