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  • From: "Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>
  • To: <JimStinehart AT aol.com>, <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Consonant versus consonant clusters
  • Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:38:24 -0700

Dear Jim,

I understand your use of the English, but...

1. The discussion is about "initial" consonant clusters, i.e. the first
consonant cluster in a word, not the second cluster in a word.

2. The discussion is about Hebrew "initial" consonantal clusters not
Indo-European consonant clusters.

3. So please confine your discussion to items 1 and 2 since that is what
the
discussion is about.

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
----- Original Message -----
From: <JimStinehart AT aol.com>
To: <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 11:50 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Consonant versus consonant clusters


>
> James Christian:
> To analyze consonant clusters, let’s start with the first 10 words in your
> first paragraph that are 5 letters or longer in length in English:
> 1. Promised
> 2. Myself
> 3. Involved
> 4. Discussions
> 5. Because
> 6. Always
> 7. Orienting
> 8. Around
> 9. Geographical
> 10. Theories
> Only two have no consonant cluster at all: “because” and “theories”.
> One more avoids a consonant cluster by dividing two adjoining consonants
> into two different syllables [where the W here is a true consonant]:
> “always
> ”. “Always” would be easy for a Hebrew to pronounce, because the
> potentially difficult consonant cluster L-W is broken up into two different
> syllables: al-ways.
> Interestingly, only two have the initial consonant cluster that this
> thread is focusing on: “promised” and “geographical”. [In the latter, it’s
> the second syllable: GRA.]
> The other five have consonant clusters, but they’re not at the beginning
> of a syllable, so they’re not directly relevant to this thread. [Whether
> any one of more of –ns or –ng or –nd at the end of a word is or is not a
> consonant cluster may be debatable, but that’s not directly relevant to
> this
> thread.]
> Let’s focus on the English words “promised” and “geographical”, which
> exactly represent what I am talking about. In Sanskrit, three of the most
> common, basic, discrete syllables are PRA and GRA and SRA or $RA [where the
> particular vowel sound involved is irrelevant for our purposes]. In all
> Indo-European languages, and in Sanskrit-based names in Kassite and
> Hurrian,
> you are going to see PRA and GRA and $RA, featuring an initial consonant
> cluster, out the wazzoo. Those syllables are absurdly easy to say in
English,
> so that no English speaker would think to try to avoid such an initial
> consonant cluster. “Prod” in English would not be easier to pronounce as
> Pa-rod, nor would “grit” be easier to pronounce in English as ga-rit. The
> same is true for all languages that have an affinity to Sanskrit.
> By sharp contrast, initial consonant clusters like that are difficult to
> pronounce in any Semitic language, such as Akkadian or Hebrew. I am n-o-t
> saying that they are “impossible” to pronounce in Semitic languages. The
> Hebrew word for “two” proves that the Hebrews could on occasion pronounce
> an initial consonant cluster. But such initial consonant clusters are
> rare in Hebrew.
> So consider my homely example of the odd proper name “Shrek”. Though it
> sounds a little funny in English, it’s easy to pronounce, being “shriek”
> with a short E instead of a long E, or “shred” with a final K instead of a
> final D. But a Hebrew could have pronounced “Shrek” as a single syllable
> only with considerable difficulty. It’s not natural in Biblical Hebrew.
> [Modern Hebrew may be completely different, because modern Hebrew is
> heavily influenced by people who often as children spoke European languages
that
> have a strong affinity to Sanskrit. I’m talking about Biblical Hebrew,
> spoken by people with little contact, if any, with speakers of
> Indo-European
> languages.]
> To a Hebrew in Biblical times, Sha-rek would be easy to pronounce, but
> Shrek as a single syllable would not have been easy to pronounce. Same
> with
> Akkadian speakers in Kassite Babylonia. By contrast, the Kassite ruling
> class, being intimately familiar with Sanskrit-based names, could have
> pronounced Shrek as a single syllable in their sleep.
> That’s my point. Ka-$ra is real easy to say in Sanskrit, Kassite,
> Tibetan, Hurrian, English, and all European languages. But Ka-$ra is quite
> difficult to say by a native Hebrew or Akkadian speaker, or in any other
Semitic
> language, as long as the Semitic speaker has had little exposure to
> Indo-European languages.
> I fear that the foregoing linguistic analysis may be ridiculed as being “
> kindergarten level”. Maybe so, but it’s still accurate. The Kassite
> ruling class could say Ka-$ra [or Ka$-$ra] with no trouble at all, but it
would
> have been difficult for Akkadian speakers or Hebrews to say Ka-$ra [or
> Ka$-$ra] with that authentic Kassite syllable format. Accordingly, we
> should
> be alert to the possibility that Ka-ra in the Amarna Letters, as the first
> 2 Akkadian cuneiform syllables in the Akkadian version of the Kassite name
> of Kassite Babylonia, may dimly reflect an original Kassite pronunciation
> of Ka-$ra. The Hebrew author of Genesis 11: 28, 31 may well have
> deliberately declined to adopt Ka-ra from the Akkadian cuneiform of the
Amarna Letters
> for the Hebrew version of the name of the Late Bronze Age country in
> southern Mesopotamia, on the grounds that his Hebrew audience might thereby
miss
> the connection to the Ka$-$u people (the Kassites). So the Hebrew author
> brilliantly changed Ka-ra to Ka-$a in K$DYM. That Hebrew version likely
> is actually closer to the Kassite original than is the Akkadian cuneiform
> version. It’s not a “mistake”. And it’s not coming from the 1st
> millennium BCE! Nor does it have anything to do whatsoever with the later
> Kaldu/Chaldean people [or with their name], or with the blessed,
> post-exilic
Book
> of Daniel, as scholars would have it.
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>


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