Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:04:50 +0200, "Arnaud Fournet" 
<fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> 
> Apparently the full name of that pharaoh is ḥ_ˁ_ˁ '_b r_ˁ  w_3_ḥ '_b r_ˁ
> '_b r_ˁ  with the vowels is 'ab riˁa "heart of Ra"
> Happy is Ra's heart, Stable is Ra's heart.
> That Ra was pronounced with the i_a scheme is proved by Akkadian and 
> Hurrian.
> Tushratta wrote to Pharaoh Neb-maat-ra: ni-ib-mu-u-ri-a in cuneiform That
> part fits the Greek name fairly well Απριης/Apries (with extra -s and a > η)
> Hophra seems to be a bad rendition of ḥ_ˁ_ˁ '_b r_ˁ = ḥaˁˁ 'ab
> riˁa. Haˁaphriˁa is expected.  Ουαφρη/Ouaphre is a kind of rendition of
> w_3_ḥ '_b r_ˁ It's funny to see that ḥ and b fused to generate φ

You're too quick to claim proof when there is none.  The cuneiform letter
you refer to dates to the 18th dynasty, i.e. 14th century BC.  "Apries"
dates to time of Herodotus, i.e., 5th century BC.  That's nine centuries
between them; no living language doesn't undergo phonetic changes in that
time period, especially vowels.  We know the end point of Egyptian rˁ was
Coptic ΡΗ/re, and Coptic is closer in time to Herodotus than the 18th
dynasty.  I would say it's highly *unlikely* that rˁ was still pronounced
riˁa at that time.

-- 
William Parsons