Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Will Parsons" <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>
To: <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
Cc: <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>; <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 10:41 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Pharaoh Khepera'a in Jeremiah 44:30


> 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
***

People disagree on the presence or absence of ayin in Coptic.
If we fuse it with aleph, then Coptic probably was either ri' or re' 
depending on the dialect, quite possibly with a long vowel rather than a 
short one.
http://www.metalog.org/files/crum/287.gif

Arnaud Fournet