Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:07:27 +0200, "Arnaud Fournet" 
<fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> 
> ----- 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

I have no opinion of the presence or absence of the sound corresponding to
ayin in Coptic.  I see no need to postulate that it "fused" with a glottal
stop (which is what I assume you mean by "aleph").  If we ignore the
possible presence of a pharyngial at the end of the word, the Coptic
spelling indicates [re:] with a long vowel.  My point was that a
transcription from the 14th century BC cannot be used to claim that "ri`a"
is the pronunciation of the word in the 5th century.

-- 
William Parsons