Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
To: fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr ; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Goshen


Dr. Arnaud Fournet:

1.  You wrote:  “In my humble opinion, it is near doubtless impossible that 
Goshen could be this place in Egypt.  It is clearly written Q S with an 
emphatic Qoph.”
The Egyptian Q in Qis is a hieroglyph that looks like a curvy triangle.  See 
here:
http://hieroglyphs.net/000501/cgi/lookup.pl?ty=en&ch=q&cs=0
That curvy triangle is hieroglyph N29, it is transcribed Q, and it is 
described as “K pronounced in the back of the throat”. 
http://www.ancient-egypt.org/index.html
What is of critical importance here is that we see that identical curvy 
triangle as the first letter at item #104 on the mid-15th century BCE 
Thutmosis III list of places in Canaan, where Gezer/GZR is written in 
Egyptian as follows:  QDR.  [The D is underlined, indicating a Z-type 
sound.]

So an Egyptian curvy triangle, transliterated as Egyptian Q, is the first 
letter in GZR/Gezer, having as its Biblical Hebrew equivalent gimel/G.  Thus 
the first letter in Qis in Egyptian matches the first letter in G%-N in 
Biblical Hebrew perfectly, in a Late Bronze Age context.
***
Yes I agree that Gezer is indeed rendered as <q d_ r>.
Logically <q d_ r> should be something like <q tz r> in Hebrew,
so the conclusion is that the modern reading as Gezer must be a dialectal 
highly divergent pronunciation, where emphatics surface as voiced phonemes.
The regular pronunciation of Egyptian q appears in Qadesh with q.
It can be noted that Egyptian <Q s> is unsurprisingly rendered as Arabic <Q 
(u:) s y (a)> with initial <Q>.
There is no doubt no g at all in that place name.
A.F
***


2.  You wrote:  “In addition Latin, Greek and Arabic are coherent with the 
first vowel being a long /u:/ and the next /a/.  So it sounded something 
like /Qu:sa/”

There are no vowels in the unpointed Masoretic text in original defective 
spelling, prior to exilic times.  No one knows what the vowel sound is.  As 
to referencing Greek, the Septuagint indicates an E, not a long U.  Note 
that each of Qesy and Gesa has E for the vowel, which matches the 
Septuagint.  The Egyptian hieroglyph suggests I for the vowel.
***
There is no I at all in Egyptian.
Egyptian is clearly <Q s>

In addition I completely disagree with that approach you have of dismissing 
Masoretic vowels.
These are the vowels we have.
I see no reason to think they are wrong or do not represent the original 
vowels or an evolved continuation of the original vowels.
Dismissing Masoretic vowels is only a procrustean leeway you are offering 
yourself for interpretations that conflict with the only vowels we have.
I definitely disagree with that unsupported and undiscussed dismissal.
Anything that conflicts with Masoretic vowels should **first** explain why 
it moves away from Masoretic vowels.
A.F
***



3.  You wrote:  “In addition Arabic has emphatic s, but this does not appear 
in Egyptian /s/.”

The Egyptian hieroglyph is S29 (per the above-noted cites), and it’s 
pronounced S.  This hieroglyph appears at item #44 on the T III list, KNT 
JSN.  Egyptologist Paul James Cowie sees the Hebrew equivalent as being 
GT )$N.  If so, then this Egyptian hieroglyph is sin/shin in Biblical 
Hebrew.

4.  You wrote:  “So not a single letter matches.”

Au contraire, there are only two letters to match, G and %, and both of them 
match the Egyptian hieroglyphs [N29 and S29] in Qis perfectly, per the T III 
list.  [The other Egyptian hieroglyphs in Qis are vowel-type sounds, which 
were not recorded in early Biblical Hebrew defective spelling.]   An early 
Hebrew author trying to write down Egyptian Qis would be expected to write 
down G%, and then add a standard west Semitic suffix -N.  The linguistic 
match is  p-e-r-f-e-c-t.
***
No
there is utterly no match at all.

Egyptian is <Q s> with vowels u:_a.
Logically Hebrew should be Qu:s(^)a.
This has nothing to do with Goshen.
Nothing.
Irremediably nothing.

Arnaud Fournet
***