Biblical Hebrew Forum

[ISAAC FRIED <if AT math.bu.edu>]

You are right, but this has nothing to do with the schwa NA  
commotion. A Hebrew speaker nowadays tends to vocally treat an  
initial radical B, and an initial prepositioned B differently,  
considering the latter as a separate BE (back to "Proto-Semitic"?).  
For instance, BLULAH, 'blended together', from the root BLL, but B[E] 
LULAH, 'in her chicken coop', LUL. Hence, indeed, Bemitz and not Bmitz.
A resurgent E reappears also in, for instance, RAKAD[E]T, 'you have  
danced'.
There is no doubt in my mind that the hyped schwa NA affair is,  
indeed, no more than  "Shtuyot Bemitz" .

Isaac Fried, Boston University


On Sep 20, 2010, at 12:55 PM, Uri Hurwitz wrote:

>     People stick to their opinons, regardless of facts
>  which disprove those very opinions.
>
>     Isaac Fried assumes that the current modern Heb. is
>  spoken and pronounced just like the pre-exilic languagen
>  in Judea - not a very tenable assumption.
>
>     He refuses to aquaint himself with even rudiments
>  of spoken or classical Arabic which preserves many
> features of proto-Semitic. The Dagesh Hazaq -"Shaddah" -
>  is clearly there.
>
>     He refuses to accept the mobile Shewa because it
>  disappears often in the spoken language, but ignores
>  comleteley the fact of its perseverence in thousands
>  of other cases in normal talk.
>
>   Sometimes both will occur side by side, as in the
>  following example:
>
>                       "Shtuyot Bemitz" *
>
>   Please note how the "B" in the second word is pronounced.
>   Please also note that the above is just an example and
>  has nothing to do with the content of this post.
>
>    Cheers,
>
>    Uri Hurwitz                           Wilmigton, VT
>
>                  * ' nonsense in gravy'
>
>
>
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