Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Kevin Riley <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>]

Perhaps the structure of Hebrew and Aramaic explains why we have a 
distinction between unlenited double letters and lenited single 
letters.  Both Aramaic and Hebrew seem to have lost the fricative forms 
of gdtk, (and didn't have pb) which would allow those consonants to 
weaken to fricatives.  The other languages retained the fricatives and 
so lenition was less likely.  I still think it is somewhat odd if it is 
due to Hurrian influence that it is almost 1000 years before we see 
evidence of this.  Should it not have been more evident closer to 
Hurrian times?

Kevin Riley

On 28/10/2010 1:05 AM, JimStinehart AT aol.com wrote:
> Kevin Riley wrote:  “While the change  [--] … doubling the letter, placing
> a dagesh within it, or any other device one can think of… [--] is unique to
> Aramaic and Hebrew (or, at least, the marking of it is) among the Semitic
> languages, it is a process that is familiar to most linguists. There is no
> need for an external influence, especially for one that ceased to exist
> centuries before we have any evidence of lenition existing in Hebrew and 
> Aramaic.
> By natural, homegrown linguistic processes Hebrew and Aramaic came to have
> lenited and unlenited consonants.”
>
> Something seems seriously askew here.
>
> 1.  Early Biblical Hebrew was born in the heart of beloved Canaan.
> Aramaic, by sharp contrast, was born way out in eastern Syria.  Why, then, 
> would
> Hebrew and Aramaic be the only Semitic languages that have the dagesh
> phenomenon of doubled consonants?  What is the common denominator between 
> Hebrew and
> Aramaic, which does not extend to the other Semitic languages?  Could that
> unique common denominator be the presence and influence of Hurrian at the
> birth of each of early Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, a presence that did not
> apply to the birth of the other Semitic languages?  I view the first Hebrews
> as living in the mid-14th century BCE, which is precisely the time of the
> short-lived dominance of many cities in Canaan by Hurrian princelings.  
> Aramaic
> was obviously born in the Hurrian heartland.
>
> 2.  Moreover, given that Aramaic hails from far-away eastern Syria, while
> Hebrew comes from beloved Canaan, with the one common denominator possibly
> being birth in a Hurrian cauldron, how else can the following be the case?
>
> “The similarity (amounting to almost identity) of the earliest attested
> Hebrew spelling forms to Aramaic….”  David Noel Freedman, “Studies in Hebrew
> and Aramaic Orthography” (1992), at p. 5.
>
> 3.  And speaking of possible Hurrian influences, what about the notoriously
> controversial Gezer Calendar?  A final -W is a Hurrian genitive case
> marker, and just look at how some scholars view the perplexing final -W that
> appears 4 of 8 times on YRX [making it YRX-W] in the Gezer Calendar:  
> “Albright,
> and F.M. Cross and D.M. Freedman identify the waw as reflecting a dual noun
> plus possessive suffix.”  Carey Walsh, “The Fruit of the Vine” (2000), at
> p. 38.
> Am I reading that right?  Is the final vav in the Gezer Calendar
> functioning just like a Hurrian genitive case marker [a “possessive suffix”], 
> with
> the vav being a pure consonant functioning as a pure consonant, per Hurrian?
> And speaking of a vav following a noun as being a “possessive suffix”
> /Hurrian genitive case marker, what about that mysterious interior vav in the
> Patriarchs’ XBR-W-N?
>
> 4.  How can Biblical Hebrew experts be so sure that “There is no need for
> an external influence”?  Both Hebrew and Aramaic have doubled
> consonants/dagesh, like Hurrian;  the spelling of Hebrew and Aramaic is 
> essentially
> identical from day #1, even though the only common denominator between these 
> two
> west Semitic languages from the opposite corners of the ancient near east
> would seem to be that both were uniquely born in a Hurrian cauldron;   and the
> vav on the Gezer Calendar for all the world appears to be doing a good
> imitation of the Hurrian genitive case marker, akin to several mysterious 
> interior
> vavs in the Hebrew Bible that I have pointed out on recent threads.  And in
> addition to all that, I have also been noting in my recent threads many
> words/names in the Hebrew Bible that seem to be Hurrian words, making no sense
> as west Semitic words.  So how then can we be so sure that “There is no need
> for an external influence”?  If it’s not Hurrian that’s causing these
> peculiar features in Hebrew, then where are all these peculiar features of
> Hebrew coming from?  Why do all the Biblical Hebrew scholars seem to follow to
> the letter Rev. Bryant J. Williams III’s stern injunction:  “This list is
> about BIBLICAL HEBREW, not HURRIAN.”  Why is it that everyone but me seems to
> be so sure that, without needing to do any investigation of a possible
> Hurrian influence, we can be totally confident that “There is no need for an
> external influence” to explain these peculiar features of early Biblical 
> Hebrew,
> features which in every case bear an uncanny resemblance to Hurrian, and
> seem inexplicable on any other basis?
>
> Aramaic certainly didn’t have a virgin birth, being born in the Hurrian
> cauldron.  With early Biblical Hebrew being so similar to Aramaic, shouldn’t 
> we
> be asking whether the Hebrew language, like Aramaic, has a notable Hurrian
> influence?  What’s more exciting in life than the dagesh phenomenon and
> those mysterious final and interior vavs?
>
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
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