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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] lock without a key: Hebrew Root

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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] lock without a key: Hebrew Root
  • Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 20:23:46 -0400

Sorry, but I don't do "Akkadian".

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Nov 3, 2010, at 2:10 PM, JimStinehart AT aol.com wrote:

Isaac Fried:

I may have found a little backing for your controversial view of a final ayin, and in an unexpected source at that: Akkadian weak verbs. Akkadian has no ayin (which may be telling us something right there). But many Akkadian verbs are cognates of Hebrew verbs that end in ayin. So what is the nature of Akkadian verbs that are cognates of Hebrew verbs that end in ayin? Take a gander at this statement from a standard Akkadian grammar textbook:

“Verbs third weak (i.e. with a weak third radical) are by far the largest class of weak verbs [in Akkadian]. They include all verbs which in related languages have as third root consonant the appropriate representatives of Proto-Semitic 'aleph, h, h-dot [soft heth], 'ayin, ghain, waw, yodh.” Richard I. Caplice, “Introduction to Akkadian” (2002), at p. 56.

All three of your designated culprits are there: final H, aleph, and ayin. So when an Akkadian verb is cognate to a Hebrew verb that ends in ayin, that Akkadian verb will be weak, and in particular, its third radical, which substitutes for ayin (because Akkadian has no ayin), will be “a weak third radical”. What scholars call “a weak third radical” you call “filler” and I call “a mere verbal suffix”. But aren’t we all describing the same phenomenon? There is no tri-consonantal root in )RB( or $M( or YD (. Those are archaic 2-consonant roots all the way -- RB, $M and YD -- with the final ayin being a mere verbal suffix [or, if you insist, “filler”].

Isaac Fried, who would have thought your ideas and Akkadian weak verbs would fit together so nicely? In fact, we could figure out all sorts of important things in the Bible if we could get beyond seeing the final ayin in Hebrew verbs as being an integral part of the word’s original, true root. For example, why insist that the meaning of the Anakim giant’s name )RB( is “Four”? That makes no sense. Rather, )RB( as the Bronze Age proper name of an Anakim giant means “Be Big”. The archaic 2-consonant root of )RB( is RB, which means “be big; be great; be many; be bigger than three, that is, be four”. So call that Anakim giant “Mr. Big”, not a nonsensical “Mr. Four”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois





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