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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] dagesh in two root nouns with patah

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  • From: Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>
  • To: kwrandolph AT gmail.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] dagesh in two root nouns with patah
  • Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:40:20 -0500 (EST)

On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:47:10 -0800, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Will:
>
> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 7:23 PM, Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:15:01 -0800, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Will:
> > >
> > > On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 5:31 AM, Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu
> > >wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I would tend to agree about Biblical times, but the transliterations
> > > > in
> > > > the LXX indicate a softening had taken or was in the process of taking
> > > > place. That's post-Biblical, of course, but it brings the change down
> > a
> > > > lot closer than c. 1000 AD.
> > >
> > > Yes, that is true. But looking at transliterations from other times and
> > > places seems to indicate that the softening started in the south (Egypt)
> > and
> > > gradually moved north, and as late as the New Testament (preserved in
> > > the
> > > Majority text) was still incomplete in Galilee.
> >
> > I'm not sure what you mean by starting in Egypt - as far as I'm aware
> > Hebrew wasn't spoken in Egypt?
>
> As far as I know, Hebrew wasn’t spoken anywhere at that time except as a
> second language. In the same manner as Latin continued to be a spoken
> language long after no one learned it at his mother’s knee, continued to be
> developed and continued to change its pronunciation.

But I think the situation of Hebrew in Egypt is rather different from that
which developed in Latin-speaking areas of Europe, where people continued to
speak a spoken form of Latin that increasing diverged from the written form.
Even when people began to realize they weren't speaking Latin any more, the
pronunciation developed along side of the new Neo-Latin languages. The
pronunciation of Hebrew in Egypt would no doubt be influenced by the
developments in the host languages (Greek, and to a lesser extent, Coptic),
but it's hard to imagine that such changes would spread to other Jewish
communities.

The pronunciation of stops in Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic underwent changes that
are somewhat similar, but by no means identical. If we posit a weakening of
the pronunciation of certain consonants in the Egyptian pronunciation of
Hebrew under Greek (or Coptic) influence, it's hard to imagine those changes
propagating up to result in the situation reflected in the Massoretic text.
(I can imagine that the Massoretic pattern of forte vs lene consonants a
result of Aramaic influence on Hebrew, but not of Greek).

> > I presume by your reference to the NT and
> > Galilee, you are referring to the alternation in the NT texts between
> > Καφαρναουμ/Kapharnaoum and Καπερναουμ/Kapernaoum?
>
> As far as I know, no version I have seen says Καφαρναουμ, all
> say Καπερναουμ. But there are other names such as Ματθαιον vs. Μαθθαιον,
> Ναζαρετ vs. Ναζαρεθ and some others.

There is good attestation in ancient manuscripts for Καφαρναουμ. Certainly
the hesitancy between Ναζαρετ and Ναζαρεθ is similar, but Ματθαιον
vs. Μαθθαιον has nothing to do with Hebrew, but rather with the changes that
were taking place in Greek: when the original consonantal cluster [tth]
(represented reasonably enough by <τθ>) became [θθ] in Hellenistic times, it
became natural to replace the traditional spelling with <θθ>.

> > If so, yes, the
> > occurrence of π/p in an intervocalic position does give pause to the idea
> > that the alternations between forte and lene pronunciations of BGDKPT
> > as known from the MT was already established by NT times.
>
> But not exactly in the same way as later evidenced in the MT, as
> the Καπερναουμ example shows.

Agreed.

> > > Further, when looking at the pre-Babylonian Exile writing, there was no
> > room
> > > for dots to indicate any putative doubling, rather doubling had to be
> > > explicit, and in the examples give by George, all but one have different
> > > meanings with an explicit doubling.
> >
> > I'm not sure I'm completely following you here, but if you mean that to
> > indicate a pronunciation [ʕamm] (or better, [ʕam:]) for עם, one would be
> > forced to write עמם, I don't think that's true. As Randall Buth
> > indicated,
> > "doubling" (or "gemination") is a commonly used term for what might better
> > be termed consonant length. The term "doubling" or "gemination" arises
> > from the frequent use of doubled letters to indicate length, e.g., Italian
> > "basso" [bas:o]. This is, however, characteristic I think only of scripts
> > where vowel letters are first-class citizens (Greek-style alphabets), not
> > in scripts where vowels are only secondarily indicated, if at all
> > (Semitic-style alphabets). In these, consonant length (if indicated at
> > all)
> > is marked by a secondary diacritical mark.
>
> This is what I was saying is not found in pre-Babylonian Exile script, and
> not added to the Aramaic square script until the MT. Therefore there was no
> indication that such a gemination existed before the Masoretes.

I'm still unsure of what you're saying here - if you're saying that
"gemination" was not indicated by spelling until the Massoretes introduced
the daghesh, then I would agree, but if you're saying that the phonetic
distinction between a non-daghesh consonant and one with daghesh (forte)
didn't exist before the Massoretes, then I would have to disagree. I can't
help but think that daghesh indicated a phonetic distinction, whether applied
to BGDKPT consonants or not.

--
William Parsons



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