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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: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:55:16 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:28:48 -0800, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Will:
>
> On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 5:40 PM, Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:47:10 -0800, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Will:
> > >
> > > 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,
>
> Which, incidentally, included Germany, England, Scandinavia, etc.

No. People in Germany, England, &c. certainly learned Latin, and even
learned to use it as a means of oral communication, but that's a lot
different than the situation in France or Italy where people learned (a kind
of) Latin as their mother tongue and only gradually came to the realization
they were actually speaking something else.

> > 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.
>
> And why not?

Why should they? Why should Jewish communities in Palestine or Mesopotamia
whose everyday language was Aramaic choose to pick up the peculiarities of
pronunciation from some foreign Jews who pronounced Hebrew with a funny Greek
accent?

> > 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.
>
> And why would the MT show changes from only one source? Why not several? And
> with the LXX predating the NT, therefore being influential among Jewish
> readers as to how they would pronounce Hebrew names and words, especially
> among the largely Greek speaking diaspora, why wouldn’t it have influence
> also back in Judea?

I find it hard to believe that the LXX was consulted or influential in the
preparation of the MT. It was after all in foreign language (foreign in a
way that Aramaic was not), and the oral tradition would be much stronger.

> > (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:
>
> Are you sure? The pattern fits the other differences between Galilean and
> Judean pronunciations attested elsewhere.

Indeed there are parallels between the phonetic changes that took place
between Greek on one hand and Hebrew/Aramaic on the other. That they were
*different* though, is evidenced by the fact that the final distribution of
stops vs spirants ended up differently. As far as Ματθαιον/Μαθθαιον goes, the
shift in spelling can be accounted for purely by considering developments
within Greek itself, so there is no particular reason to think it has anything
to do with Hebrew.

> > 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>.
> >
> > > 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.
>
> Where is your evidence? I think that any evidence that you can point to will
> not be the same, though possibly similar, to that of the MT.

If daghesh didn't indicate a phonetic distinction, what *did* it indicate?
I can't think it was inserted arbitrarily. (And of course, cognate words in
Arabic evidence the nature of that phonetic distinction.)

> On a similar subject, while reading Luke, I noticed that Jerusalem was
> spelled as if the final yod indicated a lengthened tsere pronunciation, not
> the same as MT. This is late second temple evidence for that pronunciation.
>
> The bottom line, I think the evidence indicates that the MT does not
> represent Biblical Hebrew pronunciation from before the Babylonian Exile.

It depends on how widely you understand "represent". I would certainly agree
that the pronunciation underlying the MT was not that of pre-exilic Hebrew.
(I doubt that forte/lene distinctions in BGDKPT letters were significant so
early, for example, and no doubt there were significant differences in vowel
articulation). But the MT is the result of continuous transmission, so it can
not be dismissed as evidence of how Hebrew was pronounced at a much earlier
time.

--
William Parsons



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