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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Simple Pronunciation Question...

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: "Donald R. Vance, Ph.D." <donaldrvance AT mac.com>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Simple Pronunciation Question...
  • Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:40:54 -0800

Donald:

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 9:06 AM, Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. <
donaldrvance AT mac.com> wrote:

> The Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions predate Moses by 1800 years.


Were the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions Hebrew or another language? If another
language, who borrowed from whom? If another language and they did the
borrowing, did they add to the Hebrew 22 letters, just as the Latin alphabet
in some languages includes such as ß, å, ç (the Turkish pronunciation is
different from the French), ü, ø and others?


> The fact that Hebrew uses one grapheme for two sounds demonstrates that
> they didn't create the alphabet (why make one sign do double duty when
> you're creating the thing?): sin and shin use the same grapheme.


Is this not a late development that postdates the Babylonian Exile? I see
reasons to doubt the dual duty. The same with all the other dual duty
graphemes of the Masoretic tradition.


> In fact, there may be others. Dalet for both daleth and dhalet if the
> dhalet phoneme was still present in earlier Hebrew and others. There were
> around 30 proto-Semitic phonemes and only 22 Hebrew graphemes. How many
> survived into Hebrew is a matter of some debate and for how long. It is most
> probable, most would say certain, that the Hebrews did not invent their
> writing system.


Indications are that when Moses wrote Genesis, that he utilized older
documents. What was the script that they were written in? Did Moses
translate them to the Hebrew of his day? Did he merely update the language
to the Hebrew of his day? Did he need to do linguistic editing?

As for inventing their writing system, this was a time that when an alphabet
was adopted from another language, that letters were freely dropped and
added to make the alphabet fit the new language. Look at how both Latin and
Greek dropped and added letters.

As for Proto-Semitic, until ancient writing showing that language is found,
is an artificial language based on theory. Is that theory accurate?
Languages both lose and gain phonemes. How many of the supposed phonemes of
Proto-Semitic were late additions from other language families? Can
Proto-Semitic be a valid resource as to the pronunciation of ancient Hebrew?


> It is certainly true of the script that is preserved in the Biblical mss
> which is the square Aramaic script.
>

At least one of the DSS, I hear there were more, were written in the Hebrew
script.

>
>
> Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
> Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
> Oral Roberts University
> dvance AT oru.edu
> donaldrvance AT mac.com


Karl W. Randolph.




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