Biblical Hebrew Forum

[fred putnam <fred.putnam AT gmail.com>]

The only application of grammatology (the study of lettering, or
alphabets (crudely
put)) to Classical Hebrew is to ask if certain text-critical variants may
have arisen due to the similarity of the archaic letters (e.g., archaic 
*he*and
*waw*), although (as many have noted) textual criticism is not an "alphabet
game".

Since the physical representation of a (any) language is always secondary in
the language's history. That is, no known language began as writing which
then gave rise to a system of speech; "writing", whatever its
form--syllabic, logographic, or acrophonic (i.e., one that we would
recognize as an "alphabet")--is always an attempt to reproduce speech.

Letters are not part and parcel of language, since the same letters (such as
these with which I type this) can be used for many languages; perhaps this
means that we can think of writing systems as "meta-lingual", even if a
particular system is or was used in one culture for one language.

I'm not sure what the second paragraph is asking. Sorry. (I've been reading
a lot of student papers.)

Nor am I sure what the word "instruct" means in the third paragraph
(incidentally, "Hurrian" and "Ugaritic" are *languages* which were written
in cuneiform, which is a *writing system*). We do occasionally use the Greek
alphabet to "understand" the Hebrew text, but this is because the Septuagint
(LXX) transliterates proper names and a few other words, which we can use as
a clue to the pronunciation of pre-Masoretic Hebrew. This is not, however,
the same as using Greek to "understand" the Hebrew text in the sense of
"interpret".

We also discuss the relationships between, and apparent development of,
different systems of writing (this is also part of grammatology), which can
help us see that, e.g., sounds represented by two different signs or sets of
signs in one language are represented by only one sign in another. It tends
to be more helpful when we can be fairly certain of the chronological
relationships between languages, which is why there is a great deal of study
of, e.g., the grammatology of English, as when we ask how many "sounds" are
represented by the "sign" "ou"?.

And some of this discussion is related to the study of Canaanite
inscriptions ("Canaanite" is a term given to the group of related languages
used in and around Canaan (Phoenician, Hebrew, Moabite, &c.).), but this
takes afield of the purpose of this list (if I have not already strayed too
far), and I need to get back to reading papers. I hope that this is at least
interesting.

Best wishes.

Fred

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 1:37 PM, fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com>wrote:

> Are not letters part and parcel of language?
>
> Is not alphabet (consonants and vowels) of languages cognate routinely
> discussed here, as a highway for understanding hebrew corresponding letters
> (consonants and vowels)?
>
> Why do hurrian or ugarit or cuneiform letters instruct the hebrew alefbet,
> but greek letters do not? Or perhaps none is efficacious for guiding
> understanding of the other?
>
> regards,
>
> fred burlingame
>
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 12:12 PM, fred putnam <fred.putnam AT gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I believe that Fred's (Burlingame) link is to the history of the alphabet.
>>
>> Peace.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 12:33 PM, Kirk Lowery <kirk AT grovescenter.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > On 11/24/10 12:11 PM, Christopher Kimball wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Is Greek usually considered a cognate language of Hebrew?
>> >
>> > No. Greek is Indo-European. Hebrew is a member of the Semitic family.
>> > Naturally,
>> > there is some influence of one on the other because of people speaking
>> both
>> > languages and the LXX, etc.
>> >
>> > Blessings,
>> >
>> > Kirk
>> > --
>> > Kirk E. Lowery, PhD
>> > President & Senior Research Fellow
>> > The J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research
>> > --
>> > $DO || ! $DO ; try
>> > try: command not found
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --)---------------
>> "We are not yet what we already are" (J. Pieper).
>>
>> Frederic Clarke Putnam, Ph.D. | Professor of Biblical Studies
>> Philadelphia Biblical University | 200 Manor Avenue | Langhorne, PA
>> 19047-2990
>> http://pbu.edu | 1215-702-4502 | Fax: 1-215-702-4533 | www.fredputnam.org
>>
>>  Before printing this email, think green!
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-- 
--)---------------
"We are not yet what we already are" (J. Pieper).

Frederic Clarke Putnam, Ph.D. | Professor of Biblical Studies
Philadelphia Biblical University | 200 Manor Avenue | Langhorne, PA
19047-2990
http://pbu.edu | 1215-702-4502 | Fax: 1-215-702-4533 | www.fredputnam.org

 Before printing this email, think green!