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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Vav Nun Suffix

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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr, if AT math.bu.edu
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Vav Nun Suffix
  • Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:05:10 -0500


Dr. Fournet:

In order to keep this post from becoming too long, I will confine my response
to linguistic issues.

1. As to the various dating issues you raise, the linguistic answer is as
follows. The Amarna Age is the historical time when the first Hebrews were
concerned about all those many non-Semitic princelings who ruled cities like
Jerusalem and Hebron throughout Canaan. That’s the only time when it would
make sense for a Biblical text to have 25 non-Semitic names [all of which
have letter-for-letter spelling accuracy]. And that’s the only time when it
would make sense for the Patriarchal narratives to have an incredible 40% of
the vav nun suffix common words and vav nun suffix personal names in the
Bible, with vav nun/-WN/-we-ni- at the end of a word or name having a
distinctive non-Semitic sound [noted at #3 below].

2. You wrote: “This is nonsense. How could these people possibly know that
3500 years later *we* would decipher cuneiform signs as being either Xu-ti-ya
or Xu-di-ya in *our* system??? The only information at their disposal is
actual phonetics [xudiya].”

As to the non-Semitic name whose early Biblical Hebrew spelling I assert
could be XTY, noted scholars Gelb and Purves write the following in “Nuzi
Names”: “Xu-ti-ya, var. (2) Xu-di-ya” (p. 64b). Similarly, they report both
Xut-Arrapxe and Xu-da-ra-ap-xe (p. 64a); Xu-ti and Xu-di(p. 64b);
Xuti-Xamanna and Xu-di-xa-ma-an-na (p. 65b); Xutip-Kanari and
Xu-di-ip-qa-na-ri (p. 65b); Xutip-$arri and Xu-di-ip-$arri (p. 66a); and let
me stop with a name that is of direct relevance here: Xutip-Te$up and
Xu-di-ip-te-$up (p. 66a). Your insistence that “Praise the Lord” in Hurrian
could not be written down as Xu-ti-ya/XTY in early Biblical Hebrew is thereby
refuted. It’s true that Ugaritic scribes recorded D, but non-Semitic T/D may
have been pronounced a little differently in southern Canaan, just as
non-Semitic ebri or erwi in Canaan comes out as erwi at Nuzi. Or maybe the
early Hebrew author heard it a little differently, or used a slightly
different convention to record it. Although the Hebrews did not confuse
D/dalet and T/tav in non-loanwords, that certainty goes out the window
completely when it comes to recording a foreign, non-Semitic proper name.
For example, D and T are hopelessly confused on the Thutmose III list of
places in Canaan. Even many native English speakers might stumble in trying
to explain the past tense of “pass”: it’s always spelled D today; it is
pronounced T by most, but not quite all, English speakers today; and older
archaic spellings might have featured a DST spelling, where perhaps the
written D was pronounced as D. Today we spell the past tense of “walk” with
a D, pronounced as a T, but in Shakespeare’s time it was spelled “walkedst”.
Many native English speakers would be stumped if asked whether “passed” and
“past” have identical, or merely only similar, sounds. If there’s a bit of
confusion in modern English about D vs. T, why would you expect there to be
absolute clarity in the way non-Semitic T/D would have to be recorded in the
Bible? That’s not a reasonable position to take. Your own website gives
Xuti-b-Te$$up and Xuti-Te$$ub, featuring a T, not a D. Given all that
contradictory evidence from the ancient world, it makes no sense to take the
dogmatic position that an early Hebrew author could not possibly have used
the spelling XTY in Biblical Hebrew. He knew those non-Semitic sounds much
better than you do. He had grown up in a world largely dominated by
non-Semitic maryannu [though he may have suspected that very soon, that world
would vanish forever, for better or worse].

3. You wrote: “$M(-WN with ( cannot be a Hurrian word. I think you should
stop trying to make un-Semitic words which contain obviously Semitic sounds.
This is just absurd.”

As I specifically stated in my post, $M( is a virgin pure west Semitic root
that has nothing to do with non-Semitic. But the -we-ni-/-WN/vav nun suffix
at the end of the name of Jacob’s #2 son sounds non-Semitic. Many of the
proper names in the famous non-Semitic letter you in small part reproduce on
your website have -we-ni- as part of a long suffix sequence. In addition to
the Egyptian reference, that includes on your website both the city of
Simige, and the god’s name Simige. And the meaning you proposed for -we-ni-
regarding Egypt in that famous letter works very nicely with the name of
Jacob’s son Simeon. Why is it “absurd” that Leah, who is portrayed as living
exclusively in Naharim until middle age, would give two of her sons names
that in part sound non-Semitic? Wouldn’t one rightly expect “local color”
like that if this Biblical text knows what it’s talking about [which I for
one think that it does]?

4. You wrote: “You're trying to show that a word containing a tsade could
derive from languages with no emphatics. That's just impossible.”

Far from being “impossible”, it is indeed the case. All 25 non-Semitic names
in the Patriarchal narratives use only three sibilants: zayin/Z, shin/$, and
ssade/C. There is no tsamekh/S and no sin/%. Gelb and Purves show many
names at Nuzi that, in their expert opinion, reflect ssade/C: Ca-xa-ay-eri$
(p. 174b), Ca-li-im-mu-du (p. 175a), Ca-al-me-ki, Ca-al-mu, Cill (p. 177b),
Cill-abe, Cill-a-be-xe, Cill-adad, Cilli-ya, Cilli-marta (p. 178a),
Cilli-nikarrak (p. 178b), Cill-duri (p. 179b), Cillutu, Ci-ma-an-ni,
Cuxartiya (p. 181a), and Cupr-adad (p. 182a). Unless both Gelb/Purves and
the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives don’t know what they’re
talking about, your contention that a ssade at Nuzi is “impossible” is
refuted.

5. What you consider “nonsense” and “absurd” and “impossible” is in fact
verified out the wazzoo in the non-Semitic letter you in part reproduce on
your own website, and in the well-known non-Semitic names at Nuzi. Your view
to the contrary is idiosyncratic, and does not refute either the antiquity or
pinpoint historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois





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