Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
To: fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr ; if AT math.bu.edu
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 5:12 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Vav Nun Suffix



Dr. Fournet:

You wrote:  “All this is nonsense in the first place.  Who can believe that 
a Semitic name could be suffixed by the grammatical morphemes of another 
language?”

Leah names all 6 of her blood sons.  Leah is portrayed in the text as living 
exclusively in Naharim until middle age.  Wouldn’t it make sense if 2 of 
those 6 names are west Semitic names with a non-Semitic-sounding final 
element?  The vav nun/-WN/-we-ni- ending of the names of Leah’s blood son #2 
and blood son #6 are, in my opinion, purposely designed to “sound 
non-Semitic”.  Many of the proper names in the famous non-Semitic letter on 
your website, which in my view was written only 3 years before the 
Patriarchal narratives were composed, feature long suffixes with the -we-ni- 
suffix sequence element.  That’s vav nun/-WN in Biblical Hebrew.
***
This "non-Semitic" thing is a descriptive fallacy. There's no such dichotomy 
in the real world.

I don't think the Patriarchal narratives were "composed" at a precise time. 
This is basically a living memory of genealogical relationships. Of course 
at one point this living memory was put on the paper and we now have it.
A.
***


If the names of those two sons of Leah contained that vav in the Late Bronze 
Age (which I believe they did), then that vav way back then would have been 
pronounced by the early Hebrews something like “we”, because back then a vav 
was a true consonant.  The following nun then would likely have been 
pronounced something like “ni”, being two true consonants back to back, 
creating two syllables.  So the original pronunciation of the name of Leah’s 
#2 son would likely have been something like $ima-WE-NI.  And at p. 23 of 
your website you have Mi-zi- ir- ri- e- WE-NI-eš;  and the name of Leah’s #6 
son would have been pronounced something like Zebelu-WE-NI, and at p. 23 you 
have Ši-mi-i- gi- ni- e- WE-NI- e-ma-a-an, and Zebulun named one of his own 
sons Al-WE-NI at Genesis 46: 14, and at p. 24 you have d Ši- mi- i- gi- ni- 
e-WE- NI- e- im- ma- ma- an;  and Levi, another son born in Naharim and 
named by his mother Leah, names one of his sons Gara$a-WE-NI, and back at p. 
23 again you have at- ta- a- ar- ti- i- WE- NA-a- ma-a-an, and Genesis 26: 
34 has Ayali-WE-NI, but that non-Semitic letter from the same time period 
never lets up, as at p. 24 you report  še-e-ni- ib-[WU]- ú- e-NI- e- wə, 
though the Bible can counter with Ssibaiya-WE-NI at Genesis 36: 2, yet that 
short portion of that famous non-Semitic letter on your website is not done 
yet, as you report at p. 24 ti- WE- e- NA, though perhaps the Bible manages 
to have the last word with Epiri-WE-NI at Genesis 23: 8.  What your website 
reports is what Leah heard from birth to middle age.  So why doesn’t it make 
sense for Leah to give two of her sons in Naharim in eastern Syria names 
whose ending recalled the hundreds of -WE-NI- suffix sequences she had heard 
her non-Semitic neighbors saying every day of her life until she finally 
left Naharim and moved to Canaan?  That letter on your website is what Leah 
heard from her neighbors every day of her life, isn’t it?
***
Could you just accept that -we-ni is grammatical material: genitive 
case -we- plus article -ni-?
I think you reason too much by "proof by contamination": you find something 
which vaguely sounds like something else and then transfer the properties of 
one thing to the other and constantly move on from one thing to another 
applying that "method".
A.
***


If you insist that the vav nun endings of $M(-WN and ZBL-WN have no 
non-Semitic connection, then please set forth your own view as to an 
all-west Semitic analysis of the vav nun suffix in those two names.  It 
seems unlikely to me that a 1st millennium BCE editor would have jammed vavs 
into those two ancient names.  But if that is not your theory of the case, 
then what is your theory of the case?  Vowels were not recorded in early 
Biblical Hebrew.  Certainly the name $M(-WN in particular is a truly ancient 
name.  Where did the interior vav come from in that name?  I myself cannot 
even find a published scholarly theory as to where that interior vav came 
from.  Do you know of one?  Other than ultra-generic statements that 
plene-type spelling appears throughout the Bible, I have not been able to 
find any scholarly explanation of why there’s an interior vav in the ancient 
name $M(-WN.  How did that vav get there, and when, and why, and by whom? 
Either the scholarly theory is that a 1st millennium BCE editor took it upon 
himself to update the spelling of that ancient name [though I have never 
seen a published statement to that effect as to this name, so maybe that in 
fact is not the scholarly theory of the case], or else, as far as I can 
tell, no scholar has ever opined what that interior vav is doing in the name 
Simeon.

What’s your theory of the case?  You’re quick to characterize my theory as 
being “nonsense”, but that implies that there’s a more convincing theory of 
the case out there.  What would that be?
***
I'm not a competent philologist on Hebrew and I have no theory.
I'm not even sure there is an issue at all with -w- in those names.
In all cases I would first try to explain these names with internal i.e 
Semitic material.

In all cases rejecting your misuse of Hurrian material is one thing and it 
does not create the burden of an alternative theory.
A.
***


The whole point of this thread is to explore the vav nun suffix in Biblical 
Hebrew.  If I’m barking up the wrong tree in my proposed non-Semitic 
analysis of the vav nun suffix, then why don’t you or someone else set forth 
a better, more convincing theory of the case?  I’m all ears.

My own theory of the case is that (i) the vav nun suffix was there in the 
name $M(-WN from day #1, and has nothing whatsoever to do with plene 
spelling issues, but rather dates all the long way back to the Late Bronze 
Age, and (ii) the explicit purpose of that vav nun/-WN/-we-ni- suffix was 
precisely to give the name of Leah’s #2 son a “non-Semitic sound”.  On my 
view, it’s not a “coincidence” that the name Simeon ends with -we-ni, and 
that so many names in that famous non-Semitic letter you cite on your 
website similarly include in their long suffixes the component -we-ni- [or 
some close variant thereof].

In your opinion, why is there a vav in the name of Jacob’s son #2?
***
Why not?
I don't understand why this should an issue.
שִׁמְעֹון
Apparently that name should logically be accented on the last vowel as the 
rest is short -i- and schwa, so it's in my humble opinion unsurprising that 
the last vowel is long and therefore rendered with -w-.
I would reconstruct *S_m_(oon with two initial "void" slots. I'll let 
competent Semiticists give their PoV.

Arnaud Fournet