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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Pronounciation

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  • From: "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
  • To: "Uri Hurwitz" <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Pronounciation
  • Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2011 14:21:43 +0100


From: "Uri Hurwitz" <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>



hey-khal

The word originates, if memory serves, in Sumerian
where 'e- gallo' means a large house. This in turn
appears in Akkadian with the same meaning and then in
various Semitic languages.

Uri Hurwitz Great Neck NY
***

That word is very interesting.

We have in fact several phonetic snapshots of Sumerian.

S1. is reflected in Hurrian hai-galli
where h is a velar fricative

S2. is Hebrew hey-khal
with a weak laryngeal fricative.

S3. one more stage is Akkadian and Hurrian ay-akk-
where *Hay is ay with no initial at all.
ayakk-u/i is used for goddesses' temples: it's a (partly altered) Sumerian genitive *hay-an-ak- "house-of"

S4. late stage is just conventional E- with muted-out h and ay > e.

It's intriguing to see that Hebrew has a phonetic stage which probably reflects the end of the 3rd millennium, sometimes before Sumerian actually became a dead language.

The attestation in Samuel I.9 sounds like one thousand years older.
I wonder how this can be explained.


Arnaud Fournet







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