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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] words with the same root letters: XCC-N TMR

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  • From: "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
  • To: <JimStinehart AT aol.com>, <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] words with the same root letters: XCC-N TMR
  • Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:37:44 +0100


From: JimStinehart AT aol.com

In analyzing the tsade in XCC-N TMR at Genesis 14: 7, let me just briefly set forth my own view as to Late Bronze Age sibilants. Although scholars disagree about the pronunciation of sibilants in early Biblical Hebrew, I believe the following is one mainstream view, being the view that I have adopted.

Z/zayin is a voiced affricate.
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It's not necessarily affricate although it is certainly voiced.
A.
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C is an emphatic affricate: TS.
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It's not necessarily affricate although it is certainly emphatic.
A.
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$/shin is SH.
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That was doubtless /s/.
A.
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%/sin is emphatic s.
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no,
sin was a lateral fricative, probably voiceless in (proto-)Hebrew.
A.
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S/samekh is non-emphatic s.
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No
It was a voiceless affricate /ts/.
A.
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[On that view, the only change in the sibilants by the Middle Ages was that %/sin had come to be pronounced as non-emphatic s; there no longer was any emphatic s in Hebrew, and sin/% and samekh/S had come to have the identical sound.]

If Hurrian usually, though not always, pronounced s as SH, and if Genesis slightly simplifies the Hurrian pronunciation, then only 3 sibilants are needed to record Hurrian in Hebrew: Z and $ and C. No % or S is needed [emphatic or non-emphatic s], because s was usually pronounced $ in Hurrian [and was always so treated in Genesis].
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Logically, we would expect z, shin, (maybe sin ?) and samekh to reflect Hurrian phonemes.
A.
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Based on my own research as to dozens of names in Genesis that I see as being Hurrian names, samekh/S and sin/% were n-e-v-e-r used in rendering Hurrian names in Hebrew. Hebrew tsade/C, an emphatic affricate, was used to render the Hurrian affricate TS, even if that Hurrian affricate may have been non-emphatic.
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Doubtless false.
A.
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So xa-tsi-tsi in Hurrian is XCC in Biblical Hebrew. XCC-N TMR at Genesis 14: 7 represents xa-tsi-tsi-ni tam-ri in Hurrian, it means “Wisdom-the Nine” in Hurrian, and it’s referring to xa-si/Hasi in the Hurrian-dominated Beqa Valley where, per Amarna Letter EA 175, there was an enclave of Amorites in Year 14. Amarna Letter EA 175 and the second half of Genesis 14: 7 are reporting the identical event, with Genesis 14: 7 having been composed a mere one year after that traumatic event.
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ok
We have already seen that this theory is false.

Arnaud Fournet
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