Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:21:51 +0100, "Sesamo m." <sesamox AT hotmail.com> wrote:
 
> Now I've got a few questions for you.
>  
> William Parsons wrote: "It's also possible that the Hebrew form always was
> Miryam, and that Maryam was an Aramaism."  Do we have any clues that this
> might have been so? Jack Kilmon said "Mattiyahu" became "Mattaya", so here
> we have a sound "i" that becomes "a". Is this a pattern?  (By the way, I
> wonder about the ending "-on" in the case of "Mattaion"; is it just
> something added when transliterating the name into Greek, just like the "-n"
> in "Solomon"?)

I don't have enough knowledge to state an opinion on the original
pronunciation of Miryam/Maryam.  I mentioned the possibility that Miryam is
the original pronunciation, but it is also possible that the original was
Maryam and this later became Miryam in Hebrew.  I don't know of evidence for
one over the other.  I'm not familiar with "Mattaion", and since I don't know
the Hebrew or Aramaic original, I can't venture an opinion on that one either.

> I've got a question about the pronunciation of YHWH. I know there is a lot
> of controversy and I don't want to add to it; I know there are no
> certainties here, and I just like to explore the possibilities. In my first
> post I mentioned the possibility that first vowels tended to weaken. William
> Parsons points to the possibility that those vowels were like that all the
> time. Now I wonder, in the hypothetical case that my suggestion were true,
> could it be possible that the theophoric prefix "Yeho-" were originally
> "Yaho-" (so the name was "Yahowi", Yahowa" or whatever) and that the form
> "Yah" were just an apocope?  Parsons wrote that the LXX rendering "Io-" seem
> to favour "Yeho-" rather than "Yaho-", but could it be that the hypothetical
> weakening occurred before?

Yes, it's possible.  A change of Yaho- to Yeho- (with a shwa) is certainly
phonetically reasonable.  (However, see also my separate reply to Dave
Donelly.)

> For the pronunciation of "Yerushalem", Parsons wrote: "There was an
> extensive discussion of this a while back. You might want to check the
> archives". Was it specifically about Jerusalem, of about the diphthong "ai"?

Specifically Jerusalem (although also discussing more general
diphthongization).  Look for a thread with the subject "Jerusalem" from
around July 2010.

> Thanks a lot,
> Sergio Saavedra (Madrid)

(Do you perfer to addressed Sergio or Sesamo?)

-- 
Will Parsons