Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stein <haldrik AT hotmail.com>]

Isaac Fried <if@...> writes:

> 
> I agree.
> 
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
> 
> On Aug 3, 2010, at 8:01 AM, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> 
> > But we must remember that Classical Hebrew grammar and phonology,  
> > as we understand them today, are based on induction and indirect  
> > evidence and includes a lot of scholarly guesswork.  We also see a  
> > clear tendency in monographs, textbooks, and reference works  
> > discussing ancient phonology, grammar, and lexical semantics to  
> > repeat what others have said without checking their conclusions  
> > thoroughly.
> 

Actually, Blau points out the evidence of long versus short vowels as late as 
the second century CE. In the Hexapla by Origin, the Secunda transliterates 
the Tanakh into Greek letters. The distinction between Hebrew long vowels 
versus short vowels transcribes as Greek long vowels [e:] η and [o:] ω versus 
short vowels [e] ε and [o] ο. This vowel length is phonemic.