Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Joseph:

I don’t know anyone who claims that the vowel system as codified by the
Masoretes is artificial. As far as we can tell, it reflects the
pronunciation patterns as heard by the Masoretes for their time and place.

As far as the vowels being “original”, what do you mean by that?

If you mean that those were the vowels heard when medieval Hebrew was spoken
by the Masoretes, and which they attributed to Tanakh when reading it, then
yes, they are original.

If you mean that the points indicate Biblical Hebrew, as it was spoken in
the days of Jeremiah and earlier, then no, they are not original. The
original pronunciations have long been lost, forgotten.

Remember, comparing cognate languages is always an iffy proposition.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 4:06 PM, Joseph Roberts 
<josephroberts3 AT gmail.com>wrote:

> After looking at the vowel system of Hebrew, I was curious if its uses
> of so many vowels was artificial and rise from a liturgical use or is
> that how it was originally spoken. I have seen similarities between
> Hebrew and Arabic. Arabic of course has a Dhama which makes the "u"
> sound, a Kasra which makes a "i" sound and a Fatah which makes an "a"
> sound. These are considered short vowels and they have corresponding
> long vowels which seem to just lengthen the time that one makes the
> vowel sound. Did Hebrew originally function like this? is the Cholem a
> later invention? It just seems like there are a lot of sounds that are
> not present in other semitic languages that i am familiar with.
>
> Joseph Roberts