Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

>>> De: Kevin Riley <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>
Para: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Data: Tue, 10 May 2011 09:00:38 +1000
Assunto: Re: [b-hebrew] Mighty
You might notice, just in passing, that all the Semitic languages except
Akkadian start words with a consonant.  Therefore only Akkadian has an
initial A.  Does that not suggest, especially when you take into account
everything known about Akkadian, that perhaps there was no initial 'true
vowel A', but in fact an ) ?

---------------------------------

kevin, james, pere, yigal, isaac,

i completely disagree with the above statement by kevin. 
ALL semitic languages have MANY words with initial vowel A,E,I,O,U.
except that the semitic alphabet uses aleph to express 
them. with A we have

arba´, axarei, aKhal, amar, avanim, aton, a$am etc....
(i assume that the masorah got the initial A right in MOST cases...)

arba´, allah, al, akal, amir, aiwa....

arba´, aram, ar´ah, ari, asutah, aba....

as the spoken language preceded the alphabet, and probably
even the akkadian writing system, the initial A came to be 
expressed differently in both systems. under any evolutive theory,
there is no way the letter aleph (or an unspecified vowel concept) 
could exist before the A vowel.

---

the disappearance of the yod is not characteristic of akkadian and, 
yes, characteristic of most alphabet semitic languages. this may 
indicate that it is a product of the vowel-less alphabet, a result 
of letter economy, rather than a proto-semitic feature. 

also from the same period we see a yodless I vowel associated with 
(yes!) dagesh forte and prefix: LEV--> LIBBI, DAVAR--> DIBBER, 
PA´AL-->HIF´IL (i am risking protest by isaac). thus, yod is written only
when it is absolutely necessary: YA$AV, PIL, YARASH, MAKLI and of course,
NIR...  (see also mesha stone for this yod dropping).

while ram=)YL may lose the yod in some cases, god=)L never gains a yod. 
(it does gain a final H). this is consistent with assuming that yod 
tends to drop, but not be added, AFTER the introduction of alphabet. 
i imagine that cere is often associated with a dropped yod.
for example: siper--> sefer. we also know of dropping of vowel 
suffixes in semitic verb forms (e.g. yaqtulu-->yaqtul).

(the final H represents extension from a specific to generic god name, 
and i assume it is not seen in akkadian either. i tie it somehow 
with the adding of H to the patriarch names. on the contrary,
akkadian shows gradual loss of H).

i suspect that the question whether the ram/gazelle, power and 
god etymologies have a common source, or which of them preceded 
the other, goes back well before the introduction of the alphabet. 
perhaps some oral-mythological image of the god EL as a horned ram?

nir cohen