Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

isaac,

these are my assumptions:

1.  the masoretes did not write grammar books but did act to canonize and 
preserve a religious text.
     they had no interest whatsoever how the reader would spell the words, 
they wanted him to 
     UNDERSTAND them. after all, hebrew was already (and also, still) not in 
daily use in most 
     communities.

2. as a corollary, they would not introduce ANY new linguistic elements to 
the text if they knew the 
    old elements.

3. they might, however, have replaced old hebrew style by a "modern" one to 
make it more understood.
    this is evident, for example, in some of the dead sea scrolls. but this 
means that the new elements used
    were part of the current hebrew dialect, legitimate in their own rights, 
and not merely scribal whims as
    you like to present them.

    in fact, often their rendering of biblical words and expression is 
CLEARLY not typical of hebrew dialect of their 
    time. here we can rest assured that they did faithfully pass on to us the 
original text, up to possible
    scribal errors here and there.

4. as a corollary, they would have "invented" a double letter only if it was 
in use already at the time, and
     not as a "writing exercice". similarly, a dagesh forte only if it had 
SOME noticeable function, at their time.
     either in common speech or in the collective memory of their 
communities. especially as these
     elements (e.g. dagesh forte) were common to both niqud systems: tveriani 
and bavli.

5. they introduced the double letters and dagesh forte in some constructions 
and not in others. for example,
    in pi´el:
     
            dagesh:   3-root:    halakh --> hilekh
            doubling: 2-root and irregular:    sav --> sovev   mal --> milel  
´af-->´ofef  $av-->$ovev
     interesting, isnt it: dagesh as parallel+complement to letter doubling.
    
     another example is the fusing of two letters under inflections:     
                              halakh-ti, ya$av-ti, but:  mati.  
                              halakh-nu, ya$av-nu, but:  natanu.
     
     here, clearly, the masoretes felt that a "t" or "n" was lost, and 
denoted it by a dagesh. this was NOT meant to 
     force the reader to lengthen the t (in this respect, isaac, you are 
waging a war against a phantom, nobody really
     thinks it was intended to lengthen the consonant), but yes to keep him 
informed that a shortcut was in evidence 
     and make transparent the LOGIC of the ancient grammar.

     another example is dagesh after the article: ha-bayit. undoubtedly, the 
initial he did change in some ways
     the next consonant; some are still apparent: on BGD-KPT (today, only on 
BKP). others are lost forever. but 
     probably still existent in masorah times, at least in the collective 
memory.again, nobody says dagesh is there
     to double the B, but it certainly REPRESENTS some tangible consonantal 
effect in ancient time, perhaps a lengthening
     which is, nowadays, obsolete.

     i guess there are other examples.mapiq etc etc.

6.  based on this selective grammatical consistency of the masorah i assume 
that the naqdanim/dagshanim did NOT 
     just introduce at random elements which were NOT there at their time,
     nor were they inventors of a new grammar, UNLESS THEY LOST THE ORIGINAL 
SENSE OF THINGS. they did, however,
     introduce new signs in order to capture, to the best of their ability, 
the original language.

7.  when, on top of all this, one finds dagesh, letter doubling and double 
letter shortening in other semitic languages, 
     WHICH ARE USED FOR THE VERY SAME FUNCTIONS,  then one must reach the 
conclusion that maybe the masoretes 
     were not just cheap bluffers but maybe knew something which you, isaac, 
and i , nir, do not know anymore. some information on
     BH which is lost forever.  after all, 1-2 millenia separate between us 
and them.

     parallels in other languages include: binyanim parallel to hebrew pi´el 
which use dagesh or letter doubling, letter fusion on declension, and
     dagesh forte following the article (as in arabic) etc etc.  so, whereas 
DIBER yes is written with one B in BH, it may be written
     with two B in close dialects. and then i do not see how you can DENY 
VEHEMENTLY any possibility of a linguistic
    process which might have created a B dgusha out of two Bs, at the dawn of 
BH.

    clearly, your criticism about the dagesh in MODERN hebrew is in its 
place: it can be removed. but modern hebrew is
    not on the agenda of this forum; on the contrary, we are debating an 
effort to reconstruct BH as spoken in the 1st millenium BC.
    clearly their language reflected a logic much different than yours, 
isaac, and so your ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTS ABOUT "TRUE" HEBREW
    based on pure logic and word association, and ignoring any comparative or 
empiric evidence (especially when it disagrees
    with your theory) ,  are pretty shaky, to say the least.  by ignoring the 
masorah from A to Z you are throwing the baby 
    (=BH!) along with the milk.

    nir cohen

PS (concerning el al: you are correct, but the lofty (AL has a (AYIN 
SHORSHIT, and nobody said it means the same thing as 
aleph )EL. maybe they did, at the dawn of time, but then maybe each went its 
own way: one upstairs, another musclewise.)

On Wed, 11 May 2011 19:54:38 -0400, Isaac Fried wrote
> 1. First and foremost don't give up. If the Hebrew language is dear to you, 
> then keep up extolling her virtues.
> 2. Instead of LUL think about the name of the national airline of Israel: 
> EL-AL, up-up.
> 3. Here I miss your point. No one questions the fact that some Hebrew roots 
> have a double letter ever from the beginning of time.
> 4. There is no denying that the word DIBER is written (written!) with only 
> one B. The thing is that in punctuated, MNUQADIYM, books we see a tiny dot 
> placed inside it. As soon as we see this dot we intuitively read the letter 
> as the English B and not as the English V, in other words, we say DVARIYM, 
> yet DIBER. I think there is agreement on the fact that this difference in 
> articulating the B is only a side effect. So, what is the primary reason 
> for the placement of this dot inside the letter? You say (or appear to be 
> saying) that its purpose is to instruct the reader to double the consonant 
> and read (read!) the word as DIB-BER. I say baloney. 
> In any event, since the word DIBER is written (written!) with only one 
> Hebrew B it should, methinks, be written also with only one English B. If 
> you want to double this B in speech, then, by all means, go and try it out. 
>   
> 
> 
> Isaac Fried, Boston University