Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

I am really interested in hearing from you what are the arguments in  
favor of the claim of "gemination" in ancient Hebrew.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 17, 2011, at 3:12 AM, Ratson Naharadama wrote:

> Isaac writes:
> > precisely because it is all unnecessary.
> > Hebrew functions perfectly well
> > without these theoretical fantasies.
>
> Languages function pretty well without a LOT of things that many  
> cultures somehow found rather necessary to include in their  
> language. English (mostly) no longer has noun cases nor gender.  
> Hebrew lacks many of the untranslatable niceties added within a  
> sentence found in Cantonese that give the context of why the  
> speaker is speaking what he is speaking (such as in answer to a  
> question, or summing up what he had been discussing for the past 15  
> minutes). Sign languages are stripped of even more things not found  
> in their host languages. Just because you don't see why it was  
> necessary now doesn't mean that 2500 years ago it was likewise  
> thought so. Most English speakers can't fathom why anyone would  
> need nor want noun case, but a speaker of Old English wouldn't  
> fathom why or how anyone could go without noun cases. The same  
> would apply with Hebrew.
>
> If you were to be interested in Arabic and those other Semitic  
> languages you brush aside as having no relation to Hebrew, you  
> might see why vowel and consonant length were important. Your  
> attitude reminds me of those King James Version only adherents  
> (kind of a "this is what I am use to, so this is what it has always  
> been and always will be" outlook).
>
> Is there something we are missing that, to you, clearly indicates  
> that there was never any consonant length?
>
> --
> Ratson Naharädama
> Denver, Colorado