Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

On Tue, 17 May 2011 00:55:27 -0600, Ratson Naharadama 
<yahoo-arch AT heplist.com> wrote:
> Will Parsons wrote:
>  > Spanish does *not* maintain
>  > the consonantal length of Latin.
> 
> Are you sure about that? I've had my Spanish corrected a number of times in
> which I pronounced a word with a non-geminated consonant but the way they
> wanted me to pronounce it was clearly geminate. It is definitely not
> indicated in the spelling, that I would agree with. I think, like English
> speakers, Spanish speakers are generally unaware consciously of gemination,
> but clearly can tell when someone is saying something "oddly."

I probably should have qualified my statement by saying "with some
exceptions", the exceptions being some cases involving morpheme juncture.
For example, Spanish "innumerable" ia pronounced with a geminated "n" because
it's perceived as in+numerable (and note that the gemination *is* indicated
by the spelling).  (Note also that English is similar in not having phonemic
gemination except in certain cases involving morpheme juncture, e.g.,
"unknown" with the "nkn" pronounced as a geminated [nn].)

But with the exception of this and similar cases, yes, I believe my statement
is fundamentally correct.  Since you mention cases of gemination *not*
indicated by the spelling, I suspect this is not what you are referring to.
If so, please produce examples of what you think are Spanish geminated
consonants.

> English, once had long and short vowels, as well, and like the consonants,
> they were indicated with doubled letters (ex: "boot"). But, after the vowels
> shifted, vowel length was no longer phonemic (although there are still
> traces of vowel length, compare "sat" and "sad"). A Scotsman, however, does
> contrast vowel and consonant length strongly.

We're probably getting too far afield from the subject of this mailing list to
pursue it too much farther, but again you'd have to produce examples of what
you perceive as consonantal gemination in Scottish English for me to be
convinced of that.

> Hebrew just followed the same path that many languages have followed... over
> time, length lost its meaning, particularly when distinct vowel inventories
> increase (such as when, two sounds are not just considered situational
> variants of the same sound).

Hebrew certainly changed, but the path of the changes in pronunciation from
how (say) David pronounced it and how it is now pronounced in modern Israel is
not IMO completely parallel to (e.g.) the path of changes in pronunciation of
Greek from how Euripides pronounced it and how it pronounced in modern Greece,
the difference being that the natural evolution of Hebrew was interrupted by
its being completely supplanted as natively spoken language by other
languages.

-- 
William Parsons