Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hello Uri,

On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:43:58 -0700 (PDT), Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com> 
wrote:
> ,A   (BThe form Kalev most proabaly preserves the original pronounciation 
> of the
> name.  The Segholites prounounciation in the MT follows the dialectic
> changes in the original nouns.

If one substitutes "reflects" for "preserves", I think so too, but the
original pronunciation of the proper name is likely different from the
original pronunciation of "dog"...

> ,A (B ,A (B This is clearly evident in the declensions of the 
> Segholites, in our
> case: "Kalbi" "kalbekha" etc, and in the pulural "Klavim" which preserves
> the ancient plural *KLAB plus the regular Hebrew ms. plural ending - ym.
> 
> ,A   (BThis is found in Arabic to this day: e.g. "kalb" in singular.

True, both the combining forms of Heb. "k$(D+1(Blebh" and Arabic "kalb" 
point to an
earlier form *kalb for the word for "dog".  But "Kalebh" doesn't; I would
expect an earlier form something like *Kalib, certainly similar, but not the
same.

> ,A   (BTherefore the biblical personal name Kalev is very close to the 
> original
> pronounciation, except that the original short vowel 'a ' lengthened in the
> MT.

Close, but not the same.  Due to the high degree of regularity in Hebrew of
having the same root meaning when the consonants are the same, the obvious
comparison with "Kalebh" is "k$(D+1(Blebh", but this may not be enough to 
state that
"Kalebh" means "dog".

In fact, I'm rather sympathetic to Jim's view that "dog" would be an unusual
name to give a man of Caleb's character, considering the generally negative
connotations of "dog" in the Bible.  (I'll not comment on any claims that it's
Hurrian, since I know next to nothing about Hurrian.)  Considering a
completely different culture, that of the Northen Germanic (esp. Scandinavian)
peoples, it seems that giving people the names of animals was quite common,
like "Bear", or "Wolf", or "Otter" (even "Weevil" in the case of slaves).  But
I don't recall anyone being named "Hound", even though I don't think there was
any particular negative connotations associated with dogs.

So, I think one can somewhat hesitant about accepting the meaning of "Caleb"
as being "dog", despite the obviousness of the comparison.

-- 
Will Parsons