Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Kimmo Huovila <kimmo.huovila AT kolumbus.fi>]

On perjantai 07 lokakuu 2011, K Randolph wrote:
> 
> I question some of the presuppositions of “historical” linguistics.
> Languages and language families both lose and gain phones and phonemes.

This is very true.

> Languages within a family develop at different rates, even those that close
> geographically can be very different in their developments.

This is also true. The question of whether there is a strong connection 
between the people groups or whether they are isolated from each other plays 
a 
major role. A strong connection will increase mutual influence between the 
languages.

> Close languages
> can go on divergent development paths.

Yes.

> Therefore, one cannot count on being
> able to use cognate languages as guides to studying a target language. It is
> speculation to use them as evidence, proof will have to come from the target
> language.

Your statement comes across as a total rejection of a methodology based on 
some recognized limitations in it. A total rejection of the methodology is 
not 
justified by the premises mentioned alone.

A lot depends on what you are trying to establish. Comparative linguistics is 
not at its best trying to figure out the meaning of an individual idiom or 
precise meaning of a vocabulary item in one of the languages. However, it may 
give reasonable confidence in the structure of the language and its history. 

Those doing historical linguistics are usually aware of your very valid 
reservations above on gaining and losing phonemes and divergent development 
paths (at least if they are academic linguists). They share these 
presuppositions of yours instead of opposing them. These phenomena are taken 
seriously and studied. Language change has been studied extensively by 
historical linguists. Two important areas of change are sound changes and 
semantic changes. Both have been studied across languages.

Language relationships and historical reconstructions are not based on 
isolated, individual items bearing some fancy relationship to each other. 
That 
weight of evidence would be close to zero. Rather you must have cumulative 
evidence. If you see that there is a systematic change from one language to 
the other across the shared vocabulary, then you can use that to do 
historical 
reconstructions. Preferably you need to know well several of the known 
related 
languages to make proper reconstructions.

People fluent in two related languages can often tell if two vocabulary items 
are the same across the two languages, even if they are not linguists.

Now, if you have languages that can be shown to be related (systematic 
correspondences with systematic sound changes across enough vocabulary items 
and morphemes), you can reconstruct a proto-language. You may consider the 
reconstructed language (for example proto-Semitic) as a theoretical construct 
instead of a historical one, if you so wish – many in the field do. The proto-
language will often be a reasonable approximation of the historical language, 
but because of the methodology it will be a smoothed-out language in the 
sense 
that real languages tend to have more exceptions than what a reconstruction 
will give you.

Unless any related (=Semitic) language has a CV-only syllable structure, and 
the later Hebrew language does not have it, for CV Hebrew there are two 
alternatives.
1) Earlier, pre-Hebrew language had also CVC syllables, Hebrew lost them and 
regained them. This theory would need positive support for Hebrew losing them.
2) Earlier, pre-Hebrew Semitic language never had CVC syllables, but the 
daughter languages all gained them, with Hebrew gaining them late (after 
Biblical Hebrew). This also requires more complex presuppositions than also 
Hebrew having been a language with CVC syllables, so it would need positive 
support.

I personally do not know the syllable structures of related languages and 
evidence for them, so I leave that part for other to address, if need be. My 
point here is methodological.

Are these scenarios for CV Hebrew completely impossible? Not really, but are 
they likely? Is there supporting evidence? This is the right question.

You offer the aesthetic argument of CV syllables sounding poetic. Does that 
prove more than that you find CV syllables poetic? Would any language gain 
the 
same poetic touch if you opened all closed syllables?

I wonder whether you rejection of historical linguistics is because of lack 
of 
knowledge about how they address your concerns. If so, and if you are 
interested in pursuing this further, I would encourage to read a good 
introduction to historical linguistics. Even older ones may be reasonably 
good, though the 19th century dogma on the universality of sound change is 
not 
so popular anymore because of contrary evidence. Studies over the last few 
decades are more aware of variation within a language as a driving force of 
language change. Also, in recent decades there has been more debate and 
awareness of the role of language contacts in linguistic change.

If you only look at introductions to comparative Semitics, they may not 
address the deeper methodological questions. Their concern is the application 
of the methodology, not the methodology itself. Go for the general 
introductions to the methodology.

> I know enough of language development over history that I need more 
> evidence 
> than just generalized calls for comparison with cognate languages and an 
> appeal to authority “for those with the background to evaluate it”. I need 
> evidence from Hebrew itself (more accurately in this case, direct 
> transliterations from Hebrew to other languages).

Evidence from comparative Semitics, to really cover the case, takes a lot of 
time to go over. First, the language relationship needs to be established. 
You 
cannot use the methodology on unrelated languages. Then you need to be able 
to 
reconstruct a proto-language and figure out sound changes from the proto-
language to the daughter languages. This is a lot of work, and requires 
knowledge of the languages in question. You need to see how well your 
reconstructions work and where they do not yet work, and work on the 
reconstructions and sound laws until you are satisfied you know where it 
works 
and where not.

Having done all this work, you will have enough background knowledge to see 
how an individual piece of the puzzle fits into the whole. Fortunately for 
us, 
we do not need to start from scratch. You can read an introduction to 
comparative Semitics, and find a lot of information there. To evaluate much 
anything, you should know at least two Semitic languages, preferably more.

If you are not willing to get that expertise, I do not blame you for that. It 
is a lot of work. So I understand if it does not count as evidence to you, if 
you feel incompetent to evaluate it. It does not mean that the baby should be 
thrown out with the bath water, though.

Kimmo Huovila