Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Ratson:

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Ratson Naharadama 
<yahoo-arch AT heplist.com>wrote:

> Karl Randolph wrote:
> > I need evidence from Hebrew itself
> > (more accurately in this case,
> > direct transliterations from Hebrew
> > to other languages).
>
> Direct transliterations? How about the Hexapla's second column? The
> Septuagint's transliteration of proper nouns?
>

Both too late, by centuries. If my reading of the text is correct, then the
pronunciation was changing already at the time of Cyrus the Great.

>
> But we don't even need the transliterations to see "evidence from Hebrew
> itself" by just looking at how consonants behave in different forms of the
> words.
>

That is exactly what I am looking at.


> For example, the consonant 'nun' (N) vanishes from the consonantal text in
> the place where (in comparison with sister languages) the usage of the word
> would predict the nun was syllable-final preceding another consonant. Thus,
> where one would predict consonants to fall into a pattern such as
> C1-V-N-C2-V, the 'N' "vanishes" and you get C1-V-C2:-V ( = C1-V-C2-C2-V).
>
> Sister languages…
>

Irrelevant. Secondly their transliterations to languages that we presently
recognize is also late.


> …make use of a mixed CV/CVC system, and the ones where nun assimilates in
> a CVNCV pattern to CVC:V also shows that Hebrew behaves like them in there
> syllable structuring. Unless there is some strong reason to think Hebrew
> was a CV-only languages, then it seems a little... silly... to insist that
> it was a CV-only language. As far as I have seen, you haven't enumerated
> any strong reasons why it would be odd and be a CV-only language.
>

No one has given me a good reason to insist that Biblical Hebrew was a CVC
language. At the very least, many of the words that are presently CVC
pronunciation, had a CV:CV structure during Biblical times.

It could be that some consonants could close syllables, and others not,
like in modern Chinese.

But a major evidence for CV language is poetry, where there is a beat to
reading all letters as consonants followed by vowels. True, there are
exceptions (copyist errors?) but verse after verse have rhythms when
reading as a CV language that are lost when using the modern
pronunciations.

> --
> Ratson Nahara"dama
> Denver, Colorado
>
> Karl W. Randolph.