Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

isaac, karl,

i find this topic fascinating but all i can add is more questions.

clearly there is a tendency in every language for more fluency and elimination
of unnecessary features. now, there is a DIFFERENT situation in which when you
reconstruct an unknown language you choose the simplest phonetic solution. was
this the masoretic reality? (i dont think so).

since the invention of the semitic 22 letters, i imagine that every semitic
language had to come to its own terms with the vowels. [something like
the chinese letters being read differently in each dialect]. for example, the
ethiopian languages have a vowel attached to every consonant. aramaic tried to
remove the 1st root vowel on verbs, arabic, the second on nouns, etc.

in the case of canaanite, the simplest phonetic solution would be similar to
hebrew. but i guess this is not what was found when canaanite was written in
cuneiforms: then you find more vowels, including as suffixes. now, scholars
add these vowels and suffixes even when canaanite IS written in 22 letters,
although they only infer their existence from those OTHER sources, which are
maybe from another place and another time. i always (i.e. as of last year,
thanks to you b-pals...) found this a bit suspicious, and use karl's strategy:
i read them W/O those extra vowels, obtaining isaac's esthetic simplicity in
hebrew, but in canaanite.

back to isaac's response. there is the problem of the greek transliteration
(ASENNETH etc) being
limited to proper greek grammatical laws, which might at times avoid some
impossible combinations. however, i do not know greek to have an opinion.

finally, the greek translators may have consulted other sources (aramaic,
phoenician etc) in transliterating these names. and these names may have been
non-hebrew to begin with.

nir cohen

>>> De: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Cópia: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org list" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Para: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
Data: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:46:39 -0800
Assunto: Re: [b-hebrew] qamatz gadol qamatz qatan
Isaac:

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 6:09 AM, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:

> The lack of vowel after the S of ASNAT is in line with the NAQDANIYM's
> habit of economizing on the number of vowels in a Hebrew word, giving
> thereby the language a crisp pleasant (at least to my ears listening to my
> lips) sound: NAP$-KA, B-$IBT-KA, U-B-LEKT-KA, U-B-$AKB-KA, TI-ZKR-U
>
> נַפְשְׁךָ, בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ, וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ, וּבְשָׁכְבְּךָ, תִּזְכְּרוּ
>
>  etc.
>

As far as I can tell, they did not invent their pronunciation nor economize
on the number of vowels, rather they merely recorded a tradition that had
been building up for a while and had been handed to them.

>
> If I understand it correctly, you are saying that the double n in the
> Greek rendering of the name is merely to indicate that the stress is on NE
> – to read the name as aseNEt.
>

Go back to my original answer, it merely says that the preceding vowel is
present but unstressed.

>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>

Karl W. Randolph.