Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Uri is indeed correct. The letter peh (פ) was not drawn as a circle. That was 
the letter ayin (ע). The original grapheme was a depiction of an eye (Heb: 
עין), and the circularity was preserved when the Greek adopted the alphabet 
and the letter became omicron. The letter peh was originally drawn as a loop 
opened at the bottom, with the right side extending down. See the following 
link for a good depiction.

http://biblescripture.net/Alphabet.jpeg

Accordingly, the letter peh has nothing to do with the concept of openness.


GEORGE ATHAS
Dean of Research,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia


From: Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com<mailto:uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>>
Date: Tuesday, 17 April 2012 2:32 AM
To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org<mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>>
Subject: [b-hebrew] PQH vs PTCh

Wasn't the circle a mark of the '('  'Ayin' in all
early samples of the Alphabet?

  Uri Hurwitz                         Great Neck, NY



hebrew] PQH vs PTCh
Bill wrschmidt wrote:

.........

In fact, in retrospect I don't think one can summarily dismiss the
possibility that the concept of opening in these verbs was originally
inchoate in the scribal practice of using a circle as a logogram to
represent the opening that Hebrew wordsmiths called peh, considering
that 1) the letter peh was by all accounts originally nothing but a
circle, and 2) words for mouths, per se, were derived from words that
referred more broadly to opening.

................

Bill