Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George and Uri are both correct concerning the Ayin, as can be seen on
numerous pre-Exile Hebrew inscriptions, bullae and so forth.

As for the Peh, however, it originally was drawn as a mouth, with distinct
corners. Later writers got lazier, tilted the mouth sideways and left the
bottom unfinished, so that the closest we see from modern examples is that
it somewhat resembled the sofit Peh of the Aramaic square characters. It
was a two stroke letter, not a simple curve in Hebrew. This form is not far
from what became the Greek Pi when they took it into their alphabet.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 4:43 PM, George Athas 
<George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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