Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

I will summarize my thinking about the dagesh

1. Once upon a time, long before the invention of the NIKUD the first  
letter of every written Hebrew word was marked by a dot. With time,  
Hebrew readers got into the habit of instinctively, as we do today,  
hardening the BGDKPT letters upon the sight of an internal dot. As  
the writing techniques improved, this initial dot was abandoned,  
except in the BGDKPT letters.
This left us with the silly legacy of some MBIYNIM (as per  
instruction of the Hebrew "Academy") reading -KALAH, 'bride' as - 
XALAH, and other same such droll readings.

2. Once upon a time, long before the invention of the NIKUD a dot was  
introduced into a letter following a present day patax, xiriq, and  
qubuc, to serve as a, pre-nikud, reading cue. The dot is not needed  
in plene writing, where Y and W serve a similar purpose. Hence  
בַּצִּנּוֹר BA-CINOR of 2Sam. 5:8 is with a dot in the  
letter N, while הַצִּינֹק HA-CIYNOK of Jer. 29:26 is with no  
dot in the letter N.

3. In case the patax, xiriq, or qubuc are followed by a letter with  
(as we mark it today) a schwa, the dot is relegated to the next  
letter. At first, this shift was done to (nearly) all letters, but  
later on, also this dot was abandoned, except in the BGDKPT letters.

4. If the canonical dagesh rules are forfeited, it means that the  
extant spelling is changed, or that the NAKDANIM deliberately  
overruled the old reading implied by the dagesh. I would not exclude  
the possibility, for instance, that the form שִלְּמוּ $ILMU  
was originally שִׁלֵּמוּ $ILEMU, as in Ish. 19:21, and hence  
the dagesh in the letter L.

5. Otherwise, the dagesh has nothing to do with open or closed  
syllables, with "missing" consonants, with the "doubling" of  
consonants, etc..

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 13, 2012, at 4:19 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. wrote:

> it indeed depended on fine elements of the word: root type, binyan,  
> suffixes
> etc. most of the examples which you bring can be explained out if  
> one makes
> the assumption that the use of dagesh was consistent, deriving  
> everything else
> from there. (+removing a VERY SMALL number of scribe errors).