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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] historical question with linguistic import

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: davidlwashburn AT gmail.com, kwrandolph AT gmail.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org, TedBro AT aol.com
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] historical question with linguistic import
  • Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 22:47:45 -0400 (EDT)


Dave Washburn wrote: “If I may speak for him, he means that if it truly was
syllabic and not alphabetic, then each symbol would represent only one CV
combination. Example: the symbol BA in Akkadian only represents BA, it
doesn't occasionally represent BE or BU. In a true syllabary, each
represented consonantal sound is followed by only one possible vowel; a
different vowel would require another symbol. I hope that clears it up.”

Yes, after a fashion that’s the way Hurrians wrote Hurrian, too. But who
cares about that? What counts, rather, is that when Hurrian names were
written down in Biblical H-e-b-r-e-w , there was one Hebrew consonant used
per Hurrian syllable. Most syllables were C-V, but some were V-C. Thus the
Hebrew letters XTY render the Hurrian name Xu-ti-ya, where each Hebrew letter
represents one C-V Hurrian syllable, and there are no vowel markings. The
modern Hebrew pronunciation of XTY is totally wrong, because three Hebrew
letters in rendering a Hurrian proper name mean three [not two] Hurrian
syllables; the final yod/Y is a true consonant; and all three syllables
are, as is most often the case, C-V. [If a non-final Hurrian syllable
consisted solely of a vowel, that would be rendered in Biblical Hebrew by a
Hebrew consonant used as a vowel indicator. The necessity of doing that for
rendering Hurrian proper names in Biblical Hebrew may be the origin of the
later plene spelling that eventually came to be used for Hebrew common words.]

Unlike Hebrew common words, whose Hebrew spellings were updated century after
century [as the ancient texts were recopied innumerable times] until we can
no longer determine the original Hebrew spelling, nor do we know the original
Biblical pronunciation either [as Karl rightly points out], the original Late
Bronze Age Biblical Hebrew rendering of Hurrian proper names was n-e-v-e-r
updated in any way, shape or form. We’re quite sure of the original
pronunciations, because the Hurrian writing of these same Hurrian proper
names indicates the vowels, and we can usually determine the Hurrian syllable
division as well, all as of the Late Bronze Age [2,000 years or so before the
Masoretes did their famous pointing]. So when you see XTY in the received
unpointed Hebrew Masoretic Text, you’re seeing exactly what the original
author directed to be written down in the Late Bronze Age, with no changes
whatsoever.

In my controversial view, one of the best ways to determine what original
Hebrew spelling was like [for Hebrew common words] is to look at the
never-changed Biblical Hebrew spellings of Hurrian proper names. The
Biblical Hebrew spellings of Hurrian proper names are fully in accord with
Karl’s theory of what Hebrew spellings of Hebrew common words originally
entailed.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois







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