Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

1. Ok, I will shout it louder (for extra effect I would go also up the roof of my house, but it is buried now in snow, and I can not wait)

THE THINKING THAT A DIFFERENT GRAPHICAL NIQUD MARKING IS DESIGNED TO REPRESENT A DIFFERENT VOCALIZATION IS GROUNDLESS;

in plain English it is baloney, concocted ex-nihilo by some latter-day Hebrew "grammarians".   

2. This science of the Hebrew "grammar" that "teaches" of "long" and "short" vowels is obsolete. I have just read an article in an Israeli newspaper by someone calling for the outright abolition from the school of this frightfully kooky and annoying subject called לשון LA$ON. 

4. Consider now this meshugas of the Hebrew "Academy" imposed by decree on the announcers of the Israeli TV. So goes their talmudic pilpul (aka Hebrew grammar): An initial schwa is a schwa "mobile". A BKP letter following such a schwa must remain dageshless, and is therefore read (why is not revealed to us) softly. Since no living Hebrew announcer is capable of distinguishing between a soft kaf and a xet, the place name כרם שלום KEREM $ALOM ("the vineyard of peace", at a Gaza crossing) become in their articulated mouth בחרם שלום B-XEREM $ALOM, ("in the boycott of peace").  

Isaac Fried, Boston University

     

On Feb 17, 2013, at 1:06 PM, Uri Hurwitz wrote:

     <  "I have never heard the XATAP-PATAX being

 read "shorter"...

Isaac Fried" >

    This may be the twenty seventh time that

he states this on the b-hebrew list

   The fact that these markings were invented eleven,

twelve hundred years ago is irrelevant to him.

  If the Masoretes had not heard the Chatafim

differently they would not have invented different signs

for Patach, and Chataf Patach etc; nor, for other

 reasons, the Qamatz. 

 The next step for him is to state that he does not

 hear differences between Kaf and Quf etc. in

the contemporary spoken language.

  There is no sense to repetat here ad nauseum the

 reasons for the above.

   Uri Hurwitz                 Great Neck Estates

     

_______________________________________________

b-hebrew mailing list

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew