Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

I am sorry to say, but you are, following the fallacious and confused lead of the so 

called Linguists, תועה בשדה roaming the fields. All you say, following the linguists 

with their silly computer programs, is irrelevant to Hebrew. The situation in Hebrew 

is obvious even without these parroting "computer programs". 

1. First we observe that all the attachments אותיות השמוש to a Hebrew word are 

adhered distinct words, namely,ZE, $E, LE, BE KE. 

2. All other attachments are personal pronouns for an act (in a verb) or for a thing (in a noun).

3. The insertions U and I (as well as E and O), essentially HU and HI, are likewise 

personal pronouns.

4. Stripped of these, the Hebrew word reveals its bare root (root!).  

5. Take, for instance, the root GML (or GAMAL, with an A added so that the root my be sounded). 

Examining all Hebrew roots (as I did in my book: the Analytic and Synthetic Etymology of the Hebrew Language) 

one realizes that the root itself is a composition of more fundamental elements, or building blocks. 

These are existence markers and a plurality marker (as are the English: be, is, on, are, all, of, at, etc.).

6. Namely, the root GAMAL consists by itself of the combination of the single consonant 

roots GA-AM-AL. In this, GA is the essence of גאה GAAH, MA is the essence of מאה MAAH, 

and AL (or LA) is the essence of עלה ALAH, or לאה LAAH. The beast גמל GAMAL 

is thus "the massive and lofty thing".  

7 Enters reason, understanding, imagination, as well as shared experience, and extends 

the root to kindred images, both tangible and abstract. Thus, from GML Hebrew generated 

also גמול GAMUL, 'developed, weaned', and גמול GMUL, 'reward'. 

8. Other languages or dialects may variously apply this root to similar situations. Say the 

Arabic names GAMIL (JAMIL as they prefer to pronounce it) and GAMILAH, 'the beautiful, 

the accomplished, the ample and tall, the fully developed'.

9. Now that we have accomplished the reconstruction of Hebrew from its elementary constituents 

we have reached the very essence of the language; this is the very "proto" language. There can be 

nothing more "proto" than this.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Feb 24, 2013, at 7:15 PM, Will Parsons wrote:

Hi Isaac,

First of all, thank you for bringing the subject back to Hebrew, since

neither my reply nor the post I was responding to mentioned Hebrew,

but were addressing more general linguistic matters.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:05:00 -0500, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:

Would not Hebrew be better since it needs barely a reconstruction?

I don't see how.  The question is, how far is it possible to

reconstruct an assumed proto-language on the basis of modern, purely

spoken descendents, and how far one can verify such a reconstruction.

Hebrew of course is considered part of the Semitic family of

languages, part of a larger Afro-Asiatic family.  How would the

computer reconstruction work here?  Unlike the scenario of the article

using the Austronesian languages, where one has a multitude of modern

languages/dialects, but essentially no historical written evidence,

the situation of the Semitic languages seems to me to be precisely the

opposite.

One has a dearth of Semitic languages that have survived to modern

times.  Of course, Arabic has been a huge success, dividing into a

spectrum of modern spoken dialects unified by a common literary

language (somewhat similar to the position of early Romance dialects

vis-à-vis literary Latin in mediaeval times).  I'm not sure about the

situation of the African branch of the Semitic languages (i.e., the

descendents of Ge`ez), but in the Asiatic branch, first Aramaic seems

to have eclipsed other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and

Akkadian, and then Arabic eclipsed Aramaic.

Modern Hebrew is of course the "other" modern Asiatic-Semitic

language, apart from Arabic, but because of its revivification, does

not make itself an ideal candidate for historical comparison.  (I

understand that Aramaic still survives, but I suspect has been heavily

Arabicized, and may be of marginal status).

On Feb 24, 2013, at 1:57 PM, Will Parsons wrote:

The good test case is that of the Romance languages

-- 

Will Parsons