Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Chris Watts <dekruidnootjes AT eircom.net>]

I have a book by angel saenz badillos called 'The History of the  
Hebrew Langauge'.  When I bought it it I did not realise how  
difficult his langauge would be, he uses terminologies and latin  
expressions and defines concepts that just fly over my head and leave  
me 'umphhed'  However, I double-checked a few pages and he does make  
it clear that the original pronounciation of Hebrew was so different  
from the time of the masoretes.  I tried to find where he might have  
mentioned that the aleph yod vav and heh were introduced as vowels,  
but unless he has clouded that information in ancient latin and  
unfamiliar grammatical terminology I can not find it.  So how do the  
analysts know that these four consonants were then later inserted to  
be used as vowels?  Just a question.

Chris Watts
Ireland