George,
> Prompted by some recent threads, I want to ask the list whether anyone
> thinks there is any
> connection between Lud (Lydia in Asia Minor) and the 'Luz' of Jdg 1:26
> which is said to be
> the name of a Hittite city built by a former citizen of Bethel-Luz? Can we
> posit any of
> the zayin-daleth development which we see in Aramaic in the two names here?
I can only give a secondary source, but Cyrus Gordon on p. 30 of
the first fascicle of his Ugaritic Textbook gives a chart of various
consonant-changes (or variations, if one prefers) among several
semitic languages including Arabic, Ugaritic, Ethiopic, Hebrew,
Aramaic and Akkadian (which he spells Accadian). In the second
column, soft d (d with an underscore in his transliteration pattern)
is the same sound in Arabic and a couple of Ugaritic texts, hard d
in Ugaritic and Aramaic but z in Ethiopic, Hebrew and Accadian as
well as what he calls "Old Aramaic divergences." See also the
discussion on p. 26-27. So there does seem to be some prima
facie phonetic evidence for such a sound variation. Beyond that, I
can't say with any certainty.
Dave Washburn http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.
Psalm 86:11