Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 22:16:30 +0300
Let's look from another angle. Isn't it strange that seemingly all vowels
comply with syntactical stress and other derivative patterns?
I analyzed all cases, and here are a few:
verbs precede nouns, and syntactical accent is stronger on verbs. And yes,
accented vowel elongates in verbs to tzere. Similarly, holam in adjectives.
Recall a similar Ashkenazic case of davAr - dAvar - dOivor: accented vowel
elongated to holam, unstressed shortened to (whatever they say) kamatz-katan.
Thus, every instance of a vowel could be traced to kamatz.
Shuruk? This is a holam that lost accent: gadOl - gdulAh.
Hirek? This is tzere unstressed.
Patah? A remnant of stressed tzere in syllables limited by stop: dibar.ti
To me, this suggests that all vowels derived from kamatz. And so there was no
sense to write that kamatz, originally the only vowel.
This is not a theory, but a suggestion, but it seems plausible.
Vadim Cherny
RE: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?
, (continued)