On 24/11/2006 06:35, K Randolph wrote:I previously mentioned that there is evidence, not proof, that
> Yitzhak:
>
> I don't know whether to answer you seriously, or just make mockery of
> your statements as did Isaac Fried.
>
> On 11/23/06, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> We have already been through the theological beliefs issues from
>> various angles. You are practically the only person here who believes
>> that the 22 letter alphabet was designed from scratch for Hebrew to
>> mark all consonants separately, and this is based, in part, on your
>> theologically based beliefs regarding what script the Torah was
>> written in, what the value of the Massoretic vowels was,
>>
>
> "Value" pertaining to vowels? I knew the consonants had values, used
> to record numbers, but the vowels too? Except I wonder if I should be
> looking for a scarecrow, you know, the guy made of clothes stuffed
> with straw who makes straw man arguments?
>
>
Karl, I don't suppose Yitzhak will take your statement here seriously,
although he may make a mockery of it. The "value" of a vowel is a
technical linguistic term for the kind of sound made. See for example
"The phonetic values vary by language...", taken from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel. If you don't know linguistics, as
well as not knowing any Semitic language other than Hebrew (or do you
know some Aramaic?), you are hardly in a position to argue with someone
like Yitzhak, still less to mock his use of standard terminology.
...In West Semitic, but we are discussing Biblical Hebrew, and the
>> As for the Shin, Resh, Ghayin, and Pe/Fe statements: Both Shin and Resh
>> are attested, and Ghayin and Pe/Fe are not attested but plausible. I had
>> previously on this list provided evidence of the differentiation of
Shin/Sin in
>> West-Semitic from approx 2000 BCE.
>>
>>
> In Biblical Hebrew? Where is that evidence?
>
>
No, in West Semitic. Read what Yitzhak wrote. I'm sure he can tell you
which cuneiform tablets (Ebla?) he is referring to.
...No, this is not an example of the physical survival of ancient
> But we have copies of Torah, which, except for copyist errors, attests
> for Hebrew centuries before the Gezer calendar.
>
>
Have I missed a major development? Has someone found copies of the Torah
predating the Gezer calendar?
...Here the distinction between language and dialect is really fuzzy.
> Oh, and I have also seen some Phoenician writing and found that I
> could read and understand it. Just as I could read and understand the
> Mesha stone.
>
>
If you could read Phoenician without having studied it, on the basis of
your knowledge of Hebrew only, that more or less proves that the
differences between Hebrew and Phoenician are dialect differences only.
For mutual intelligibility is one of the main criteria for
distinguishing language differences from dialect differences. But then
the issue is confused by the variety of definitions of "dialect". If you
go for "a language is a dialect with an army" type of definition, then
Hebrew was a separate language from Phoenician, and there were two
Hebrew languages during the divided monarchy period - and British
English is a separate language from American English.
But Yitzhak was being unnecessarily provocative in writing "Hebrew is
very much a dialect of Phoenician", so suggesting that Hebrew had a
lower status than Phoenician. It would be more accurate to say that
Hebrew and Phoenician were different dialects within the broader
Canaanite or NW Semitic language.
...
>> Yes, I had short and long conversations with Hebrew speakers
>>
>
> Wow!!! Those people must be close to three times as old as Methuselah!
> In which Shangri La did you find them? What's the secret to their
> longevity? Don't hide them, that is a real scientific breakthrough. I
> have long wanted to interview native speakers of Biblical Hebrew. We
> see from transliterations into Greek and how they differ that Biblical
> Hebrew was most likely no longer spoken as long as 2000 years ago, in
> other words, long before Masoretic Hebrew.
>
>
He did not say biblical Hebrew speakers.
... But he is referring to people
who use the 22 letter alphabet, usually without vowel markings, to write
a language with many more than 22 phonemes. Thus they, as well as
English and French speakers, are good examples of "For none of them was
the written system equivalent to the spoken language." If this is
commonly not true of modern languages, what reason do you have to assume
that it must be true of ancient languages?
...No, what I mention is what I heard from phoneticians, namely that
>> People can be multilingual "at one's mother's knee". As such, they
>> will be able to pronounce phonemes not in one language but in the other
>> without any problem. The problem is not that a person cannot
>> consciously learn to pronounce it at a later age.
>>
>
> Some people can, some people can't, and some people can be taught how
> to. As such, it invalidates what follows.
>
>
Do you have evidence that any people (other than those with specific
hearing, learning or speaking disabilities) are unable to learn to
pronounce any phonemes which are found in any language? ...
... In general phoneticians have shown that anyone
can be taught to make any sound found in any human language, although
sometimes this is a difficult process. Do you have any evidence to the
contrary?
>My PDA does not have enough RAM (I don't know of any that does) for
If you have enough memory you can download the images. Or you could do
yourself and the world a favour by transcribing the scrolls in
electronic form and making the text available - if no one else has
already done this.
--Karl W. Randolph.
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/
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