Isaac Fried wrote, inter alia:
"Uri, The relationship between Hebrew and Arabic is enigmatic
and I am not prepared to be sucked now into this murky
vortex. "...
Arabic preserves many Proto-Semitic features which are
common to all Semitic languages. Just one small example:
Heb. ATTAH compared with Arab. ANTA. Notice the Dagesh
forte in the Heb. Tav which compensates for the original Nun
that had been there and is preserved in the Arabic. In Hebrew
it was assimilated to the next letter, but marked its former
presence by the slight emphatic pronounciation as still
heard in Masoretes time and marked by them as a dagesh.
To cite just one more example :the exact same process
occurred in verbs. Notice the imperfect of NPL in Qal, where
the Nun drops and is commpensated with a dagesh.
As for the pre-historical devlopment of Semitic languages
or human languages in general, this is the realm of sheer
speculation.
Uri
---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.