Cc: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dagesh - a different sound or aspiration?
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:11:47 +0100
And this:
- in some environments (yeshobhebh), the aspirated versions are nearly
unpronounceable.
By no means it is. At least not for a German native speaker ;-)
I think this has to be the most sensible and valid point of this
discussion I have read so far. All too often you see discussions of
this kind with most parties drawing conclusions on what is
pronounceable in their own native language.
Just about any sequence of phones is pronounceable given the right
stimulus. When two truly phones can't be pronounced in sequence we
deal with it with the universal adaptivity of vowels which are such
agreeable little creatures that they can make friends with any
consonant they come across.
When it all comes down to it what we have is:
a) a reasonable idea of what the sequence of consonants was
b) an attempt by a group we call the masoretes to record the
vocalisation of their time period unambiguously
c) as many theories about the original pronunciation as there are
readers of Hebrew
James Christian
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Re: [b-hebrew] Dagesh - a different sound or aspiration?
, (continued)