From: Ratson Naharadama <yahoo-arch AT heplist.com>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Reflection on Randall's Statement (semitic a, i and u)
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:34:02 -0700
Regarding the question of how we know Akkadian, and other dead semitic
languages, relied on 3 basic vowels (usually labeled a, i, and u): This
is done through analyzing the words, how they changed through time and
region, and their reflections in other languages that we do know the
pronunciations for. Because of the set structure of the human mouth,
from which we can fairly confidently assume that these languages were
being articulated, the mutation of the words can be reasonably
accurately be predicted and "back predicted". Such things as the
y-consonant frequently degrading into an i-vowel, the w-consonant
frequently degrading into a u-vowel are the first big hints to what the
value of those vowels are. That these vowels are regularly interchanged
with different logograms and phonograms as if they all represent the
same vowel is also a big hint, after the process of elimination, that
there were 3 basic vowels from which these languages structured their
words. How these vowels affected neighboring consonants, and how
consonants affected neighboring vowels reïnforces these big-hints. That
these words are transcribed and sometimes borrowed into other languages
which retain the basic vowels (sometimes coloured through the known
processes that would colour them between these languages) reïnforces it
further (especially when a word gets borrowed into several widely
different languages directly from the source language, and each of these
borrowings are consistent with each other).
This same kind of analysis has been used on many different language
families (most particularly the descendants of the PIE and Proto-Semitic
languages), and new written discoveries over the decades has shown that
the predictions made by these linguists have been fairly accurate. With
the analysis — which was briefly given a few examples in the first
paragraph — there comes a point where one stops saying "it is possibly
that" and starts saying "it is highly probable that" or even "we
confidently say, with very little chance of error, that."
It is because of the fixed structure of the mouth, and the regular way
in which certain utterances are perceived by the hearer's ear (one of
you is very fond of "perception") that the predictability of this works
so well.
Might I recommend to listers that they read or listen to some of the
work of Seth Lerer and John McWhorter. I choose them in particular in
this case because you can get lectures by each of them from The Teaching
Company (TTC) so you don't even have to actively read any of their
books, just lazily lay back and listen. :) One is Seth Lerer's "History
of the English Language" (second edition), and the other is John
McWhorter's "Story of Human Language." Both of these lectures touches
on how linguists do what they do, both give plenty of spoken examples,
and McWhorter's lecture does go into the Semitic languages as well.
Both lecturers work consists of 36 half hour lectures (so there is
plenty of information). A quick search has shown me that you can
download these using torrentz.com, but it looks like these may be
pirated copies, so be aware that doing so would be illegal (which is not
recommended). Instead, you may want to go to teach12.com which is TTC's
website. Of course, you can always get their books (and other people's
books) on the topic, as well. :)
--
Ratson Naharädama
Denver, Colorado
Re: [b-hebrew] Reflection on Randall's Statement (semitic a, i and u),
Ratson Naharadama, 01/23/2010