Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] YHB does it exist for Biblical Hebrew?
Date: Wed, 9 May 2012 19:52:19 -0400
You are right, אצבע ECBA (see Ex.8:15), 'finger', for instance, is
with a dot in the letter B, but this means, I think, that the reading
at the time the dgeshim were introduced (possibly a millennium prior
to the invention of the nikud), was ICBA or ACBA. The segol is
possibly a visual compromise between a cere and a xirik, the same way
the xatap-patax is a compromise between a schwa and a patax.
The same holds true, I think, also for אשכל E$KOL, 'bunch,
cluster', (see Song of Songs 1:14, and also Deut. 32:32 for the
plural form A$KLOT), and the אשכר E$KAR of Ps. 72:10.