Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org, TedBro AT aol.com
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] historical question with linguistic import
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 19:00:56 -0700
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 5:02 PM, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Ted:
>
> On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 7:44 PM, <TedBro AT aol.com> wrote:
>
>> **
>> Karl:
>> The C-V theory is intriguing, but also appears to have some glaring
>> difficulties. Since there are only 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, there
>> would only be one possible vowel following each consonant. Do you find such
>> a theory workable?
>>
>
> What do you mean by “one possible vowel following each consonant”?
If I may speak for him, he means that if it truly was syllabic and not
alphabetic, then each symbol would represent only one CV combination.
Example: the symbol BA in Akkadian only represents BA, it doesn't
occasionally represent BE or BU. In a true syllabary, each represented
consonantal sound is followed by only one possible vowel; a different
vowel would require another symbol. I hope that clears it up.