Lack of dagesh after a formative letter

[Jemoh66]

1. As I see it there is no such thing in Hebrew as a "vocal schwa". When reading biblical texts in public I read all schwas (except in non-radical letters, but this is another story) as a stop, and it sounds all very good and crisp.

2. As I see it THE DAGESH IS NOT A PART OF THE NIYQUD AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE READING OF THE HEBREW WORD. The dagesh is an ancient, pre-niyqud, cue for a vowel. The association of the dagesh with "gemination", and with the change in the reading of the BKP letters are latter inventions and fictions. The dagesh in the first letter is a remnant of a dot placed to mark the first letter.

The dagesh is now, after the invention of the niqud, mostly redundant (who needs the dagesh in the M of הַמֶּלֶךְ ?) but is being religiously applied in secular print even in present-day Hebrew out of reverence for all sorts of foggy traditions fostered by the pious Hebrew "Academy" in Jerusalem, who believes wholeheartedly that the schwa "mobile", as well as the dagesh "forte", were handed down to Moses on mount Sinai, and are therefore sacred.

I don't think that the NAQDANIYM, even being Karaites and not under Rabbinical influence and authority, would have dared place a dot INSIDE the holy text. This was done earlier by a much higher authority.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

1. There would be no need for the dagesh in וַתְּכַחֵשׁ if the schwa were not vocal. Without the dagesh the pronunciation then would be /wath/ /xa/ /ˈχeeʂ/, and you're free to pronounce it that way or vatchacheesh as a result of your own modern dialect, but it does not speak to the masoretic pronunciation. I like the rythm that is produced by the sounding of the vocal schwa, but does my ear make a better case than your ear?

2. a. You can't prove that the dagesh is not part of the niqud. On the other hand, the fact that the dagesh can be explained in so many places as pointing to gemination with sufficient data shows that it has better explanatory power. The data speaks for itself. The strongest case is that of the preposition min where the /n/ is assimilated into the initial consonant of the root, which is in turn geminized for the sake of compensatory lengthening, one of the most ubiquitous phonological processes in languages across the globe.
b. Is it a pre-cue for a vowel or is it marking the first letter of the root? which is it? If it's a marking for the first letter, why aren't unpointed texts at least pointed in the first letter. The mobile schwa and the dagesh forte are not modern inventions as much as they are the conclusions of serious linguistic analysis. They provide the strongest explanatory power for the evidence. Your theory is interesting, but it has no mss evidence to back it.

3. Concerning the Naqdaniym, you cannot know what they would have dared do or not. And because of that you can't make what you think they may or may not have "dared" to do a premise in your argument. It's a premise that cannot be proven or disproven. All we are left with is their work as we have it in the mss. Add to this that there is not a single unpointed Torah that contains the so-called pre-niqqud dagesh.

4. You conclude with, "This was done earlier by a much higher authority." This makes no sense to me. If they were Karaites, what higher authority would they consider, since they deny the authority of the Talmud?

[Isaac Fried]

1. Spoken Hebrew is not "my own modern dialect". Spoken Hebrew is practical biblical Hebrew.

2. If you prefer to read וַתְּכַחֵשׁ as WA-TE-XA-XE$ you may do so. The problem is that we don't know (thank god) anymore to distinguish between a ח xet and a soft כ kaf, and the reading comes out awful to my ear. There is a qibutz in Israel named כּרם שלום. When I hear pendants on the radio saying that they traveled לחרם שלום I deem to hear an abomination.

3. If you prefer to read the תְּ of וַתְּכַחֵשׁ at a TE instead of a T you may do so. In my readings I never "move" any schwa and the reading comes out good and crisp. This is the ultimate and a decisive proof that the schwa "mobile" is baloney.

4. No one "geminates" in Hebrew today not in speaking and not in reading. "Gemination" is unnecessary, the language works perfectly well without it, proving that it is but a fabrication, a subterfuge, of some inventive grammarians. The dagesh ("forte") has no more any function whatsoever in the reading of the Torah and the prophets, practically proving that it is redundant to the niqud.

5. The claim of "assimilation" is in my opinion a scholastic legend.

6. As the writing technology improved the dot in the initial letter of each word was removed.

7. Even Karaites, not under rabbinical authority, but yet having unlimited respect for the holy book, would not have dared, methinks, deface the holy text with an inner dot. This was done by higher authorities (kings, priests, prophets, appointed scribes) during the second, or even the first temple.

Isaac Fried, Boston University