Genesis 6:1 "born"

[ducky]

Hello everyone,
sorry for the long post.

I think that Karl tries to ignore the evolution and seek for the "right" old way of pronuciation in the biblical era, and it is a fair thought.
But that raises the question of when.
We can assume that Malachi didn't speak as Ezekiel, and Ezekiel didn't speak as Samuel, and Samuel didn't speak as Moses, and Moses didn't speak as Jacob.

And also, even at the same era, there were more than one pronuncaition according to the place of the speaker.
The northen Hebrews had a different dialect than the southern Hebrews.
And there were more dialects than one.

So where do we find the "right Hebrew"?

The research can understand the Semitic archaic way of pronunciation of words according to the pattern and the relation of the pattern in other close languages. And it is not suppose to be hard to take a Hebrew word and take it "backwards" each time one step, to get to the old pronunciation.

The MT relates to the pronunciation of the later Biblical era, or even post Biblical era.
And when I say MT, there were a few: Tiberian, Israeli, and Babylonian.
Each one had changes according to the dialect that was spoken.
If we just look at the vowels, then the Tiberian had 7 vowels, the Babylonian had 6 vowels, and the Israeli had 5 vowels.
As we see, the Israeli' one's pronunciation was the one that was more popular, and that is the amounts of vowels in the modern Hebrew.
(as we see the pronunciation of Qamats=Patah'. and Segol=Tsere).
Because The Tiberian pronunciation was never "popular", But its grammar was. and its grammar was the one that took the lead, while its pronunciation wasn't.
The Yemenite, by the way, used the Babylonian MT, and if one would listen to a yemenite reading of the Bible, it would be a different vowels, up to the point that a native Hebrew speaker will find it hard to understand what he hears.
Is it less Hebrew?

All of those dialect are old, and it is shown in the handscripts of the Mishna, and also of the Talmud, which there are a few handwritings with different dialects.
Sometime the different dialects are seen only by the vowels. And sometimes they are seen in the words itself (as they are written differently).
And research found support for each one of the "strange" style that it was a valid one.

So what is the "right" dialect - it is a funny question.

Sometimes, in the Tiberian MT that we use, we can see strange forms. But then these forms are seen also in one of the Dialect of the Mishna.
So a lot of the "strange" forms just represented another "style"

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By the way, about the Mishna.
the first modern scholars thought that the Mishnaic Hebrew was an artificial language that was used only for the written texts.
But later it was proven that not only it is not artificial, it was clearly a natural tongue.
and it was an old dialect that lived along the biblical one.
some say from the second temple era, and others say that it was older (i think so too).

The Mishnaic Hebrew sometimes uses forms that are more archaic than the biblical ones. For example, the Bible used the verb עשתה=as.ta=(she did).
The Mishna write עשת=asat. And that is the archaic form of the verb.
Also, the Bible writes זאת=zot. The Mishna writes זו=zo. Again, it is more archaic form.

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About the Qal Passive vs. Niphal

conjugations have two forms - active and passive.
Piel and Pual are the active and the passive of the same conjugation
Hiphil and Hophal
Pa'al (qal) and Pual

it is what it is.
If you see the word טרף=toraph
and you know that there is no Piel active but actually a Qal active, then you know that the Toraph represent the passive of the Qal.

Niphal is basically not passive (and not active). It is reflexive and/or mutual.
Later on, it replaced the passive qal that was no longer used.

Check the root שטף=wash
it comes only in Qal

In Levi it comes three times:

Levi 15:11
שָׁטַף בַּמָּיִם
Here is a regular Qal (no problem with that).

And in Levi 6:21
וְשֻׁטַּף בַּמָּיִם
it seems like Pual, but it is a passive qal - fitting all of the other Qal forms of the roots.

And then, you see in Levi 15:12
יִשָּׁטֵף בַּמָּיִם
Here it seems as if it is Niphal - as the passive of Qal, and even the MT voweled it as Niphal.
But it is actually (or probably) a Passive Qal - as "yushtaph" (instead of "yishateph")
The Mt voweled it like that because they tried to avoid the passive qal when they could, and since the Niphal replaced the passive Qal, they voweled it as Niphal.

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About Isaac perspective on the Dagesh...
He actually has a point
I also think that a lot of the Dagesh are part of the evolution whcih is hard for me to believe that those were pronounced in the very old era of Hebrew.

And this view bring us back to the beginning of this long post - the evolution, and where do we start.

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Anyway, The MT is what we have, and sometimes, the MT also writes according to the old forms.
For example:

The feminine participle of Qal from root ילד is יֹלֶדֶת=yoledet
But we can see in Gen. 16:11 יֹלַדְתְּ=yoladt
That is the old Hebrew form.

We can see that also in Jer. 22:23
ישבת and מקננת
they are both voweled accordng to the archaic way.
(the Qetiv also uses the archaic suffix).

Also we can see that the MT keeps it according to the tradition.
The prefix ש=sh is known to be voweled with Segol (pronounced: she)
But the old vowel was "a" (sha).
And so, in the song of Deborah, this prefix is voweled "sha"
But in the late books, the same prefix is voweled as "she"

[Jason Hare]

t is not clear to me what you mean by: "patterns" that exist between Hebrew words, the existence of which I fail to recognize.

Given that Hebrew is built on tri-literal roots, we can use C to represent any consonant. A pattern will be a series of vowels, dageshes and infixes that is added to the CCC system and exists between various roots.

For example, CiCCûC is a pattern for the gerund of the piel. The CC represents the presence of dagesh forte. Thus, שִׁלּוּב ŠiLLûḆ is of the same pattern as דִּבּוּר DiBBûR and נִגּוּב NiGGûḆ. The pattern is: (1) the first root consonant; (2) the short vowel i [chirik]; (3) the second root consonant, doubled with dagesh; (4) the long vowel û [shuruk]; (5) the third root consonant. This pattern can be applied to so many roots that appear in the piel binyan.

שָׁמַר ŠāMaR is of the same pattern as הָלַךְ HāLaḴ, כָּתַב KāṮaḆ and נָתַן NāṮaN. That is: (1) the first root consonant; (2) the long vowel ā [kamats]; (3) the second root consonant; (4) the short vowel a [patach]; (5) the third root consonant. This pattern is CāCaC.

כְּתִיבָה KəṮîḆâ is of a pattern with יְשִׁיבָה ΥəŠîḆâ, בְּלִיעָה BəLîʿâ, נְתִינָה NəṮîNâ, סְפִינָה SəP̄îNâ. That is: (1) the first root letter; (2) the reduced vowel ə [sheva]; (3) the second root letter; (4) the long vowel î [chirik-yod]; (5) the third root letter; (6) the long vowel â [kamats-heh]. This pattern is CəCîCâ.

Hebrew is loaded with patterns, into which you can simply plug the root consonants (radicals). Some roots have weak radicals, which cause the patterns to become somehow altered. This is how Hebrew morphology works. You should certainly know this. I don't know how you learned Hebrew without noticing that roots fall into vocal patterns. This is the most basic concept of the language.

Noun/adjective patterns are called gzarot (< gizrah). Verb patterns are called binyanim (< binyan). In Latin, noun/adjective patterns are called declensions, while verb patterns are called conjugations.

Do you have trouble understanding what the word "pattern" means generally, or do you just refuse to see that patterns exist in all languages (Latin: laudāvī "I have praised" and amāvī "I have loved"; laudāvistī "you have praised" and amāvistī "you have loved" — this is a pattern)?

[Isaac Fried]

Jason wrote

This pattern is CəCîCâ

Jason,
This is interesting. Do you consider the vowels as infixes of the pattern? And what about the last heh of the kamats-heh?

Isaac Fried Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

ducky wrote

it is what it is.
If you see the word טרף=toraph
and you know that there is no Piel active but actually a Qal active, then you know that the Toraph represent the passive of the Qal.

Niphal is basically not passive (and not active). It is reflexive and/or mutual.
Later on, it replaced the passive qal that was no longer used.

ducky
You are certainly right: it is what it is. When I see the word טֹרַף = toraph, as in Gen. 37:33, I know that the prey is devoured.
Should I also add a contemplation on the grammatical avowal: "that there is no Piel active but actually a Qal active, then you know that the Toraph represent the passive of the Qal?"

Isaac Fried Boston University

[Jason Hare]

Jason wrote

This pattern is CəCîCâ

Jason,
This is interesting. Do you consider the vowels as infixes of the pattern? And what about the last heh of the kamats-heh?

Isaac Fried Boston University

The final heh is a vowel letter (mater lectionis), there only to indicate the final -a sound — since it is not normal for -a to exist at the end of a word without heh except in the suffixes ךָ or תָ or ןָ (the latter two only in verbal sufformatives). Yes, the vowels are pattern infixes.

[Isaac Fried]

Jason writes

The final heh is a vowel letter (mater lectionis), there only to indicate the final -a sound

Jason,
And what about the verb קָנָה ending with a silent heh, is it still CaCaC, or is it CaCah? And what about the verb קוּם, is it merely CuC?

Isaac Fried Boston University

[Jason Hare]

Jason writes

The final heh is a vowel letter (mater lectionis), there only to indicate the final -a sound

Jason,
And what about the verb קָנָה ending with a silent heh, is it still CaCaC, or is it CaCah? And what about the verb קוּם, is it merely CuC?

Isaac Fried Boston University

The root of קָנָה is actually קנ״י [qof-nun-yod]. The heh is indeed only a vowel letter. Words like גָּבַהּ (with the dot in the heh, called mapik) have a real heh in the root.

[ducky]

Hi Isaac,

I didn't understand your point.
The fact that you understand the word and its meaning is not relevant.

I just saw your claim that says that there is no Qal passive, and I gave examples of it in the bible.

And it is not a "modern scholar" finding.

In Blau's book there is a note abut this passive qal that it was talked about already in the medivial period by the Jewish grammatians. And humdreds of years later, it was "discovered" again in the modern study.
He gave the names of Moshe HaKohen Jiqtila and Shmu'el HaNagid (11th century).

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There are cases that it is hard to decide if the form is Passive Piel (pual) or passive qal.
But mostly it is easy to see.

when you see Toraph, you know that the active is not "tereph" (in piel).
So surely, the Toraph keeps the form of the Qal.

also with לֻקַּח - same thing.
Is there לִקֵּחַ in piel?
no
it is always Qal.


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[Jason Hare]

We also see יֻקַּח in the Bible (in Genesis 18:4; Job 28:2; Isaiah 49:24, and 49:25). It would only make sense for a supposed pual imperfect 3ms to be יְלֻקַּח. The form יֻקַּח is quite clearly passive of יִקַּח, which is qal.

[Jason Hare]

And what about the verb קוּם, is it merely CuC?

Middle-weak (or "hollow") verbs have patterns that are different from strong verbs. All weak consonants and gutturals influence the pattern and have their own behaviors.