Vowel Reduction Consultants

[Galena]

Karl said : There is a first century AD source with which I’m quite familiar, that pronounced Jerusalem as “Yerousalem” when dealing with the Jewish diaspora and with the sophisticated urban dwellers of Jerusalem, and pronounced as “Yerosoluma” when dealing with the Galileans who were behind the times as far as the latest fad in pronunciation and with the unsophisticated. Not once does that source indicate that Jerusalem ended with a dual as per modern pronunciation. I suspect that “Yerosoluma” is closer the Biblical pronunciation than the other pronunciations.

Hallo Karl, I'm interested to know where you get this from, never read about this myself.

Karl said : I haven’t kept up with all the details, but the sources I read indicate that there was no standardized way of Hebrew pronunciation before the Masoretes established their dialect as the official pronunciation in about seventh century AD.

I hope we can at least enter into some common ground here as I do not wish to argue but keep on friendly terms may I be permitted to at least venture a couple of observations, not to discuss masoretes at all, but simply to offer noteworthy observations that I feel very strongly need to, at the least, be taken into consideration please?

1. Rabbi Jarchi (rashi) 1040-1105; Rabbi Kimchi (radak) 1160-1235; Rabbi Abraham Ben Meir Ibn Ezra 1089-1167; Rabbi Judah Halleni born 1140 (some say 1089); Rabbi Saadiah Gaon about 900, 920 AD: There are, from these scholars and reputable grammarians, notable surviving letters and documents that record amongst other things various personal disagreements and there are not too few notes concerning the grammar and vowels in the scriptures. Now it is interesting to read what is being said, but there is one extremely notable and highly important thing that is missing from all the correspondence amongst these grammarians and scholars over this whole time period - there is not one single mention as to the points being attributed to Asher family, not one argument mentioning a disagreement over the human invention of the points, not one single solitary tiny piece of evidence that even hints at the points being an invention in their lifetimes, or in the previous century which would have been fresh in their minds. This has to be taken seriously at the least. Such a monumental task of human invention, unparallelled in Jewish history and literature and yet no credit is given, no mention is made, no records of any arguments about how this or that should have been pointed. Is it really such a stretch of the imagination to ask why? They argued over calendars, over laws. They argued personally, they mentioned certain pointings in the scripture favourably (Saadia Gaaon 925 AD), yet they all agreed unanimously over every vowel point and never once mentioned Asher in this regard, or the masoretes in general. Why? Tell me please, I want to know your theory on all this.

2. The absence of vowels in the DSS and the absence of vowels on coins and inscriptions proves nothing, this would be like comparing my Jewish newspaper of 1960 without vowels and my newspaper written for teenagers in 2012 that has the vowel points. Like comparing My personal inscriptions on my copper work without vowels and my personal writing with vowels.

3. The absence of documentation, the absence of any manuscripts, this is the one and only rock upon which supporters of an 'Asher Invention of vowel points' can stand on. They have no proof at all anywhere that Ben Asher and his fan club invented a complete novel system off the top of their heads that had no previous foundation upon which they developed. That the scriptures were pointed in a medieval pronounciation is an over-emphasis, and an over-simplification, the above mentioned rabbis refer to areas where a more traditional pronounciation is in evidence and many many names and places in scripture did remain unchanged over 2000 years, the list of these I will provide, but they testify to a consistent traditional handing down of scriptural pronounciation evidenced between scripture and inscriptions found by archeologists, so the idea that everything changed to medieval is not quite the whole truth.

I am NOT repeating any argument here for the presence of a complete vowel system in Ezra's day or a complete vowel system in the 1st century AD, I am simply providing observations that support the idea that some form, even if it was rudimentary,some form of vowel pointing must have already been in existence long before the Asher family entered the scene. The clues are there. And to the contrary there is only circumstantial conjecture based on a loosely held proposition founded upon an absence of pre-9th century biblically pointed writings and the presence of medieval pronounciation found in the MSS that we have now.

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S_Walch said :
I'm afraid you're behind the times on scholarship regarding the Qumran community, Chris. That they were "essenes" is challenged quite a bit these days.

Yes you may well be right, but there is an equally valid and respectable counter-argument here, saves me typing sorry: http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ ... sals-.html

S_Walch said : Unless, of course, Shalem is pointed wrong and should actually be Shalim, and so ים isn't a dual ending, and is just how the word is spelt in its plene rather than defective form using the yod, as Karl said, as a mater lectionis.

Well that is a lot of shalems then pointed wrongly beginning at Abraham's retrurn from winning his victory and meeting Melechtzedek and Jacob's rest and final relief at a place named Shalem. So why do some people have to insist that this word is pointed wrongly, I would like to see the reasoning behind this please.
Kindest regards

[Isaac Fried]

Jonathan says,
Isn't that the he/she pronoun היא?

Says I,
Jerusalem ירושלים is a name. A name may not be a word, and need not have any grammar to it.

Otherwise, indeed, say, של-היא-ם = שלים means 'he היא (it) of the property expressed by the root שלם $LM. So also שׁלוֹם =של-הוּא-ם and שׁלוּם = של-הוּא-ם $LUM, with O and U used for variety of meaning.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jemoh66]

I'm sorry Isaac, I was being cheeky. As you know I do not agree with your reasoning. There is no warrant for the argument. I tend toward the theory that the yod is a matres lecciones representing a long e sound.

As far as the first part of your argument, "Jerusalem ירושלים is a name. A name may not be a word, and need not have any grammar to it," that is a moot point since ירושלים does actually have a meaning and is built on two words that both have clear meanings, namely, city and peace (or at least Salem).

Otherwise, indeed, say, של-היא-ם = שלים means 'he היא (it) of the property expressed by the root שלם $LM. So also שׁלוֹם =של-הוּא-ם and שׁלוּם = של-הוּא-ם $LUM, with O and U used for variety of meaning.

1. all three of these words are an "it." The yod in שלים cannot give the word its "ITness." The noun without the yod has ITness as well.
2. yes, the O and U sounds are complementary (a linguistic term). The speaker uses those sounds to make a distinction of meaning. But it does not mean the O and U are connected to the word הוא.
3. The pronouns היא and הוא have nothing to offer to the root to change its meaning. The sounds O and U do.
4. So there is no reason to go beyond the sound. It is superfluous.
5. I have said this before. The most damning aspect of your theory is that there were yi prefixes in the language before there was a היא pronoun. There were yods in words before the pronoun came to be used, when the only 3rd Sg. personal pronoun was הוא.
6. and to add to all this, your theory creates an infinite regress. you would have to explain the hey, the yod, and the aleph of the pronoun. And this would never end.

[kwrandolph]

Karl said : There is a first century AD source with which I’m quite familiar, …

Hallo Karl, I'm interested to know where you get this from, never read about this myself.

This source is the Greek New Testament. I thought you were familiar with it too.

Karl said : I haven’t kept up with all the details, but the sources I read indicate that there was no standardized way of Hebrew pronunciation before the Masoretes established their dialect as the official pronunciation in about seventh century AD.

1. Rabbi Jarchi (rashi) 1040-1105; Rabbi Kimchi (radak) 1160-1235; Rabbi Abraham Ben Meir Ibn Ezra 1089-1167; Rabbi Judah Halleni born 1140 (some say 1089); Rabbi Saadiah Gaon about 900, 920 AD: …

These people are from centuries, many generations, after the Masoretes invented their points and those points had been accepted as authoritative.

2. The absence of vowels in the DSS and the absence of vowels on coins and inscriptions proves nothing, this would be like comparing my Jewish newspaper of 1960 without vowels and my newspaper written for teenagers in 2012 that has the vowel points. Like comparing My personal inscriptions on my copper work without vowels and my personal writing with vowels.

Sorry, for this comparison to work, you need to point to some evidence of the points during the DSS period, and you can point to none.

The absence of evidence is very often the evidence of absence.

3. The absence of documentation, the absence of any manuscripts, this is the one and only rock upon which supporters of an 'Asher Invention of vowel points' can stand on.

Wrong. There’s evidence, not a lot, but some, from:

1) Some surviving scraps that show that the Masoretic points were not the only vowel system invented.

2) Transcriptions of words and names into Greek and other languages.

3) Both #1 and #2 above give indications that not only did the pronunciation of Hebrew change over time, but as well that the dialect of Hebrew spoken in Babylonia (Iraq) was different from that spoken in Jerusalem was different from that spoken in Egypt was different from that spoken in …

I have not made a study of the post-Biblical Hebrew, so all I mention about post-Biblical Hebrew is what I have heard from other sources.

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S_Walch said : Unless, of course, Shalem is pointed wrong and should actually be Shalim, and so ים isn't a dual ending, and is just how the word is spelt in its plene rather than defective form using the yod, as Karl said, as a mater lectionis.

Well that is a lot of shalems then pointed wrongly beginning at Abraham's retrurn from winning his victory and meeting Melechtzedek and Jacob's rest and final relief at a place named Shalem. So why do some people have to insist that this word is pointed wrongly, I would like to see the reasoning behind this please.
Kindest regards

The noun שׁלים is not found in Tenakh except three times and then only as part of the name ירושלם and then only from about a century or more after the return of Judea from the Babylonian Exile. With only three examples, those could even be examples of copyist errors. Or they can be evidence of pronunciation change even at that early date.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Galena]

Has this :ם ֵ
ever been an ancient form of the dual ending? (supposed to be a tzere mem) according to Davidsons.

[Isaac Fried]

Jonathan,

There is nothing wrong with being cheeky, and there is nothing to be sorry about. I am glad for any reasonable feedback. You are right that it is not the yod by itself that makes the היא, but rather the xirq. As are the xolem and the shureq. It is just that I write in full for clarity of the reading.

You say: "there were yi prefixes in the language before there was a היא pronoun". Could you give me an example of such a yi "prefix".
You say: "you would have to explain the hey, the yod, and the aleph of the pronoun. And this would never end." This is not clear to me. being specific is paramount in such a discussion.

The point is this: "if a letter in a Hebrew word is not radical, then it is a personal pronoun, discounting the אותיות השימוּש." C'est tout.

Isaac Fried, Boston University