Question on the name Samuel from 1 Sam 1:20

[kwrandolph]

David Hunter:

You don’t have a shred of evidence from Biblical times for your pronunciation scheme. All you have dates from centuries later. Languages change, both from internal development and from external forces. Where the spelling is fluid, the language change is noted by the change in spelling. Where the spelling has been locked in, as in Hebrew, the pronunciation of the letters change.

I have seen a few scattered transliterations from Biblical times that suggest that Biblical Hebrew was a syllabary, with each consonant followed by a vowel. Add to that the structure of poetry. I don’t think that’s enough to prove that Biblical Hebrew was a syllabary. But at the same time, you have absolutely no evidence that Biblical Hebrew was not a syllabary.

All you have are comparative linguistics and Tiberian Hebrew. Tiberian Hebrew has a pronunciation scheme developed over a thousand years of Aramaic speaking Jews reading Hebrew with Aramaic pronunciations. It also has a grammar based on influence of Persian, Greek and Latin. It’s ludicrous to claim that Tiberian Hebrew is the same as Biblical Hebrew. And comparative linguistics is a minefield because even close cognate languages differ in significant ways, therefore cannot be evidence.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Refael Shalev]

Thank you David for your answer.

If I understand correctly a regular shift indicates a sound or consonant that disappears in certain language.
But random shift can appear between steady consonants?

[Refael Shalev]

Hi Karl

What you mean when you refer to biblical hebrew? Give me an example please, and what is the difference between tiberian hebrew and biblical hebrew.
Thanks

[Jason Hare]

Hi Karl

What you mean when you refer to biblical hebrew? Give me an example please, and what is the difference between tiberian hebrew and biblical hebrew.
Thanks

That's a loaded can of worms. This might lead places you don't like.

Jason

[ducky]

Hi Isaac,

Ducky writes

Now ask yourself, why the name of the city עזה is written in English as "Gaza"?

I am not interested in this question.

That's says it all.

And when you are not interested in the questions, you are basically not interested in the answers as well.

So why bother?

So you actually have two ע in Hebrew
and three ש
and three צ
and two ח
and two ז

I did not realize we are so rich in "phonemes". May we have examples to two Hebrew words with two "different" ח and to two Hebrew words with two "different" ז?

There is no need for examples.
This subject is a basic Semitic thing, and clearly you put yourself in a position of not caring about it.

And some phonemes were probably were lost in Hebrew in a very ancient time, and some of them were lost later, and some of them after that.

חבל על דאבדין ולא משתכחין

Instead of being cynical, you can study this basic thing, so at least we would have a common ground.

And by the way,
שבע, שפע and so on, Also came from the same souce of קו and סף

This business of the "source" still alludes me.

I visited your site a few times, And it is funny that after you wrote what you wrote, and made a lot of links, you didn't realize what's behind it.

[ducky]

Hi Karl,

I don't understand why you moved to talk about Tiberian and so on, this has nothing to do with the subject that is way before Tiberian Hebrew

*****

Anyway, I said it a few times, and if you really want to disprove what I say, all you need to do is to answer the question I asked.

If I was your student and you were my teacher.
And then you teached me about the letter ש that was first was S, and then was splittet to Sh/S in Aramaic, and with that influenced Hebrew as well.
And you will show me two groups of roots that are written with letter ש.
Group A: ש=S
Group B: ש=SH

Now me, as your student, do my homework, and I find out that the same differing of A and B that Aramaic did, are also found in Arabic and Ge'ez.

I then come to class and ask you How is it possible that the differing that Armaic did in the late Biblical era, are found on other languages in the same roots.

How is it that in Arabic, there are also two groups.
and the same roots that were "picked" to each group in Aramaic are similar to the roots that was picked to each group in Arabic.

If you have another answer than what I suggested, then it would be nice to hear it - maybe I miss something.

[ducky]

Thank you David for your answer.

If I understand correctly a regular shift indicates a sound or consonant that disappears in certain language.
But random shift can appear between steady consonants?

Hi Refael,

I'm sorry but I didn't understand you.

[Isaac Fried]

Ducky writes

That's says it all. And when you are not interested in the questions, you are basically not interested in the answers as well. So why bother?

What is this "all"? I did not say I am not interested in "the questions", I am greatly interested in the "the questions", and the answers, but not in this question. I am not interested in "knowing" how and why the English call the city Gaza. You, indeed, need not have to "bother" with it.

There is no need for examples. This subject is a basic Semitic thing, and clearly you put yourself in a position of not caring about it.

This subject is not "a basic Semitic thing", but may be an outright fantasy built upon a fallacy. You owe me, and the other members of this forum, examples to back up what you are so liberally and enthusiastically propounding here. You need to give us examples to Hebrew words with two different ח and ז.

I visited your site a few times

I am glad you visited my site. Still, you need to explain to us this business of the "source" you refer to

Isaac Fried, Boston University
www.hebrewetymology.com

[Refael Shalev]

Hi David

Sorry for my english.
A steady shift between consonants like sh-th indicates that the consonant "th" dissapeared in hebrew but exists in arabic.
An accidental shift like r-n come only in consonants that still exist in the languages ?

[ducky]

Hi Isaac,

didn't know that I owe you
but anyway...
In this thread, one of the things that I wanted to say is that one letter can represent more than one phoneme.
And therefore, I chose a clear example in sound (Gaza) to show that.
If we know, according to other Semitic languages, and according to the Greek translation, that the name of the city started with a palatal sound, How is it that the Hebrew wrote it with the letter ע?
And I wanted to show that the sound of the this letter ע (in this specific word) was actually a soft G.

roots with letter ע can be compared to other Semitic languages that kept the letter of the soft-G
And we can see that some of the roots are parallel to roots with guttural ע, and some of the roots are parallel to roots with the soft-G.
And there is a common pattern (with some exception of course, like always).

*****************************************

When I say that some letters represented more than one phoneme, I don't mean that all of them were pronounced in Hebrew (I didn't say "consonants").
But it means that the some letters, even though they were pronounced the same, are actually different.

So for example,
The letter ז in Hebrew represented two phonemes.
But it was probably pronounced always as Z - since Hebrews, probably, from the beginning already collided these two original sounds to one.

So you can take the words זבח, אזן, זאב
all of them are written with ז in Hebrew
And in comparison with different languages we see that this ז is written in:
Aramaic: D
Arabic: TH
(there are other languages but i skip that)
Now this is a pattern.

it is "always" when there is a TH in Arabic (THis), Hebrew writes it with Z, and Aramaic with D.

But in other roots such as זעק, רגז, זית which are also written with ז
Arabic and Aramaic writes these roots with Z as well.
And also here there is a pattern.
Whenever Arabic writes the letter Z, also Hebrew and Aramaic writes it with Z.

So when one looks at a lot of roots and this pattern (also with other languages), He must see these Z's in these roots as representing two different original phoneme.
Which Hebrew collided the TH sound with the Z sound.

And we cannot give an explanation to that in the way of: "it is just random"
Because if it was random, and each language did it randomally, then surely we won't see a match in the roots between the languages, and we wouldn't see the same groups.

*****
About the letter ח
This letter also had two sounds.
1. guttural ח
2. palatal ח (Soft K - such as today's soft כ - which is also old)

***the sof K in the letter כ is an alophone and not a phoneme, and the logic assumption would say that this alophone came to life only after the phoneme of the soft K was "gone"******

These two sounds were probably pronounced in Hebrew also in the late Biblical era - and that is also understood from the Greek translation (such in the case of Gaza).

So the root חבל used the guttural ח
and the root חמש used the palatal ח
(also, by comparison to other languages)

And the most important thing about this, is the pattern.
that when there is a guttural ח - it is written as guttural in Ugarit, Arabic, Ge'ez, and also in Akkasian who lost the guttural sounds and therefore the letter is not written)

And when the letter is palatal, then it is written as palatal in Ugarit, Arabic, Ge'ez, and also in Akkasian.

if we see that all of the languages act the same with the letter in the same roots, then we must say that there were two.
(and notice that in some languages, it is a different letter - which is very clear)

**
And as I said in other posts, it is also with the letter ש

***
So I hope i succeeded to be clear, and I guess that if you'll read it in the intro of every Hebrew-study book, the explanation there would be better.