Shalom Aleichem In this statement: "The second issue is that of grammar. The Hebrew language has almost completely lost the case system, which only remains in vestiges of some words. Arabic is the only surviving Semitic language which still retains the proto-Semitic case system. Likewise for the dual number, which all Semitic languages lost, except for Arabic and Ugaritic again."
How do you know for sure it is not the other way around and the Arabic and Ugaritic added the case system. The people like Moseson who are interested in Edenics are following their bias and (since I believe one should always state their bias as we all have one) mine as well. The idea is that there was only one language Hebrew before the direct action by God at the "Tower of Babel" incident. Finding so many Hebrew words throught all languages assists this belief. The case cannot be proven nor can it be disproven because there are no languages which have textual evidence surviving which can be scientifically analyzed to prove or disprove the belief. It is hoped historical traces can be found which would indicate all languages have similar but confused roots which is exactly what one would expect if the aforementioned event did indeed take place. Until then a hypothesis must be developed with these traces of confused roots and a statistical probability can be presented in favor or otherwise of the hypothesis. It is in its infancy so all any of us can do is try to contribute to one side or the other / pro or con to the hypothesis, and as I have done above in fairness state our biases up front. To do so one must review statements like the one quoted above for both logical possibilities. Since God was before creation and God chose the Hebrew people out of the language already existing from Noah and his descendants the Hebrews inherited the language given by God and the only reason for calling it hebrew is they are the ones who were allowed to keep it after the "Tower of Babel" event. The Ismaelites would have started with Hebrew but since Ishmael left to mix with canaanites his hebrew would have been somewhat absorbed into what would later become Arabic so we should expect if we take the Tenach as the frame of reference, to see some similarities but not exact duplicates of Hebrew because of the blending into the canaanite language which must have been originally from the language brought by Noah but devolved in some way. My comments are not meant to demean anyone or their heritage. I only am trying to make sense from my viewpoint and welcome other viewpoints counter to mine in the interest of searching for truth. Rollin Shultz Mechanical designer Allentown, Pa 18104 Motto: Ask for help when needed, help others when asked, and remember where you came from. Happy moments, PRAISE GOD, Difficult moments, SEEK GOD, Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD, Painful moments, TRUST GOD, Every moment, THANK GOD ________________________________ From: abur1924 <abur1...@yahoo.com.au> To: ancient_hebrew@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 16, 2010 7:56:36 AM Subject: [ancient_hebrew] Edenics, Ugaritic & Arabic Shalom, I'd just like to address some of the points stated on your pages about Edenics. Firstly, it's well known amongst Semitists that the Hebrew language is an 'evolved' language, and that it has lost much of the original proto-Semitic features, which we find present in other languages, especially Ugaritic and Arabic. The first issue is that of phonology, the Hebrew language has lost many of the original Semitic sounds such as thaa (merged into shin) and thal (merged into zayn) and ghayin (merged into ayin) and Haa (merged into Khaa) etc. So for instance in your page about animal names, you mention that Aramaic corrupts the Hebrew shin into taa, whereas in reality both Hebrew and Aramaic merge (corrupt is not a nice word in comparative linguistics) the original Semitic thaa into other letters. Hebrew merges thaa into shin and Aramaic merges thaa into taa. Since both Arabic and Ugaritic retain the original thaa phoneme, we find they both use this same letter for ox (th-r in Ugaritic and thor in Arabic, the middle vowel unknown for Ugaritic). We find this phenomenon even causes entirely different words to be merged into one word in Hebrew, so for instance the Semitic root for plow is H-r-th. So in Ugaritic we have H-r-th, in Arabic Haratha, whilst in Hebrew we have Kharash (the Haa has merged into Khaa and the thaa has merged into shin). But wait, Hebrew has two meanings for the root Kharash, the other meaning is to be silent. This is because there's another Semitic root Kh-r-s which means to be silent. In Hebrew sin and shin have also switched places, so we have in Hebrew Kharash for being silent also, which in Arabic is Kharasa. The second issue is that of grammar. The Hebrew language has almost completely lost the case system, which only remains in vestiges of some words. Arabic is the only surviving Semitic language which still retains the proto-Semitic case system. Likewise for the dual number, which all Semitic languages lost, except for Arabic and Ugaritic again. Only in certain natural-pair nouns do dual cases exist in Hebrew. Although some linguists have shown that in the earlier parts of the Tanakh it's quite possible that some of the verbs still retained the dual, but have been mistaken for plurals. This is not to say Ugaritic and Arabic are perfect languages, they are not, Ugaritic merged sod/dod (as did Hebrew, but Arabic did not) and sin/shin, whilst Arabic merged sin/samek, whilst Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic did not, although modern Hebrew did (phonetically anyway, the separate graphemes still exist). But if the claim is to be made that Hebrew was the first language, then Arabic and Ugaritic must have been prior to first, obviously a logical impossibility :) Comments welcomed. Regards, Abu Rashid. Note: letter names used are mostly Arabic, since Hebrew has no name for most of them.
