According to Zola's "Introduction to Hebrew" in learning the basics of biblical Hebrew, before the vowel points were introduced, the scribes used the letters vav, yod and hey and sometimes aleph to indicate vowel sounds following a consonant. These are sometimes called "consonantal vowels". So that when one of these consonants was encountered, the reader understood to make an associated vowel sound. The modern version of vowel points sometimes uses consonantal vowel to express a particular vowel mark. For example, the vowel "a" can be used with a small "T" under the consonant combined with a "hey" letter directly following. When used in this format, the consonant "hey" becomes part of the "a" vowel mark and is not pronouned as the letter "hey". You may want to check on this for youself at www.hebrew4christians.com
Sincerely, Joseph --- On Wed, 7/7/10, Michael <[email protected]> wrote: From: Michael <[email protected]> Subject: RE: [ancient_hebrew] Vowel Mark Question, How necessary is it really? To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 12:04 PM Wikipedia has a good explanation. Bottom line? Interpreting the Biblical Hebrew (as contrasted from paleo- or ancient Hebrew) without a knowledge of the vowel points would be, at the very least, very difficult. Cheers, From: ancient_hebrew@ yahoogroups. com [mailto: ancient_hebrew@ yahoogroups. com ] On Behalf Of hebrewsister Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 8:49 AM To: ancient_hebrew@ yahoogroups. com Subject: [ancient_hebrew] Vowel Mark Question, How How necessary is it really? I was wondering how necessary is it to know the vowel marks under the letters if it is a new thing? Is it possible to learn to read Hebrew without them? I mean, How did they learn it before? Bayadwa
