When the speakers of language A come across a word in language B that doesn't fit the syllable structure of their language, they treat it as if it does. If language A has ka-$ra and language B allows ka$-ra but not ka-$ra, it will be heard as ka$-ra. Most English speakers don't beleive they have any trouble saying 'Tonga' or 'Mangaia'. They simply make the -ng- syllable final and don't even notice that 'natives' pronounce them as syllable initial. I don't see why Semitic speakers would be different and change a word they can pronounce.
Kevin Riley On 13/06/2010 1:12 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > > George: > > What you wrote applies only if we were not dealing with a foreign loanword. > If there were no foreign loanword involved, then I would agree with you that: > > “Consonant clustering occurs within a single syllable. It doesn't apply across > two syllables. So the reason Hebrew has no problem with a word like Ka$Ra is > because it has no consonant clustering. It has two distinct normal syllables: > Ka$-Ra. There is no consonant clustering here. Your theory depends on Hebrew > trying to deal with consonant clustering in this word, but it's just not there > to begin with.” > > Non-Semitic languages, like English and Hittite and Kassite, routinely have > true consonant clusters in a single syllable. English has shrill, shrew, > shroud, shrimp, etc. as single syllables, even though Hebrew would be > expected to break up such a foreign word into two syllables. As to Hittite, > which may have some affinities to the little-known language of Kassite: “We > know that Hittite had initial, internal, and final consonant clusters.” > http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/hitol-1-X.html > > We appear to have both DI-Tu-$ra-tta in Hittite, and Tu-$ra-tta in Hurrian, > attested in the ancient world. [I say “appear”, because the sources are > often confusing and inconsistent as to syllable division.] Svah is a single > syllable in Sanskrit. Kassite often uses Sanskrit in names of gods and > kings, and Kassite is often thought to have some affinities with Hurrian and > Hittite, while being completely different from Semitic languages. > > We know for sure that Akkadian and Kassite were not a good mix, with the two > languages being entirely different from each other. “Wide variation in the > writing of Kassite [in Akkadian] shows that this tongue sounded very strange > to Babylonian scribes, and it must have had a very different structure from > that of Akkadian….” Walter Sommerfeld, “The Kassites of Ancient > Mesopotamia”, in Jack M. Sasson ed. “Civilizations of the Ancient Near East” > (2000), at p. 917. > > From the foregoing, it is likely (if not certain) that (i) Ka-$ra or Ka$-$ra > was easy to say in Kassite, but (ii) Ka-$ra or Ka$-$ra was virtually > impossible to say in Akkadian (or in Hebrew or any other Semitic language). > Yes, Ka$-ra or Ka$$-ra would be easy to say in Akkadian or Hebrew, but that > was not what the Kassites were saying. The basic Sanskrit word is ku-$a, not > ku$-a. Adding the comparative suffix –iyar or –ra resulted in something like > Ka-$a-ra in Sanskrit [magical 7th mountain], but the Kassite equivalent of > that word may have been pronounced as only two syllables: Ka-$ra or Ka$-$ra. > > My theory of the case is that Ka-$ra in Kassite came out as Ka-ra in Akkadian > and as Ka-$a in Biblical Hebrew. The Akkadians initially tried to reproduce > the consonant cluster $ra of their new masters from the Zagros Mountains. > But consistent with linguistic theory, the very difficult to pronounce $ra > eventually was simplified to ra in Akkadian. As I quoted before: “The > evidence comes primarily from an observation known as the CODA/ONSET > ASYMMETRY. In many languages, consonant clusters simplify by deleting the > first consonant, but never the second one (Wilson 2000, 2001, Steriade, > forthcoming): /patka/E[paka], not [pata].” John J. McCarthy, “The Gradual > Path to Cluster Simplification” (2008), linguist at University of > Massachusetts, Amherst. > _http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1083&context=linguist_faculty_pubs_ > > The Hebrew author of Genesis 11: 28, 31 knew both Ka$-$u as the name of the > Kassite people, and Ka-ra as the Akkadianized first two syllables of the > Kassite name of Kassite Babylonia in the Amarna Letters. He perhaps > correctly surmised that Ka-ra was Akkadian styling, not Kassite, and more > importantly he knew that his Hebrew audience might be confused by Ka-ra, > which does not seem very close to Ka$-$u. So he brilliantly chose to use > Ka-$a for the first two syllables of the Hebrew version of the Kassite name > of Kassite Babylonia. That doesn’t match the Amarna Letters, because the > Hebrew author properly chose not to follow the Akkadianized version, since a > more authentic Kassite version would in this particular case be easier for > his Hebrew audience to understand; at least some people in that Hebrew > audience knew the Kassites as Ka$-$u. > > That’s my theory of the case. I am trying to explain why the first two > syllables of the Kassite name of Kassite Babylonia at Genesis 11: 28, 31 are > Ka-$a, whereas they are Ka-ra in the Akkadian cuneiform of the Amarna > Letters. To me, the underlying reason is that a Kassite consonant cluster > could not be handled well by Semitic languages, and Akkadian and Hebrew went > different routes in trying to deal with the tongue-twister Kassite consonant > cluster $ra. > > Jim Stinehart > Evanston Illinois > _______________________________________________ > b-hebrew mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew > _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
