Fred, you are confusing language with alphabet - or, more correctly, writing system, since not every writing system is an alphabet. There are plenty of languages that did not develop their own writing system, either remaining unwritten or adopting and adapting someone else's writing system. Writing systems often cross from one language family into another. The earliest true writing system that we know of was Sumerian Cuneiform, which was later adopted and adapted by Akkadian, Eblaite, Hittite, Elamite, Persian and a whole lot of other languages from different language families. Persian was later written using the Phlavi script, then the Aramaic alphabet and since the 9th century the Arabic alphabet. In some former Soviet republics, Persian dialects are written in Cyrillic. For another example, the Turkish language(s) was (were) totally oral, until the Turks arrived in the Middle East and adopted the Arabic alphabet, together with the Islamic religion. And so Turkish, which is not a Semitic language, was written for centuries with the Arabic alphabet, with a few extra diacritics to handle sounds that Turkish has and Arabic does not. Then, in the 1920, as part of his effort to westernize and secularize Turkey, Kemal Attaturk decreed that Turkish be written in the Latin alphabet, as it has been ever since (so far). This does not make Turkish a Romance language any more than it was a Semitic language before.
So yes, the Greek alphabet is a direct descendant of the Canaanite/Phoenician/Hebrew alphabet, which is why we have Aleph Bet Gimmel Dalet/Alpha Beta, Gamma, Delta. And post-biblical Hebrew was influenced by Greek. But this does not make Greek and Hebrew cognate languages. The two are from different families, and basically unrelated. The second issue that you brought up was the Septuagint. The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. As such, it does provide important insights into the way the biblical text was understood in antiquity. It also gives us information about the development of the Hebrew text, since, as you wrote, our earliest manuscripts of the Septuagint are much earlier than out earliest manuscripts of the MT (although we do have the Hebrew texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are earlier than our earliest Septuagint mss). So using the Septuagint as a guide to the meaning of the Hebrew text is certainly relevant to this list. On the other hand, the Septuagint IS "just" a translation. We do not have the "original" Hebrew text that they were using. In fact, legends aside, we don't even really know just who "they" were and where and when they lived. The Septuagint is also a rather interpretive translation, often giving what the translator thought the text should be, not what it actually said. Given all that, yes, the Septuagint is important but let's not get carried away. Yigal Levin -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of fred burlingame Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 8:37 PM To: fred putnam Cc: Biblical Hebrew Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] cognate alphabet Are not letters part and parcel of language? Is not alphabet (consonants and vowels) of languages cognate routinely discussed here, as a highway for understanding hebrew corresponding letters (consonants and vowels)? Why do hurrian or ugarit or cuneiform letters instruct the hebrew alefbet, but greek letters do not? Or perhaps none is efficacious for guiding understanding of the other? regards, fred burlingame _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
