Shalom From: Will Parsons <[email protected]>
> Distinguishing lengthened from non-lengthened consonants is quite common in > a > wide variety of languages. How this is indicated (if at all) depends on > the > type of script employed. Alphabetic scripts generally fall into three > categories: > > 1) Semitic type scripts, in which ordinarily vowels are either not > indicated > or indicated in certain circumstances by consonantal letters. > > 2) Greek type scripts, in which vowel letters are full citizens along with > consonantal letters. > > 3) Indic type scripts, in which vowels are indicated by symbols that serve > as adjuncts to the accompanying consonants. > > In languages that use either a Greek or Indic type alphabet, a lengthened > consonant is regularly indicated by the doubling the consonantal letter. > (There may be exceptions to this, but I can't think of any.) This is the > case > even where lengthened vowels are *not* indicated by doubling the vowel (as > in > Latin or Greek). A long consonsant seems to be thought of as one consonant > doubled. Thus Latin "annus" for a pronunciation of [an:us]. > > I should add here that at least in Afrikaans (Greek type script) a doubled consonant usually indicates that the previous vowel is short whereas an "open" syllable (followed by single consonant that starts next syllable) usually indicates a long vowel. I.e. "Anna" would be pronounced with a short first "a" whereas "Ana" would have a long "a" in the first syllable. This might have been similar for old Greek as well? (And Afrikaans also uses the double vowels you mention for indicating a long vowel in a closed syllable :-) ). As for the Dagesh having no meaning: At least in Modern Hebrew pronunciation the Beit/Veit, Peh/Feh, Kaf/Chaf, (and in Azkenazi pronunciation: Tav/thav) letters does have a different pronunciation with or without the dagesh? I think it is important to remember that both dagesh and nikkud was developed to help non-native Hebrew speaker with pronunciation and that it was not a part of the original Hebrew script when Hebrew was still a spoken language, since native speakers would normally "just know" how to pronounce a certain word. The second thing to keep in mind is that the Bible itself (e.g. Judges 12:6) testifies to dialect differences in pronunciation. It is very likely that the Septuagint captured one dialect of Hebrew while the later nikkud captured a different pronunciation. Even in modern Israel, although there is a certain "standard" Hebrew heard in the media (tending to the sepharidic pronunciation, but without distinguishing between the chet and khaf or alef and ayin sounds), there still exist a whole range of pronunciations (often reflecting the country of origin of the Hebrew speaker). Regards Chavoux Luyt _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
