You might notice, just in passing, that all the Semitic languages except Akkadian start words with a consonant. Therefore only Akkadian has an initial A. Does that not suggest, especially when you take into account everything known about Akkadian, that perhaps there was no initial 'true vowel A', but in fact an ) ?
Kevin Riley On 10/05/2011 12:23 AM, [email protected] wrote: > All Semitic words and names in the Hebrew Bible that start with )YL are > plays on “mighty”. One theory would be that there is an unused Hebrew verbal > root )YL, which means “to be mighty”. Although that is a tempting theory, > it does not seem to be borne out by a comparison to cognate languages. ’al’ > iy = “strong” in Ugaritic. allallu = “strong” in Akkadian. Assyrian for “ > stag”, being a “mighty” adult male deer, is ailu. One begins to suspect > that )Y in Hebrew was used to represent the initial true vowel A in these > cognate languages. Perhaps there is a somewhat similar phenomenon in Aramaic, > where HaYLaA = “power, mighty work, strength”. The archaic 2-letter root, > being the true root of Semitic words that mean “mighty” or “strong”, may > have been AL. Hebrew of course has no true vowel A, so that usually comes > out in Hebrew as )YL, where )Y represents the true vowel A, but sometimes it > comes out in Hebrew as )WL or )L, where )W or ) represents the true vowel A. > Most Hebrew words that start with )WL or )L have nothing to do with “mighty” > , whereas all Hebrew words and names [other than non-Semitic names] in the > Hebrew Bible that start with )YL are plays on “mighty”. > > 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
