isaac, these are my assumptions:
1. the masoretes did not write grammar books but did act to canonize and preserve a religious text. they had no interest whatsoever how the reader would spell the words, they wanted him to UNDERSTAND them. after all, hebrew was already (and also, still) not in daily use in most communities. 2. as a corollary, they would not introduce ANY new linguistic elements to the text if they knew the old elements. 3. they might, however, have replaced old hebrew style by a "modern" one to make it more understood. this is evident, for example, in some of the dead sea scrolls. but this means that the new elements used were part of the current hebrew dialect, legitimate in their own rights, and not merely scribal whims as you like to present them. in fact, often their rendering of biblical words and expression is CLEARLY not typical of hebrew dialect of their time. here we can rest assured that they did faithfully pass on to us the original text, up to possible scribal errors here and there. 4. as a corollary, they would have "invented" a double letter only if it was in use already at the time, and not as a "writing exercice". similarly, a dagesh forte only if it had SOME noticeable function, at their time. either in common speech or in the collective memory of their communities. especially as these elements (e.g. dagesh forte) were common to both niqud systems: tveriani and bavli. 5. they introduced the double letters and dagesh forte in some constructions and not in others. for example, in pi´el: dagesh: 3-root: halakh --> hilekh doubling: 2-root and irregular: sav --> sovev mal --> milel ´af-->´ofef $av-->$ovev interesting, isnt it: dagesh as parallel+complement to letter doubling. another example is the fusing of two letters under inflections: halakh-ti, ya$av-ti, but: mati. halakh-nu, ya$av-nu, but: natanu. here, clearly, the masoretes felt that a "t" or "n" was lost, and denoted it by a dagesh. this was NOT meant to force the reader to lengthen the t (in this respect, isaac, you are waging a war against a phantom, nobody really thinks it was intended to lengthen the consonant), but yes to keep him informed that a shortcut was in evidence and make transparent the LOGIC of the ancient grammar. another example is dagesh after the article: ha-bayit. undoubtedly, the initial he did change in some ways the next consonant; some are still apparent: on BGD-KPT (today, only on BKP). others are lost forever. but probably still existent in masorah times, at least in the collective memory.again, nobody says dagesh is there to double the B, but it certainly REPRESENTS some tangible consonantal effect in ancient time, perhaps a lengthening which is, nowadays, obsolete. i guess there are other examples.mapiq etc etc. 6. based on this selective grammatical consistency of the masorah i assume that the naqdanim/dagshanim did NOT just introduce at random elements which were NOT there at their time, nor were they inventors of a new grammar, UNLESS THEY LOST THE ORIGINAL SENSE OF THINGS. they did, however, introduce new signs in order to capture, to the best of their ability, the original language. 7. when, on top of all this, one finds dagesh, letter doubling and double letter shortening in other semitic languages, WHICH ARE USED FOR THE VERY SAME FUNCTIONS, then one must reach the conclusion that maybe the masoretes were not just cheap bluffers but maybe knew something which you, isaac, and i , nir, do not know anymore. some information on BH which is lost forever. after all, 1-2 millenia separate between us and them. parallels in other languages include: binyanim parallel to hebrew pi´el which use dagesh or letter doubling, letter fusion on declension, and dagesh forte following the article (as in arabic) etc etc. so, whereas DIBER yes is written with one B in BH, it may be written with two B in close dialects. and then i do not see how you can DENY VEHEMENTLY any possibility of a linguistic process which might have created a B dgusha out of two Bs, at the dawn of BH. clearly, your criticism about the dagesh in MODERN hebrew is in its place: it can be removed. but modern hebrew is not on the agenda of this forum; on the contrary, we are debating an effort to reconstruct BH as spoken in the 1st millenium BC. clearly their language reflected a logic much different than yours, isaac, and so your ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTS ABOUT "TRUE" HEBREW based on pure logic and word association, and ignoring any comparative or empiric evidence (especially when it disagrees with your theory) , are pretty shaky, to say the least. by ignoring the masorah from A to Z you are throwing the baby (=BH!) along with the milk. nir cohen PS (concerning el al: you are correct, but the lofty (AL has a (AYIN SHORSHIT, and nobody said it means the same thing as aleph )EL. maybe they did, at the dawn of time, but then maybe each went its own way: one upstairs, another musclewise.) On Wed, 11 May 2011 19:54:38 -0400, Isaac Fried wrote > 1. First and foremost don't give up. If the Hebrew language is dear to you, > then keep up extolling her virtues. > 2. Instead of LUL think about the name of the national airline of Israel: > EL-AL, up-up. > 3. Here I miss your point. No one questions the fact that some Hebrew roots > have a double letter ever from the beginning of time. > 4. There is no denying that the word DIBER is written (written!) with only > one B. The thing is that in punctuated, MNUQADIYM, books we see a tiny dot > placed inside it. As soon as we see this dot we intuitively read the letter > as the English B and not as the English V, in other words, we say DVARIYM, > yet DIBER. I think there is agreement on the fact that this difference in > articulating the B is only a side effect. So, what is the primary reason for > the placement of this dot inside the letter? You say (or appear to be saying) > that its purpose is to instruct the reader to double the consonant and read > (read!) the word as DIB-BER. I say baloney. > In any event, since the word DIBER is written (written!) with only one Hebrew > B it should, methinks, be written also with only one English B. If you want > to double this B in speech, then, by all means, go and try it out. > > > Isaac Fried, Boston University _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
