The "modern" Hebrew, or the Eretz Israel, crisp, minimal, Torah
reading system is based on a careful calibration of both the
Ashkenazi and the Sephardi traditions, both of which certainly carry
in them very old reading traditions.
The point is that in this reading system the qamatz, the patax and
the xatapim are pronounced exactly the same way, and this, with no
apparent injury to the context.
The common present-day reader of the HB (including yours sincerely)
upon seeing the punctuated line below, would not know if it is truly
עֹלַת שַׁבַּת בְּשַׁבַּתּוֹ עַל-עֹלַת
הַתָּמִיד וְנִסְכָּהּ
or
עֹלַת שַׁבַּת בְּשַׁבַּתּוֹ עַל-עֹלַת
הַתַּמִיד וְנִסְכַּהּ
or
עֹלָת שָׁבָּת בְּשָׁבָּתוֹ עָל-עֹלָת
הָתָמִיד וְנִסְכָּהּ
Spoken Hebrew decisively proves thereby that, notwithstanding what
the punctuators of the HB "heard", (where? In the street, in the
synagogue?) equating the reading of qamatz to the reading the patax
leaves the meaning of the biblical text immutable.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On Aug 10, 2013, at 10:15 AM, Jonathan Mohler wrote:
Hi Isaac,
see my comments below,
On Aug 9, 2013, at 11:00 AM, [email protected] wrote:
1. Evidently the dagesh comes systematically after a patax, a
xiriq or a qubuc: the dagesh "forte" directly, and the dagesh
"lene" shifted (why there is no dagesh in "gutturals" I am not
sure.) The question is, then, what causes what
The fact that gutturals don't take gemination in the Masoretic
system suggests strongly that the gemination is in fact natural and
not forced. It is more proof that they were trying to represent
what they heard.
מה הסיבה ומה המסובב
Is the dagesh part of the niqud, or does the dagesh engender the
niqud. I refuse the possibility that the dagesh marks
"gemination". There is no "doubling" now, and there is no reason
for it to have ever existed before.
The doubling of the tav in shabbatto supports the idea that the
pronominal suffix was originally -hu. Thus the diachronic process
would look like this: shabbat-hu --> shabbattu --> shabbatto
For what? Moreover, since this purported "gemination" is
systematic, it should not require any special marking, certainly
not an invasive and intrusive internal dot.
Invasive? That's highly subjective. I see the pointing as a
separate layer, for instruction.
2. Questions about niqud may be difficult to answer as we have no
clear understanding of the logical underpinning of the whole
enterprise. What is the purpose of having a qamatz in דָּג
'fish, fished', but a patax in דַּג 'fish of'. Is it phonetical
or is it grammatical?
easy enough. The dag with pathaq is in a genitive construct with
another word. The whole is treated like one word. Again,
something the original speaker did unconsciously, but the masoretes
picked up on the subtle difference.
3. The niqud is man-made, and in the some two hundred years from
its inception to the earliest "masoretic" texts, opinionated (they
exist even today) or careless scribes could have caused some slips
in the original niqud.
The writing system is man-made but it represents the phonetic and
phonological state of BH at the time of transmission. Even with
the little phonology I have studied on my way to a PhD in
Linguistics allows me to see a great deal of natural language
phenomena in MT BH.
4. In any event, the Eretz Israel Torah reading practice makes no
distinction whatsoever between the patax, the qamatz and the
xatapiym, making them all A, with the sense of the text left
immutable.
You cannot impose modern Hebrew phonetics onto BH, anymore than you
could impose American Southern English onto Shakespeare. That's
silly. Israeli Hebrew phonetics is highly influenced by European
phonetics, much more than semitic phonetics. I grew up speaking
French, and I pick up on the French influence on Isr. Heb. In fact,
we could add to the above diachronic process:
shabbat-hu --> shabbattu --> shabbatto --> shabato
Isaac Fried, Boston University
Blessings, Jonathan Mohlers, Baptist Bible Graduate School
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
