Re: Translatability


Harlan Messinger wrote:

> 2. The idea that having two different vowels both pronounced /a/ is a

if you are just talking about pronounciation use [ ... ] i.e. [a] .

the slashes indicate phonemes.

> problem. Since the vowels aren't written anyway, why would that make a
> difference?

they were (are) not pronounced the same in masoretic hebrew.

>
> 3. The idea that similarities in appearance among some groups of Hebrew
> letters makes Hebrew a special case. Excuse me? How about "O" and "Q"?
> "E" and "F"? "U", "V", "W", and "Y"? "P", "R", and "B"?
>
> 4. The idea that Hebrew is special in its treatment of consonants versus
> vowels.
>
> Someone who really knew about languages who wanted to pursue these
> arguments anyway would likely have chosen Arabic as the subject language
> because the Arabic writing system shares many of the Hebrew system's
> characteristics and is even more complex with even greater difficulty in
> differentiating among the glyphs.

with a few quibbles arabic has actually only two forms for the letters,
initial and final, the final form distinguished by a flourish. the rest
has to do with ligatures due to the attachment. longvowels are
consistently written (etymological long vowels are not consitently
written in biblical hebrew) and the voweling is strictly phonemic
(masoretic hebrew pointing indicates some non-phonemic phenomena). all
in all it is simpler and more regular than masoretic hebrew.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Narmer of Egypt
    ... Hebrew did not have vowels ... Ancient Hebrew did not write vowels. ... Their descendants probably did not live as ... So the sons of Noah had more ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Ancient Hebrew Research Center
    ... language's standardization. ... Hebrew uses an abjad because vowels play a much weaker role -- even in ... concepts of how many vowels Hebrew had. ... revolution in writing. ...
    (soc.culture.jewish.moderated)
  • Re: Is there an accurately translated Bible? No, the premise is false
    ... > 2Chr.22:2: ben arbaim ushtayim shana (a son of fourty and two years) ... It is my understanding that ancient Hebrew did not have any vowels, ... it is easy to believe that the lack of apostrophes could ...
    (soc.religion.christian)
  • Re: Ancient Hebrew Research Center
    ... language's standardization. ... Hebrew uses an abjad because vowels play a much weaker role -- even in ... concepts of how many vowels Hebrew had. ... [and could evenlike the Chinese pictograms be used in different ...
    (soc.culture.jewish.moderated)
  • Re: Narmer of Egypt
    ... (but Hebrew does not). ... I'm not confusing anything, Bill. ... Ancient Hebrew did not write vowels. ... KJV day spelling of Jaweh...the "YHWH." ...
    (talk.origins)