Disemvowelled Man tries his hand at נִקּוּד (Part 2)

[lethargic_man]

Having learned some more rules since my last attempt, I decided to try again putting in the vowels; and the result?

Actually, I was somewhat disappointed there did not seem to be much less red ink than last time; however, once again a substantial part of it is hyphens, which I don't really care about, and words I was unfamiliar with. (Maybe I ought to use different ink for these...?) I also evidently didn't know that אאֹא appears to become אאָא־ when it takes a direct object suffix.

Questions this time:

• Why is there no דָגֵשׁ in the י of וַיְהִי or וַיְצַו?
• Why, when ח normally takes הֶ־ (as in רַבִי יְהוּדָה הֶחֲסִיד), is it here הַחֲסָדִים?
• (Plus of course my unanswered question from last time.)

Comments

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

What's "nikud"?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are consonants only; vowels (and a few other things, such as doubling of consontants, and distinction between the Biblica-era allophones b/v, g/gh, d/dh, k/kh, p/ph and t/th) are represented by diacritic marks called nikkud ("points"). Outside of prayerbooks and children's primers, nikkud are not used; if you know the language, the way it and its representation works means this is not a problem. (Besides, nikkud are a newfangled invention, being only 1500 years old.)

I'm just intrigued to know whether I'm capable of pointing up a text completely—the point (pun intended) being that the nikkud reflect the pronunciation of the people who invented them: They convey several more vowels than are pronounced distinctly today; consonant-doubling is no longer rendered in pronunciation, and the g/gh and d/dh distinctions have dropped out of speech.

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

Oh, is that what all the dots are called? I just have to guess based on invisible yuds and disappearing everything else. Every word is a crossword puzzle and I find myself pronouncing anything I don't actually know (and haven't actually seen written) entirely wrongly.

From an anglo perspective, it seems like a damn' silly way to write things down but I continue to try.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Oh, heh; I'd forgotten you had a reason to know some Hebrew. (It's been a long time since I had anything to do with the afp crowd.)

י ,ו and ה used to indicate vowels are called matres lectionis and were an invention of the Israelites about 3000 years ago (you don't find them in Phoenician inscriptions). Their adoption was gradual—you don't see them in the oldest Hebrew inscriptions, such as the Gezer calendar (http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%97_%D7%92%D7%96%D7%A8), and their use in the Bible is partial and inconsistent, but Modern Hebrew is often spelled with plene spelling (a full set of matres lectionis).

You might find them an odd way of spelling, but it's a big improvement on writing without them. (Indeed; they may play into the assumption in the Bible of general literacy.)

As for not treating the vowels as full letters; it would make no sense for English; but it makes much more sense for Hebrew, because of the way the language works (triconsonantal roots, and vowels as inflections).

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to imagine somebody teaching a class full of four-year-olds how to write based on a linguistic explanation of triconsonantal roots, and it just ain't working.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

That's why the Romans took over the world, and where are the Phoenicians now? ;^b

(Well, something must work, because it worked well enough to ramp Modern Hebrew up from zero native speakers to an official language of British Mandate Palestine in just forty or so years.)

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, drat and bother those unphonetic phoenicians!

As for modern Hebrew, I attribute that to sheer cussedness.