Re: New to the List, too

On Fri, 16 Jun 2000 09:23:56 -0700 Vima Kadphises
<vima_kadphises@...> writes:
> Steiner, Richard "Ancient Hebrew" in the International Encyclopedia
> of Linguistics, vol. 2.  Oxford, 1992.  Richard Steiner is
> responsible for proving the existence of the affricate PS *ts'
> (Hebrew tzaddi) whereas many philologists before him were content to
> assume that the Hebrew pronunciation of tzaddi was an innovation.
-

Thanks for the recommendations!  I'll look around to see if my university
library has any of them.

> "One of my conlanging side-projects is a Judean Romance Language,
> right
> now named _Jûdajca_ [juwzajka], a hypothetical language spoken in an
> alternate timeline where the Romans flooded Judea with imperial
> colonists
> in order to control it, but the colonists ended up assimilating into
> the
> Judean population and their language became the vernacular,
> developing
> such Hebraic features such as bege"d-kefe"t (like the softened [z]
> in the language's name) and emphatic consonants."
> I have heard of the begedkefet spirantization described as an Areal
> Feature, shared by Hebrew and Aramaic. Some other features of the
> region that you might consider for your Judean romance language are
> #w which goes to /j/ (e.g. Arabic "walada," but Hebrew "yeled," Old
> Aramaic and Phoenician YLD) (virgina goes to jirgina?  Valens goes
> to Jalens? Looks a little silly, I know) and Junctural Doubling,
> which occurs in NorthWest Semitic and, interestingly enough, Italian
> (one of my profs joked that this is the influence of Punic upon
> Italian).
-

Thanks for the suggestion!  Even though the language is hibernating now
while i try to learn as much as i can find about proto-Romance, i got
some ideas from the article i read, such as Philippi's Law (/i/ -> /a/ in
an originally closed accented syllable) and it's 'corollary', /a/ -> /i/
in an originally closed unaccented syllable.  What exactly is Junctural
Doubling?  Just the situation that sometimes gemination can occur across
word boundaries, like after _ma_ in Hebrew?  Or is it a specific process?

> Have you seen Origen's samples of transliterated Hebrew in his
> Hexapla, made sometime around the 4th century?  It is very different
> from the Tiberian Hebrew we all know and love.
-

I haven't seen it myself, but about a year ago i remember reading
something about it....i don't remember exactly, but the Hexapla is a
linear bible with Hebrew, a translation or two, and a few different Greek
transliteration systems, right?

> I'd be interested in learning more about Judajca; to what time
> period does Judajca belong?  I'm working on a Semitic language right
> now which was thoroughly Romanized (it belongs to the 3rd century
> C.E.), a "mirror image of Judajca" if you will.  If you get a chance
> to read any of those articles let me know what you think of them.
>
> -Chollie
-

It belongs to an alternate present, although the exact details of the
history "over there" are still as fuzzy as much of the language itself.
Some things that are for sure about the language, though, are:
1. Syllable-final /r/ become /l/.
2. Syllable-final /l/ become /w/. (which can then go on to the next
change in the list)
3. Syllable-final /w/ become /v/ or /f/ depending on the surrounding
environment.
4. Shift of /s/ to /S/ which can be voiced to /Z/ {y} depending on
environment.
Those don't really have to do with Hebrew, i just like those sound
changes.

Some more Semitic/Hebrew things in Jûdajca's development are:
1. begedkefet-ization of /ptkbdg/ in the correct positions to [PsxBzG]
(with bilabial [PB]).
2. retention of all 10 "long" and "short" vowels in the form of /A<w> e
ij ow uw a E i o u/ aligning with Hebrew's and Aramaic's vowels.
3. development of the sequences such as /tk kt sk ks gw kw/ into
pharyngealized/velarized /t. s. k./ {x z q}.
Hmm...i just realized that one of my original example verbs, _maçtâl_
[maxtAl] ("to kill") should actually be _maxâl_ /mat.Al/ (all /A/ are
rounded) or even _mixâl_ /mit.Al/....this is what happens when a language
comes out of hibernation :-P

And of course it can be written in either the latin or hebrew alphabets,
although since it has sounds that don't exactly work with either of them
certain modifications occur, including the use of rafeh marks in Hebrew
and macrons and cedillas in Latin.
E.g.
/Z/ = {y} or {shin-with-rafeh)
/f/ = {vav-with-rafeh} (since plain {vav} is /v/)

And for some reason /o/ is written with a {hholam-hhaseir} instead of a
{qomatz qatan} in opposition to the proper use of that vowel in Hebrew.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "lô tîrâ mipa7ad lâjlâ, mêhhêz jâ3ûp jômâm."