Re: My Conlanging History (was: Re: Tolkein?)

On Tuesday, December 16, 2003, at 07:50  PM, Caleb Hines wrote:
> At one time, I also had an interest in learning OT Hebrew, and our
> pator
> was pleased to help. We had about three lessons, during which I
> learned the
> alphabet and a few words (I still recognize some of the alphabet), but
> I
> never went far with the vocabulary. I guess the main dificulty there
> was
> all those gutteral sounds that don't really get pronounced, and the
> "consonants" that sound like vowels.
I'm just wondering, what do you mean by '"consonants" that sound like
vowels'?  The use of |hei|, |yud| and |vav| as vowel-placeholders?


-Stephen (Steg)
  "...and there is no proof that 'pishon' is the nile; he just
translated that way ... since he has no tradition regarding it.  and he
did the same thing with [the names of] families, nations, animals,
birds and rocks.  maybe he saw them in a dream?  if so, let us not rely
on his dreams!..."
      ~ r' avraham ibn `ezra, on r' sa`adya ga'on