Re: Consonant diacritics (was: Optimum number of symbols)

On Thu, 23 May 2002 12:49:54 +0200 Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...>
writes:
> so, to muddy the waters again, let me just mention that my
> dictionary
> (written in Hebrew), when showing Semitic cognates to |bosem|,
> spells the Aramaic with a "samech" and the Arabic with a "shin"
> (not a "sin" in sight!) and then goes on to say that it was borrowed
> into Greek as |balsamon| (written in the dictionary in Latin
> characters).
>     So my question would be, did ancient Hebrew really have a
> lateral
> that didn't exist in Aramaic or Arabic, or was the "l" simply added
> in order
> to satisfy Greek phonological rules? And, for that matter, who did
> the
> Greeks get the word from in the first place? You can't just "round
> up the usual suspects"! As I understand it,
> all the peoples of the region were involved
> in one aspect or another of the spice/perfume trade in those days.
> Dan Sulani
-

If i remember my phoneme cognate charts correctly, i think the original
/s<lat>/ (sin) developed into /s/ (samekh) in Aramaic and Hebrew, and a
/S/ (shin) in Arabic.

Hebrew |`eser|  ~  Arabic |`ašr|  (i hope the s-haczek comes out)

I remember seeing that over the length of time from Biblical Hebrew
through Medieval Hebrew, words originally written with |sin| develop
alternate and then replacement spellings with |samekh|, as the original
|sin| phoneme merged with /s/.  Aramaic may have underwent that merger
earlier.

In my barely-sketched Unnamed Semitic Conlang, the |sin| sound merges
into /T/.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "yethimkha..."