Re: CONLANG Digest - 5 Feb 2000 to 6 Feb 2000 (#2000-38)

On Tue, 8 Feb 2000 11:23:35 -0600 Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>
writes:
> >  What exactly does Elohim mean?
> > Dan
> Gods.
>
> It's a curious word.  The masculline plural of a feminine singular.
> Usually translated singular, but in other part sof the bible it
> obviously
> indicates a plural.
.

A feminine singular?  if i'm not mistaken, the singular of _elohim_ is
_eloah_, which does not appear to be feminine....unless it's irregular, i
can't think of any examples at the moment where _eloah_ is used with a
verb or adjective.  Maybe the /a/ is throwing you off....it's not really
there, it's epenthetic...word-final /h/, /3/, and /H/ drag along an /a/
with them, so words like */noH/ and */Eloh/ and */liSmo3/ come out as
/noaH/, /Eloah/, and /liSmoa3/.

Although /3/ and /H/ are commonly known to drag this /a/ before them, /h/
doesn't seem to be common knowledge.  The {patahh} /a/ is marked below
the letter like usual (although old manuscripts and some new texts place
it slightly 'backwards' instead of in it's normal place directly below
the letter), which leads people to pronounce /Eloah/ as /Eloha/, which
would make it sound feminine.....although in /a/|/O/ distinguishing
accents, the feminine form would be more like /ElohO/.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "...and still the nights are beautiful in Canaan before the sun
rises..."