Speiser, The Pronunciation of Hebrew According To The Transliterations in The Hexapla, 1926

The Pronunciation of Hebrew According to the Transliterations in the Hexapla
Author(s): Ephraim Avigdor Speiser

Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Apr., 1926), pp. 343-382
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1451825
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THE PRONUNCIATION OF HEBREW
ACCORDING TO THE TRANSLITERATIONS IN
THE HEXAPLA
By EPHRAIM AVIGDOR SPEISER
INTRODUCTION
FOR a study of the speech-sounds of the Hebrew lan-

guage three important sources of information are available:
tradition; the sounds of the living dialects of the Semitic
family of languages; and, lastly, the internal evidence that
may be derived from the phonetic developments of Hebrew
itself. However, the starting point must be sought in
tradition. Now, popular tradition is rich in divergencies
owing to the spread of Jewish centers over many parts of
the globe. Modern students have been able to establish
among the Jews of to-day numerous distinct types of pro-
nunciation of Hebrew'. The scholarly tradition underwent
a change in the twelfth century, when a new classification
of the vowels, based on quantity, was introduced by Joseph
Kimh.i. The writings of his sons Moses and David gained
for the new system many adherents among Jewish scholars,
and ultimately among their Christian pupils. The original
tradition concerning the Hebrew speech-sounds as repre-
sented in the works of the Masorete Ben Asherz and the
pre-Kimhian Jewish grammarians,3 continued for a time
1 Cf. A. Z. Idelsohn 'Die gegenwartige Aussprache des Hebraiscben bei Juden
und Samaritanern', MGWJ 1913, 527-45, 697-721. See also H. Grimme, Die Jemen-
ische Aussprache des Hebraischen (J Auspr.), Festschrift E. Sachau, ed. Weil (Berlin
1915), 125-42, and Bauer and Leander (B-L), Historische Grammatik der Hebrdischen
Sprache des Alten Testamentes (Halle 1922), 169ff.
2 Ahron ben Mosheh ben Asher, CI't?y3lCl ~pVlI?T (Dikd.), ed. by S. Baer and H.L.
Strack (Leipsic 1879).
3 Cf. W. Bacher, 'Die Anfange der Hebraischen Grammatik', ZDMG XL
(1895), 1-62, 335-92. See also Schreiner, 'Zur Geschichte der Aussprache des Hebrais-
chen', ZA W., VI, 263 ff.; C.D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massorah (London 1897)
343
344 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
among certain Jewish and Christian scholars.4 The writ-

ings of Joh. Reuchlin5 are as yet comparatively free from
the influence of the Kimhis. Gradually, however, the new
views gained vogue. The great influence of Elias Levita
and his pupils turned the tide completely in favor of the
new teachings.6 After the sixteenth century the older
tradition was lost sight of, until in our own times it be-
came necessary to revert to it by fresh investigation.7
This brief account of the divergent scholarly traditions
as regards the nature of Hebrew vowels proves immediately
the inadequacy of late tradition. It becomes therefore
essential to obtain evidence of an earlier date, preceding
the rise of the different systems. The older our evidence,
the more will the reconstructed pronunciation approximate
to the actual life of the language, due allowance being made
for the ever-present dialectal divergencies common to
every living language.
Such evidence is furnished by loan-words and by trans-
literation into foreign alphabets. The number of borrow-
ings from Hebrew in other languages is altogether too
scanty.
On the other hand, we possess Hebrew in transliteration
from a time that antedates the oldest known literary monu-
ments of that language preserved in its own alphabet.8
4 Cf. H. Grimme, Grundziuge der Hebraeischen Akzent-und Formenlehre (Grimme,

Grundz.), Freiburg 1896, 1lff.
5 Ib, p. 12,
6 lb.
7 For a more detailed discussion see the chapter on vowels. At this point it may
be of use to indicate that it will be necessary to employ in the course of the present work
a number of grammatical terms in their conventional and traditional signification.
This applies to general terms like vowel, consonant, as well as more specific terms e. g.
laryngals, etc. For the sake of simplicity it will be also necessary to simplify and
conventionalize certain spellings, as e.g. Begadkefat, Sere, etc. Besides, it will be
necessary for typographical reasons to retain old symbols in the phonetic transcrip-
tion of words, e.g. l for voiceless th, ch for D, etc.
8 Transliterations in general are met with at a comparatively early stage of human
knowledge of writing. Their earliest known examples seem to be transliterations in
the same language and script of words which are ordinarily written in some different
way. This is only possible in systems of writing which provide more than one way for
expressing in a written form the same word or syllable. Such is particularly the case
THE PRONUNCIATION OF HEBREW-SPEISER 345
Such are the scant Canaanitish glosses in the Amarna letters

(1400 B.C.), where we meet with Hebrew words written
in cuneiform characters by the side of a difficult ideogram
which they serve to elucidate. Thus the Hebrew word
;irin "wall " is found as hu-mi-tu by the side of dfiru,
"wall". Similarly Heb. ah-ru-un-u(jinnm) occurs as a

gloss to Akkadian arkisu 'after him'; u-ga-ri 'field' is
explained by Heb. csa-te-e = 9
The loan-words in Egyptian and Egyptian translitera-

tions of Canaanitish names (ca. 1300 B.C.) are in a manner
helpful in determining chronological landmarks in the
history of Hebrew sounds.I" More important are the
numerous Akkadian transliterations of Canaanitish proper
with the cuneiform and hieroglyphic modes of writing. In the case of both, signs and
pictures originally stood each for a given word or idea. However, with the further
development of the afore-mentioned scripts, a syllabic form of writing was occasionally
substituted for the historical ideographic one, when many original ideograms came to
have in course of time an independent syllabic value. Thus, for example, Sumerian
ibila (written DUMU-NITA) "heir" is found as early as the time of Gudea, ca.
2400 B.C., written syllabically i-bi-la. Similarly the name of the shrine 'Giguntu',
usually written gi-(g)unu, appears sometimes, even in the older records, as gi-gu-nu
(Poebel, Grundzuge der Sumerischen Grammatik 9ff). The number of such purely
syllabic transliterations will naturally increase with the further development of the
language and its writing.
When the Sumerian script was taken over by theAkkadians, syllabic writing became
gradually the rule, and the ideographic representation of words the exception. After
the feeling for the historical signification of the Sumerian ideograms had been lost
syllables similar in sound came to be used interchangeably. Thus, for example, tri-
literal syllables like mat, tab, hat are frequently represented each by two simpler
syllables, i.e.: ma-as, ?a-ab, ha-at. The word ?arrum, meaning 'king', is found as tar-
rum, tar-rum, ?a-ar-rum, ?ar-ru-um, and ?a-ar-ru-um. (Ungnad, Ass. Grammatik
? 3, 6). Quite frequently those variants are our only clue to the reading of a rare word,
particularly since most cuneiform signs have more than one syllabic value.
In Egyptian the case is very much the same. Words in that language could be
written pictographically, syllabically, or alphabetically, and not infrequently by a
combination of the former two methods. These varying ways of writing the same word
are consequently responsible for many transliterations. Their value, however, is not
as great as that of the cuneiform transcriptions. The Egyptian writing having had
no way of indicating the vowels, its transliterations are only instructive as regards
the sound of the consonants.
9 Cf. Bohl Die Sprache der Amarnabriefe, Leipsic 1909, 80ff.
10 Thus, e.g., the transcription of Heb. frl?3 'incense' as qtrt in the Egyptian writing
indicates that the partial assimilation of the rn to p which was responsible for the change
of the dental to t: had not yet taken place at about 1160 B.C., else we should have had
qtrt. Cf. G. Bergstrasser, Hebrdische Grammatik (Brg.) 19 d, Leipsic 1918. For other
Egyptian transcriptions cf. M. Burchardt, Die Altkanaandischen Fremdworte und Eigen-
namen im AegyPtischen (1909. 1910).
names scattered throughout the Annals of the Assyrian

conquerors of the first-pre-Christian millennium. A fresh
study of this material is decidedly a scientific desideratum."
Hebrew material in Greek transliteration is supplied
by (a) the proper names of the Septuagint.I" (b) translitera-
tions of Hebrew words other than proper names scattered
in the same version; (c) the transliterations found in Jose-
phus ;I3 and (d) on a few inscriptions ;I4 (e) Hexaplaric materi-
al consisting of the remnants of the second column of
Origen as well as the few extant transliterations of Aquila,
Symmachus and Theodotion, all gathered in the edition
of Field ;I5 and, lastly, the recent Hexaplaric finds, especially
the Milan palimpsest discovered by Mercati.i6
One of the first scholars to deal with the subject of
transliterations in a connected and systematic way was
Z. Frankel in his book, Vorstudien su der Septucaginta. I7
In the third chapter of this work the author discusses the
pronunciation of Hebrew in Alexandria on the basis of
the transliterations of Hebrew proper names in the Septua-
gint. Quite methodically, a brief summary is given of
the data on the pronunciation of Hebrew in those early
times; then a discussion of the pronunciation of Greek
current at the time of the LXX, including dialectal varia-
tions. These introductory remarks are followed by an
enumeration of the Greek equivalents for Hebrew con-
sonants and vowels. Frankel is well aware of the fact
that with two so pronouncedly different tongues as Greek
and Hebrew, only approximate equations can be obtained
11 Cf. F. Hrozny, Denkschrift d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien, philos.-hist. KI. v.52

(1906), 36-41.
12 C. Konnecke, Die Behandlung der hebrdischen Namen in der SeptuaginCa. Prog-
ramm des k.u. g. Gymnasiums zu Stargard in Pommern, 1885.
13 A Schlatter, Die hebraischen Namen bei Josephus (1913).
14 Cf. among others S. Cooke, Northsemitic Epigraphy (1901) 313ff. (Cooke, Epigr.).
15 Cf. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt, 2 vols. Oxford 1875 (Field).
16 D'un palimpsesto Ambrosiano dei Salmi exaplari (Atti della ac. re. d. sc.
di Torino), 31, 655-76.
17 Vorstudien zu der Septuaginta, Leipsic 1841.
THE PRONUINCIATION OF HEIREW-SPEISER 347
at best. Attention is also called to the difficulty of

making deductions from proper names, as these are
especially liable to corruption.
As one might expect of a pioneer work, Frankel's
essay is not without its shortcomings. There is observable
a certain laxity and inexactness in the author's treatment
of phonetic problems.'8 The sounds are discussed in the
alphabetic order and not in their respective phonetic groups.
No distinction is made between vowels in open and in
closed syllables. Moreover, many of Frankel 's explanations
cannot stand the test of grammatical reflection.,9
Next in order came C. Konnecke with a separate
monograph on the Hebrew proper names in the Septuagint.
The conclusions to which the author was led are scarcely
different from those arrived at by Frankel, practically half
a century earlier. A wealth of examples is cited in support
of every statement, but it cannot be said that these always
excel in accuracy. Greek iota does not always represent
a long Ijirek, for apart from 2tCww, which Konnecke con-
siders as an exception occasioned by the loss of a following
yod, t is found occasionally to represent a short Hirek,
though, to be sure, examples are exceedingly scanty.
Konnecke should have at least mentioned bvXtcrTTELIU

The Shwa in WILIP is not necessarily a Shwa quiescens, as
a comparison with 69n3D shows, the original Akkadian
forms of these names, viz. Sin-a!ze-eriba and Sin-uballit
respectively, being proof that the Shwa in both cases is
at the end of a syllable of the type '?r.2-
18 Cf. for instance the reasons which Frankel gives to explain the occasional trans-
cription of Hebr. m by IA3 (p. 108 note c). One can also hardly agree with the author
when he says that "the representation of tn by 71 is a peculiarity of Origenic usage"t
(p. 112 note m). The 1 in XCxcaPaf771 represents the vowel sere and not the consonant tn
19 Kibbus is, of course, an exclusively short vowel according to Frankel (p. 118).
The fact that Hebr. y is occasionally transcribed as y does not yet prove that the for-
mer corresponds to Arab F (p. 112). See below under laryngals.
20 The terminology is in this case that of Konnecke. On the subject of the so-
called Shwa medium see under Begadkefat.
It has been indicated that the remnants of the second

column of the Hexapla are now best studied in Field's
two large volumes which were complete at the time of
their publication. Origen attempted, as is well known, to
give in that column as complete and exact a transliteration
of the Hebrew words which he wrote in his first column, as
the difference in the character of the two languages would
permit. Up to Field 's time the Hexaplaric material consist-
ed of fragments preserved on the margin of manuscripts,
and of quotations culled from patristic literature (especially
from Epiphanius and Chrysostom). The first to make use
of those fragments in their bearing on Hebrew pronunciation
was Field's immediate predecessor in collecting the Hexa-
plaric material, D. Bernardus de Montfaucon.2, His
treatment is incomplete and unsystematic, and Field's
few pages dealing with the subject22 are wisely non-committal.
In view of the scantiness of the material then available,
the Oxford scholar can hardly be blamed for merely re-
cording the equivalents without further discussion or
comment. Since Field there has come to light much more
copious Hexaplaric material. The most important addi-
tion is the palimpsest fragment discovered by G. Mercati.
The fragment itself has not been published as yet, but it
A much more extensive field for investigation along similar lines was open to Sieg-
fried who attempted to reconstruct Jerome's pronunciation of Hebrew from the com-
paratively numerous Latin examples scattered throughout the many voluminous works
of the Church's greatest biblical scholar (Cf. ZAW IV, pp. 39ff.) Siegfried bases
himself primarily on the material furnished by the extant examples of Jerome's trans-
criptions of Hebrew word-forms and not on transliterations of proper names. He
deals, therefore, with a series of transliterations at once more pliable and potentially
more instructive than the material employed by Frankel and Konnecke. Yet, the work
of the German scholar fails to satisfy with regard to method. Comparatively little
space is devoted to the very important treatment of vowels, where the very elusiveness
of the subject as compared with the more tangible problems of consonants ought
to have attracted more attention. There is furthermore too much mechanical tabu-
lation in the brief treatise.
21 The first one to collect Hexaplaric fragments was Petrus Morinus, who printed
the latter in the so-called editio Sixtina of the Greek Bible published in 1587 in Rome.
After him the work was continued by Joannes Drusius, Lambertus Bos and Bernardus
Montfaucon. Cf. H.B. Swete, Introduction to the old Testament in Greek (Swete, Intr.)
2ed. Cambridge 1902, p. 76.
22 Field, Prolegomena LXXII-IV.
may be found excerpted in the Supplement to the Oxford

Concordance.23
This new material has so far been turned to account
in but one special study, viz., Dr. Margolis' paper on the
"Pronunciation of the '.T according to New Hexaplaric
material. " 24 This article deals with all the examples

supplied by the new material, classified in groups according
to modern grammatical principles. It is the aim of the
present publication to extend the investigation of Dr.
Margolis to cover the rest of the vowels and the conso-
nants. The new Hexaplaric material which Dr. Margolis
re-assembled from the excerpts in the Concordance and
very kindly placed at my disposal, will be used as a basis.
I propose to present the results of my study under the
following heads:
I. The nature of the available Hexaplaric material

and Origen's manner of transliteration.
II. The pronunciation of the Consonants.
III. The Pronunciation of the Vowels.
IV. Hebrew Morphology according to Origen's trans-
literations.
V. The Transliterated Material.
VI. A Hebrew-Greek Alphabetical Index of all words
occurring in the transliterations discussed.
23 H. A. Redpath, Supplements to the Condordance of the Septuagint, 1900-6

Fasc. III pp. 197-216.
24 AJSL., XXVI (1909), pp. 62-70
CHAPTER I
NATURE OF THE HEXAPLARIC MATERIAL AND
ORIGEN'S MANNER OF TRANSLITERATION.
As has been indicated above, our sources of Hexaplaric

transliterated material fall, generally speaking, into two main
divisions: 1. The material known up to 1875 and incorporat-
ed in the great work of Field. 2. The transliterations
that have appeared since then, especially through the
Milan palimpsest and now accessible in the third Fasc. of
the Supplements to the Oxford Concordance.
The transliterations given in Field are cited as 'E,Bp.
(Or 'EP3aiKOz' 'EXXfvtKOLS 'yp4,xao-t), which indicates

the transliterations of the second column. As stated before,
the material of Field' has been gathered from quotations
in the Church Fathers, the great Oxford scholar citing not
infrequently directly from his predecessors in the work
of collecting the Hexaplaric remnants, particularly from
Drusius and Montfaucon. Throughout the two volumes
of Field are also scattered the scanty transliterations of
the three great post-Septuagint translators, Aquila, Sym-
machus, and Theodotion, which have survived to the
present day.2
But neither in bulk nor in actual value can those com-
paratively meager remains rank with the recent Hexaplaric
finds. Apart from a few shorterpassages, the Milan palimp-
sest contains the following sections of the Psalms.
1 Field, Prologomena p. LXXI.

2 To be cited as 'A 2 and 0 respectively. Though the few transliterations of
these translators should not be confused with those of the second column, they will be
cited together with the Origenic examples for the purpose of comparison with the latter-
The abbreviation Al. stands for Fields' 'AXXos.
350
18. 26-43, 46-48; 28.6-9; 29.1-4; 30.1-13 (complete);

31.1-10, 20-25; 32.6-11; 35.1-2, 13-28; 36.1-3; 46.1-12
(complet,e); 49.1-15; 89.26-53.
It is clear that such material is preferable to isolated

occurrences of transliterated words. This is true as re-
gards both the textual reliability of these fuller sources as
well as their intrinsic importance for a better insight into
Hebrew grammar. For in the first place, the palimpsest
material is uniform as compared with the second and third-
hand quotations from the wide patristic literature. Sec-
ondly, one cannot gain an adequate picture of the grammar
of a given language unless the material consists of complete
sentences, and of passages of some length, which illustrate
the grammatical usages of the language with some degree
of completeness.
From a textual point of view, the Hexaplaric material

with which the present work aims to deal shows a considerable
amount of errors and irregulariteis. Textual errors are,
of course, inevitable in any source of great antiquity. In
the case of transliterations from another, totally different,
language, the proportion of mistakes will be naturally lar-
ger. The transliterated material is in such a case often
unintelligible to one or more in the long succession of
scribes who prepared the copies to be passed on to the fol-
lowing generations of scholars. For this reason such texts
will have more mistakes than those whose language the
scribes understood. At any rate it is not an exaggeration
to say that the extant remains of the second column simply
teem with textual irregularities. It will be advisable to
discuss the latter under special heads indicating the usual
causes of textual corruptions in Greek manuscripts, i.e.
(1) confusion of Greek letters due to their graphic similarity;
(2) dittography; (3) haplography; (4) transposition of
letters. Less definable groups will be treated last.
1. ERRORS DUE TO CONFUSION OF GREEK LETTERS3
Among the letters that are particularly liable to inter-

change, the group 2E is well represented in our translitera-
tions. Thus E is found for o- in 6wEt (for-rt) T"1zn 18.28,
KO3(0f)W iv7p, 30.5, Xe(ou)tLX i' 49.11; and more frequently

r for e; cf. ovveEcr(E)cracov MOTU 35.15, OEpo-(E) '1147 35.17,
r(E)EXXEXEX T.19 35.18, pao(e)tOa ;lrl'kt, 35.22, Oaawyo(E)

1.3n 35.28, o(E)EctPov 1'It?4 49.2, ta3acr(E) =YT / 'T 92.7.
The numerous cases of confusion of letters within

the group AAA are also self-explanatory. a. a for 3:
La(W)3o/L 0D', 30.13 (for t33oyu), Le4a(3)e rrTI 49.8, an

versely 3 for a: 6Eou3(a)3n17' YTP 18.36 and a33(a)w3 (?) /
n-71p, Is. 26.4, b. a for X: aoEpa(X) w/ s$ m 1.1, LE3a(X)-
ov=l";' / ' 18.46, a(X)5?EXp !? 30.5, ovXa-La(X) ' 91.2,
P/E/a(X) i 92.4; conversely, aX(a)4rqs YOM 35.27 and

yao-OaX(a)0 nfnl9IQ Lv. 13.6 0. c. a for X: ata(X) in 18.40
ab (X)at "?V 35.26; conversely X for 3: ao-tX() av TlDn 30.5.
The graphic relationship of the letters NXK with
those of the preceding group is obvious, and the resultant
intechanges require, therefore, no particular comment.
N: A. f3aaXu-v(X) i'9V 12.7. As the following word begins

with 9 (fl?, hence the transliteration, if preserved, would
have been Xaaps), the confusion could have originated very

easily. A:X. XCEaKaa(X) 91P19P 35.24. K:X. In the few ex-
amples of this class there is always a certain amount of
ambiguity as to the actual cause of the irregular spelling.
For apart from the possibility of a purely graphic confusion
of K and X, a certain degree of similarity in the pronuncia-
tion of : and p (see below under consonants), as well as the
inner Greek principle of deaspiration (ib.) might have contrib-
3 Where the reference is to Psalms, the book is not indicated. The number of a
cited psalm is that of the Hebrew Bible.
THE PRONUNCIATION OF HEBREW SPEISER 353
uted to the irregular transliteration of the words in question.

Examples: EkLXLa for &/uKt5 (?), 1T3. 31.6, E aXov4
(written Etax through haplography, see below) for EvaKov,
"Pin 31.25. OV&,pEK(X) (=71i*?) / 9!1.R! 32.8, XaKraX iLPO
110.3. On the other hand, the principle of deaspiration
was very likely at work in the case of Ka4xcoO for xa44wO
nis Lv. 23.40 Al. and K(X)EXXap 3DD Je. 37 (44).21 'A.
N:H. The following class of interchanges is also self-
explanatory. Examples: pEo-o-Ev(X),E DfD35. 17,o-/L77P(?7)

MDYV 35.26. Note further Ep/v3q) Pt 'Win 18.36, EXcoP(Xq) vov
';1i7 18.32, ovv(-)&at1.z 0'7' 18.28. In f3qvvav 1';'-vz 36.3

(for ,B7pvav) the writing may be simply due to dittography
(hence 3r/nav).
FTP. No explanation is required for this category of
examples. yEyaorrcpo0,EEt for yE/Lao-ry&pw60? 7E ni/

18.46 (for EI: H see below), p/lyava !a 31.24, nov(,ycot) 'iJ
Is. 26.2.
A very interesting instance combining, as it were, most
of the types of exchange hitherto indicated is Lo-tavtl
for Heb. ' 18.34. Here E was read as o-(El), a as
a (AA), and lastly X7 was lost before v (N: H) so that the

original tlEt5?7vL is established without much difficulty.
The group OOBP is not difficult to understand graphi-
cally. EXOCof3(6)ap mnir-1'Gen.49.4, and conversely KapcoO(f)
="R: 32.9. B:P, 0E03apa3(p) ".=N 18.27. 0: 0.e o(O)wpaO
Mn1nn 1. 2.
I: E. ovE(L)/LLaX / IF'9'1 18.36, yEX0$E(L)pt/.L ?: 9:

35.17. But both cases may be also explained as instances
of haplography if the Heb. H.ireq was here expressed by Et,
hence ovuElAwaX, 1uExkELpL,1. Further E(L)&)o4f,3/ '='i' 49.2,

and finally aE(L)a M'71 89.42.
4 Both examples are possible cases of anaptyxis, see under Hatephs.
EI:H. yEqao-,ycopcwOEL(fl)1 D;'7i MO

versely 3EXXtOav?7(E)L 'W1'1 30.2, 3abb5?(E) Lv / D1n Ez. 9.2,
II 6.
OI:H. aXot(r) '9 92.4. Itacism may be noted in jEt,y
for o-tEtu D"' Is. 23.13 O, ay (t)aXtiDo in 31.25 (H: II);

ovv(ta)BO Mt',, (N:II) Is. 26.2.
U. 0I: co(oL)E/aL 't $ 35.19. Perhaps also AI: H.
OLEOf3/at ib. and o-vxrq,'at . 'a 35.19. It must not, ho

be forgotten that the diphthong at had at the time of
Origen the value of an e-sounds and the appearance of X7 in
place of at may have been influenced by that fact.
B:4. (o-)a4(3)-qO / nf=l (?) Je. 39 (46). 14, 0.
2. DITTOGRAPHY.
This class of textual irregularities is well represent-

ed in our Hexaplaric material. fErov[/3] M1YP Is. 26.4
(O follows), [E]Etov Itn, 46.9, [o-]a4njO n71 Je. 39 (46).14 0

(Ets precedes). Two letters are repeated in ayty[ty]
D'IYV 18.48, and yJE1uc,.[av] ivX7P 89.34 (ov follows). In co
nection with the changes described in the preceding sec-
tion, dittography may be seen, toovyo[X] from to-toov (Nt

follows) 31.25. In the following instances the original letter
was corrupted into one similar to the neighboring symbol:
X [t]Epa (E) aXa1uqy WD'QI ^ 'M 49.11 (l om, through haplo-

graphy), -yaapco0as(v) / I',1iT!1 89.41 (followed by oa,uA), also
Xi/AE(a)o-aX 4'49.5 (Milan palimps.; Chrys. has Xa/Ao-aX).

Two somewhat different instances complete the section:
OvE(t),EcOY/ov inqV1 35.27, and OEq(O)a1A1AaA D3PL 18.26.
5 Cf. e.g., o-acti, for Dit 118.26.
3. HAPLOGRAPHY.
< l a-yt 'T)' 18.29 (l precedes), Xa <a > taScoO (?) ni9'Ik_P
18.34, < t > 6Oaz-' 'Xn"rn 30.4 (t precedes), -OoVl<l?> < t? >
31.8, <t> EpE Mbtl' 49.11 (Xt precedes)
In the case of ovEo-o-aKfl<ov> iPV] Gen. 33.4, yEo--

o> < - > = 1ii4 i MMP 30.4, and EvaX (KOV) IPt n31.25, haplo-
graphy is obviously responsible for the omission of the
respective final letters. Although the words which follow
the above instances in the text have not been preserved in
transliteration, the Hebrew text provides the necessary clue.6
The same may also be true of xa4xcw < 0 > MOiD Lv. 23.40 Al
(followed by 0'Y1M). Cf. further haplography in connection
with the group A i\ A as in <a > o-p "'rY (3 precedes) 49.3,
o<X>b '*D, 89.48, t<a>5acv "Tr 35.26, <X>aoya?ELp ?I?9

Jo. 10.33,0 and similarly <l>capharpharoth n 9,n Is. 2.20,
0. For A:N cf. <v>aq)EX / 810 32. 27.16 0. Further
,< E>oYXv- q w7, 46.9 fa< E>o-paOh 'P:!; 35.2, (SE).
4. TRANSPOSITION.
There are numerous instances of transposition of letters

in the extant Hexaplaric material. Of the examples which
are listed below, the majority are immediately obvious and
require no further comment. In the case of a few, one
might perhaps suspect other causes of the textual irregu-
larities for which they are singled out, although here too
transposition would seem to be the simplest explanation
of the change. Besides, the assumption of the latter makes
6 lnp$ is followed by JD;11 ~itt-lp by IV (A:N) and 1! by l
it unnecessary for us to postulate for the Hexaplaric reading

of the instances in question a Hebrew text which differed
from the present one, a procedure which would be inevitable
otherwise. At any rate, an attempt will be made in all
doubtful cases, where transposition need not have been
the only cause of corruption, to indicate also the alternative
explanation.
Cf. tfayEwv for Lya3E&P/D?'M: Je 52.16'A, which is

supported by Syr. P'nm (0); XEpooXaL for XopoEXaL 'a P
18.37 will be scarcely considered as doubtful. Further,
3aycE6Ey for fa3c/E-6yE ln 32.9, woyoov for Loovyo[X] 35.
3a6rnyov for f370ayov in'n; 49.12, xancfcp for xaE4nlp

147.16.7 LEcXE3EXE is an obvious slip for LEtX3E0EX/
110.3. Transposition is, of course, likely to occur with
contiguous letters whose graphic similarity is otherwise
responsible for many of the textual changes that have been
hitherto indicated. Cf. ovo-qEa for ovEo-ya (or ovEo-E,ua)

797t'4 31.8, LE1Uov (=to,yov) for o-lAov MP 32.11, tEo71AOv
for LoE1Uov inq 46.5.
It has been pointed out above that in some of the pos-
sible cases of transposition alternative explanations are
not unlikely. This is particularly true of those instances
in which the textual change has caused them to appear as
recensional variants, as e. g. sing., for pl., pl. for sing., etc.
For this reason one cannot always be certain of the real
cause of the divergent Hexaplaric writing. Nevertheless,
transposition will be doubted by few in all the cases which
are listed below, particularly since the alternative assump-
tion would leave us with forms which are explainable
grammatically only as isolated occurrences, but would prove
invariably troublesome in their present context. Cf.
,up %,B/m''P 31.2, where transposition (hence originally IPAp L
7 Or is it rather for Aramaic -1??
THE PRONUJNCIATION OF HEBREW-SPEISER 357
is to be assumed rather than a recensional variation of Hex.

pl. over against the sing. of Hebr. The same may be said
of an instance where a similar change has resulted in the
opposite arrangement, viz., Hex. tco,oq (from cwo-f3q) for

Heb. '= 49.2 (sing.). A morphological variation between
Hex. ofeycoay and Heb. om:v 49.12 is made unlikely by

the fact that Heb. Sere is usually transcribed by Origen
as Xj and not as e; hence the reading f3Eo7&,Oqa1i seems th

more correct one. The transposition of e and o- was
facilitated by the similarity of the two letters (SE). The
change to ep-yXat from pE-yXaL't) 31.9 may be traced
through the correct spelling pePyXat in 18.34, 39. Similarly
ovLae1Aas1/YM'l 31.25 may simply go back to an original

ovLaalAEs rather than indicate a reading r The res-
toration of owas(e) Yn' 28.6 to o-aA- commends itself

preference to an assumption of YnN in the Hebrew text
which Origen used in his transliterations. LEpovt6l/'1n?j

Jd. 19.1 (18.31) Al. has had a long way to travel after
starting with tEpXpO. tE POU4MO1<IEPOUAIO<IEP
UOAI < IEPXOAI/H; for AI: H see above. There is not
much to choose between the present ovpaCA DITT 28.9 and
a possible ovap-yA as both readings are equally likely. Cf.
the section on Hatephs with non-laryngals.
Psychologically, the above examples may be explained

as cases of metathesis resulting from the interference of two
sounds with each other and the resultant exchange of their
respective places. English analoga are slips like "ennaxa-
tion" for "annexation ", "donimoes" for "dominoes ",
' regural " for " regular ", '' plotoprasm " for " protoplasm ",
and many others.8 Such exchanges are commonest when
the interfering words stand under similar accentual condi-
8 See Sturtevant's admirable presentation of the subject in his Linguistic Change

(Sturtevant LCh), Chicago 1917, 50ff.
tions. An obvious instance is " feak and weeble " for

"'weak and feeble", or still better "'Sheats and Kelley"
for "Keats and Shelley ".9 A neat example of this class
of associative interference in our transliterations is furnished
by the transcription oaa5at 0GEGt/'1TrlUn1 18.37, instead

of oaabt OEcat, where the interfering sounds belong to
final accented syllables. The comparative frequency with
which we meet cases of such metathesis in the Hexaplaric
transliterations may be, no doubt, attributed to the fact
that the words or phrases in question were, for the most
part, meaningless to the linguistic consciousness of some
of the transcribers.
5. OTHER TEXTUAL CHANGES
Apart from these main types of textual irregularities

there are a few minor groups in which the cause of the errors
cannot be determined with precision. The examples
that come here under consideration may be listed under
the heads of a) addition, b) omission, and c) other tex-
tual corruptions. Some of the cases under addition and
omission may be, of course, connected ultimately with
the phenomena of dittography and haplography. About
the third group of errors there is little that can be said with
any degree of certainty.
a. ADDITION
In KavXaKaVK Is. 28.13 (bis)/1*P, 1P, the

addition is obvious. Cf. further tEopo/ Y'l Is. 26.3 (Jer.
ieser), tpq3[L]at/ '77, 35.1; here the t of the preceding
syllable may have had something to do with the added

letter after f. On the other hand, an original t has been
9 The phenomenon is termed in English Spoonerism, from an Oxford don, W.A.
Spooner, one of whose comic lapses is said to have been "Don't you ever feel a half-
warmed fish" instead of "half-formed wish". Cf. Jespersen. Language (New York
1924), 280.
THE PRONUNCIATION OF HIEBREW-SPEISER 359
omitted in X)Ep3t for 'q'q+=XE-p3t0 35.23

cEpaolov[t] I'2.T 46.4.
b. OMISSION
Here again the letter t seems to have been the main of-
fender. Cf. E-y'ya<t>cov 1i',7 9.17, ov,u<t> '"1 18.32,
< C > ao-a ' PI 32.8, the afore-mentioned X)Ep < t > dt l'2
35.23, avcWx<t> 'P* 46.11, feKo00r<t> 'VP. 89.36,10

<t>ap- K:' 112.1. In OVK.0a0S YxRl 46.10 the t has
obviously fallen out.
Cf. further the omission of e in KW <E > XE6 ri'P Ec. 1.1.
Loss of other letters may be witnessed in ta < 0 > 3ov/ P5t'
35.20; OcEgAov < r > 51zI31 46.6, E-tawV (?) 1'11i 92.4, and also in
Ioc<o>xxa r@D 31.21, faAyap<a>fl 0r9 31.9. Two or

more letters have been either omitted or lost in <ovux>
L/4L,a I 0? 35.26, vE4 < oal> ; 49.9, and ov5a <cKa > 60h
717P-. 89.33. In A%T apwl/ itiU 89.45 the lacuna is self-
explanatory. Note also iao-oya <f > , Je. 48 (31). 1 'AO.
C. OTHER TEXTUAL CORRUPTIONS
The connection of some of the instances listed below

with those of the preceding classes is not sufficiently evident,
though not unlikely a priori. They are listed separately for
the sake of a more convenient classification. Cf. EJlqlOVVEmu (u)
D 31b Is. 26.2, tovXaXE(ov) 6i? 18.39, aogL0av(%q) DDIP 18.46,
tw77pov (sic!) VV1I 30.5, aLovA for a,u/ ITTn 36.10, tab&t(X)
T17' 31.6, tuovocEph721 46.10 (Pual for Piel?), ovXi / &b
92.7. The few cases in which 6 and p are interchanged
might be due perhaps to inaccurate pronunciation. a&wO
/'W`32. Is. 26.4, atcyt O(L) 'IT-1 30.10 and &OcwO/lnifT' (Jer.
ididoth) 45.1.
10 Both avwx and 3eKOYS may be due, however, to Aramaic influence. *pK
was also the regular form in Phoenician, cf. Cooke, Epigr., 6.
The transliterations of the Hexapla were not carried

through with rigid consistency if we are to judge from the
form in which they have come down to us. There is a
number of variations in the transliteration of the same word
in different passages. To give only a few examples Heb.
1'3T appears as Oa,yLM 18.26, 6ayuAtty 18.33, and Oa,lqlu

18.31.
'Z'8 is written oLE faL 18.38, oLE f3aL 30.2, and oLEf3'q
(written co-O3q) 35.19.

V'"t is found as Ets 31.21, 49.3, 8, but in 92.7 it is tran-
scribed as lS.
? appears as E-uovv l in 31.24, but again Is. 26.2
it is E,u/LOVVEL/u.
m is transliterated as o-ovp in 89.27, 44 but o-wp in
Is. 26.4.
Many more of such instances could be adduced here. To

be sure, some of them may be due to textual corruption.
There can be, however, little doubt that a certain number
of these examples goes back to Origen himself. This fact
does not yet argue any pronounced carelessness on the part
of Origen and his Jewish teachers. No word is pronounced
in exactly the same way every time it is uttered. In the
last analysis the pronunciation of a given word depends as
much upon the position of the latter within the sentence
as the exact sound of a given vowel or consonant varies
with the character of the neighboring sounds.", From the
point of view of language slight variations in the pronun-
ciation of the same word are the normal thing, whereas
a consistently similar pronunciation may be easily carried
to an abnormal degree of precision. Here we have, there-
11 Cf. Jespersen's statement in a somewhat different connection (op. cit. 288):
"The vast majority of sound changes are conditioned by some such circumstance
as influences of neighbouring sounds, position as initial, medial or final (often with
subdivisions, as position between vowels, etc.), place in a strongly or weakly stressed
syllable, and so forth."
fore, the first indication that Origen frequently transcribed

his words as he heard them instead of blindly following
some particular system of transliteration.
At this stage of our study it becomes relevant to raise

the question as to the degree of accuracy with which the
sounds of one language can be reproduced with the aid of
sound symbols peculiar to or adapted to the use of an en-
tirely different tongue. In the first place, it is self-evident
that no two corresponding sounds of any two languages
are, strictly speaking, identical. This is primarily due
to the important fact that both the basis of articulation
for similar sounds, and the position of the organs of articu-
lation when at rest, vary considerably in every language.I2
Thus, e. g., there is a large number of clearly discernible
nuances between sounds so close in pronunciation asdand t.
When pronounced by an Englishman those sounds will
appear markedly different from the corresponding conso-
nants of the French or the German. Depending upon the
exact basis of articulation the above stops differ according

to their relative amount of aspiration (the tenuis t is usually
aspirated in the Germanic languages, but not in the Romance
and Slavonic groups,-) and voice the (d of the Danish is
voiceless)I4. Similarly, the English (or rather American)
r is cacuminal, i. e. pronounced with the tip of the tongue
turned back towards the hard front palate, whereas the
French and German r is usually alveolar, pronounced with
the tongue against the gum of the upper teeth.Is When
the layman says that so and so speaks English with a
French or a German "accent", he indicates quite uncon-
sciously the all-important phonetic truth that similar
sounds differ nevertheless in every language.
12 Cf. especially Jespersen Lehrbuch der Phonetik,3 (LPh.) Leipsic 1920, 246ff.
13 Ib. 102ff.
14 Ib.
15 Sturtevant, LCh 16.
Now if it is difficult to reproduce with accuracy the

sounds of another language, much less precision must be
expected from written representations of foreign speech-
sounds with symbols not adapted to such purposes. For
all scripts are attempts to press a wide variety of sounds
into the necessarily narrower range of conventional sound-
symbols. That representation is, then, more or less im-
perfect from the very beginning. Besides, living languages
are characterized by constant changes in the phonetic and
morphological pattern of these symbols. Consequently,
systems of writing which are of necess;ty stationary tend
to become less faithful representatives of speech with every
new linguistic development. This constantly increasing
disparity results in sudden readjustments, in the shape of
sporadic spelling reforms,'6 a process that has to be repeated
at comparatively frequent intervals if the writing is not
to represent increasingly obsolescent forms of speech.
It is evident from the preceding that writing has very

limited potentialities as far as an exact representation of
speech-sounds is concerned. If it is true that "nearly all
systems of writing are the result of a compromise between
tradition and the phonetic representation of speech ",17 the
element of compromise must be proportionately more
prominent in the case of transcriptions from one language
into another. There is obviously a greater need of schematic
and conventional regulations in the case of transliterations
than in first-hand representations of speech-sounds by their
original symbols.
A transliterator will sometimes encounter considerable

difficulty if he is confronted with foreign characters rep-
resenting sounds that are unknown to his own language.
To cite an extreme instance, it is utterly impossible ade-
16 Ib. 10.
17 Ib.
THE PRONIUNCIATION OF HEBREW-SPEISER 363
quately to render the South-African clicks with the symbols

of the alphabets of the European languages in their accepted
values. For an ancient Greek it was not a much easier
matter to find in the alphabet of his own language satis-
factory representatives for the Semitic laryngals.
It follows that Origen's self-imposed task of represent-

ing in the Greek script the sounds of Biblical Hebrew was
not simple by any manner of means. However, it will be
seen that his mode of approach to the subject was of a kind
calculated to obtain results with the greatest accuracy pos-
sible under the circumstances.
We know that this great scholar of Caesarea (185-235

A.D.) began by assuming (1) the purity of the Hebrew text,
and (2) the corruption of the LXX where the latter departed
from the Hebrew original.'8 Whether this method was
the best one for the purpose of reconstruction of the Bibli-
cal text is a matter that need not detain us at present.'9
For our purposes, however, these facts are of extreme im-
portance, as they bear witness to Origen's endeavor to
reproduce in sound and in translation the Hebrew text
current in his own days as faithfully as he knew how. In
the case of the proper names, Origen modified the Septuagint
transliterations of those forms according to their pronun-
ciation in the current Hebrew. Moreover, though a large
part of the labor of transliteration may have been borne
by copyists, the two Hebrew columns (the original Hebrew
and its transliteration in Greek characters) were written
most likely by Origen's own hand.2o
We have seen above that most systems of writing are of

necessity the result of a compromise between an artificial
mode of transcription and the phonetic representation of
18 Swete Inlr. p. 68.

19 See Driver, Samuel, Intr. p. XLVI.
20 Swete, Intr, p. 69.
speech. It still remains to indicate to what extent the

above principles came into their rights in the work of Origen.
It has been pointed out in a preceding section that
the Origenic transcriptions were often orthophonic. This
tendency is also witnessed in a number of other instances.
It is, however,difficult to determine whether such a manner
of transliteration was the result of a conscious attempt
on the part of Origen, or whether it was rather due to mere
coincidence. In all likelihood it was the result of a com-
promise with both factors working side by side.
Thus Origen transliterates, without division between
the words, those forms and phrases which consist grammati-
cally of two units, but form one speech-tact from an ac-
centual point of view. This applies primarily to those
combinations of which the first word is weakly stressed,
viz., proclitics. These, in turn, consist of prepositions,
conjunctions, particles, certain pronouns, and other short
words.21 All such proclitics are unstressed or weakly
stressed as a rule. Another type of proclitics consists of
parts of speech which are weakly stressed only occasionally,
as their position in the sentence may demand, as e. g.,
nouns in the construct state, verbal forms before their
objects, and the like. The extant Hexaplaric translitera-
tions furnish us with both types of proclitic words. The
fact that Origen joined such proclitics in his transliteration
to the following accented words is significant as an indica-
tion of the orthophonic mode of transliteration. Examples:
a. Habitual proclitics.
irrn8 EAXO&Oap Ge. 49.4, ' EXOapES and P07-I9?

EXOapaK 35.22, 'N'.w Xcot3v 92.7; r!P'rK / EcO/aaOflf
Ma 2.13 and 'WV1N1 EOoPL(L) 31.8; nlnV / aXuwO 9.1,
Y:Pp AuEffc-arE 30.10. In these cases the Masoretic text

21 See Sievers, Metrische Studien (MSt), Leipsic 1901, pp. 184ff.
indicates the proclisis with the aid of a Ma141gef. I

following examples the proclitic has a conjunctive accent:
' '3< X43ata Is. 26.4, M .'.3 XtEI 1.2; K' < aoepXw 1.1;
nri nt c4ava'es 49.10.
b. Occasional proclitics.
ml' 'D* avwX(t)Xwet1u 46.11, ' KI1M' K1 OVLKpX7vL 89.27,

and 11 M! ?EctapXa, 49.14; D'N') paf3oapts and tI7m
paf3,ry Je. 46 (13).13 0, ,R: XEf3Ka,uat Je. 51(28). 'AZ;
:'T 11'0 atpactope1,pt Cant. 1.1; 'b a f3c7tXat Ge. 43.23,
'P., VKt9 oaL03717lKt 89.51; Further the group of Is. 28.13,
13w rvst 3to :'I't IPti, 'Ph lpi, lF 14i 1 14% 1} aavXaaav aavXaaav
KavXaKav(K) KavXaKaVK PLflpOaa/t ~t?7poaau. Not alto-

gether clear is XNaKraX for tb 1 110.3. Note finally
mi nvviN watavva and G ~n,q aoXtavva 118.25 before the
so-called Dagesh conjunctivum.
Another indication of the fact that Origen was often
guided in his transliterations by purely phonetic principles
may be seen in the representation of Hebrew t by a in
words like n;tr (1uao/37?7 Ma. 2.13) and 1inD? (1uaao-twp 9.1).
Conversely Hebrew D is rendered as t in 9IT90 f3eE?,6aX 31.8.
In the first two instances the sibilant occurs before a voiced
stop. Since Greek a becomes voiced in that position, there
is here no phonetic objection to Origen's transcription of
the words in question.22 On the other hand, Hebrew D
may become voiced before T. It is, therefore, perfectly
correct to transliterate TP11, as f3EE?aaX (see further under
sibilants). The fact that we also find `7T9 Eca& 89.29,

iVT,n Ecr&a 31.22 is an interesting instance of the two forces
that were at work in the Origenic transliterations, viz.,

phonetic principle as against a systematic and mechanical
22 For Syriac analoga see R. Duval, Grammaire Syriaque (1881), 41, 2 and 3.
procedure. Even if it was Origen's intention to give a rigid
and schematic transliteration of sounds, he could not avoid

at times a certain tendency, subconscious perhaps, to trans-
literate those sounds as he heard them.
Nevertheless, other instances are not wanting which

indicate that Origen was often forced to follow system
rather than to adhere to purely phonetic principles. To
give only a few examples, we know that Greek X and o were
identical in sound at the time of Origen (see under vowels).
However, in order to indicate the difference between Hebr.
long Holem on the one hand, and Kibbus and short Holem
on the other, Origen had to employ for that purpose omega
and omikron respectively, in spite of the fact that at that
time the quantitative distinction was in the case of those
sounds purely historical. Similarly, Greek atwas pronounced
in Origen 's time as e throughout the Greek-speaking world
(cf. the transcription O3 atA for 00f 118.26). Nevertheless,

Origen continues to employ at to represent the Hebr.
diphthong ai long after Greek at had lost its diphthongal
value. However, long Holem is in a few instances
transcribed as O MLKPOOV (cf. -uaor TiyDf 31.3, LEXXoJ 1i3
To be sure, such cases may be explained, as we shall see
later, on inner Hebrew grounds. Nonetheless, it is difficult
to free oneself entirely from the suspicion that some of
those omikra for Hebr. long Ijolem have come in stealthily,
through phonetic by-paths.
In passing it may be noted that adherence to inner-

Greek principles is demonstrable occasionally in the Hexa-
plaric transliterations. This is particularly evident from
the fact that v t ? are never doubled in the transcriptions
of Origen even if the corresponding Hebrew word has a
dageshed t I'. See further under gemination.
CHAPTER II
THE CONSONANTS
1. THE BEGADKEFAT
The double pronunciation of nfl-YT as either stops

(explosives)' or spirants,2 though not universally Semitic,3
is found outside of Hebrew in the Aramaic groups of dialects,
to a limited extent in Akkadian, and among modern Semi-
tic languages in Neo-Abyssinian and some related dialects.4
Proto-Semitic5 possessed, to be sure, two inter-dental
spirants 1 and d which in pronunciation corresponded
most likely to the Hebrew spirants n and '. In Canaanit-
I The name "stops" is phonetically more exact than the hitherto used term "ex-
plosives". What is essential in the formation of the sounds discussed here is the fact
that the passage of air through the mouth is entirely stopped for a brief period of time.
The explosion which takes place when the air is finally allowed to escape is for the for-
mation of the sound of secondary importance only. See among others E. Sievers,
Grundzisge der Phonetik, (Sievers, Phon.) 5th ed. Leipsic 1901, pp. 106, 137 and 457;
0. Jespersen L. Ph. 12.
2 Not to be confused with "aspirates" (Sievers, Phon. 137), as is sometimes the case
even in recent handbooks of grammar. "A slight aspiration of Z b and 9 p modifies
these sounds into v and f" (sic!) Wright, Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of
Semitic Languages, Cambridge, 1890. Even as modern a scholar as Kahle is guilty of
confusing the two terms. Cf. P. Kahle, Masoreten des Ostens (MO), Leipsic 1913,
p. 167. Aspirates are stops with a following breathing whereas spirants are hissing
sounds formed without complete closure of the lips. The air is allowed to escape through
a narrow passage and the resultant friction is responsible for the breathed nature of
the given sound. The transmuitation of stops into spirants may be phonetically ex-
plained as the result of the loosening of the closure under the influence of a preceding
vowel. Cf. Sievers, MSt. 15.
3 Spirantization after vowels is not the exclusive peculiarity of Semitic. Old
Irish, for instance, shows some interesting parallels. See Haupt Z4, 2 p. 263 and
Sievers, MSt. p. 15, n. 1. It is worthy of notice that the Spanish b will sometimes appear
as a spirant if the speaker is not precise in the articulation of the sound. Cf. Jespersen,
LPh. 15.
4 See Brockelmann, Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik der Semitischen
Sprachen (GVG) Berlin 1908, vol. 1, 194 and the literature given there.
Among the Hebrew sounds which had a twofold pronunciation should also be
included 1, although the laws governing this pronunciation have not as yet been
established (see below). See P. Kahle, Der Masoretische Text des Alten Testamentes
nach der jiberlieferung der Babylonischenjuden (MT), Leipsic 1902, p. 38-44, but cf. also
Grimme J Auspr. p. 135. Among the Jews of today rlT)1 are still pronounced in
most countries as both stops and spirants. See Idelsohn, op. cit. a.l.
5 By this term is meant the Semitic parent-language before the separation of the
groups (proethnic) which later branched off into the various Semitic peoples. The term
Old-Semitic is misleading and cannot take the place of the convenient German Ur-
Semitisch.
ish, however, those old Semitic sounds developed into tO

and t respectively and are, therefore, not to be confused
with the later spirants P and d.6 Cf. (a) Arab. ," Heb.
?4',Arab. A'jL Heb. tO"', Arab # Heb. "ItV, but Phoen. in
Greek transliteration = Owp. (b) Arab. < s Heb. nrw, Arab.
'i Heb. 3;it, etc.7
It is impossible at the present stage of our knowledge
of the subject to determine the exact age of the process
of spirantization in Hebrew with any degree of certainty.
However, it can be made probable that the distinction
between stops and spirants was not yet known at the
time when the Greeks took over the West-Semitic al-
phabet. This follows from the earliest transliteration
of what are later the Hebrew spirants nfD, by the Greek
tenues 7r, X, K. The best examples of those early corres-
pondences are furnhished by the names of the sounds of
the Greek alphabet. Those names, as is well known, have
been adopted from West-Semitic together with the alphabet
itself; now their spelling gives no indication of the existence
of spirants in the parent alphabet at the time of the borrow-
ing. Thus Hebrew n'M is found in Greek as :3iTa and not
as *O3iOa. Similarly 6-1 is Ae'XTa, nin is 'HTa and nLl

corresponds to O7Ta. 13 occurs as Kalrlra (and not as
*Xaq54a) and 91P appears as K,oiira. The somewhat su

prising use of C for n'Ll is in itself sufficient proof that no
aspiration could have been heard in the D at the time when
the alphabet was taken over. For if the principle of spiran-
tization had come at that time into any consideration, C
would scarcely have been used for L and T for nl. Evidently,
therefore, the Greeks must have followed in their trans-
literation of the original names of their t-sounds some dif-
ferent principle of classification. According to the latter
6 Cf. Bauer and Leanderl89.
7 For more examples see Driver, Hebrew tenses, App. 3. p. 189.
the symbol for o was found more suitable than the letter
n for the purpose of a graphic representation of the Greek
aspirate 0. Now it appears that the necessary criterion
was here furnished by the relative amount of emphasis
appropriate to the two t-sounds of Greek. From this
point of view, the symbol for the "emphatic "8 (or shall we
rather say '' breathed ") sound u was indeed more suitable
to represent the Greek aspirate than the other Canaanitish
t-sound. However, not long after the Greeks had borrowed
the North-Semitic alphabet, the Hebrew stops themselves,
including of course a1, began to be pronounced with as-
piration,Io a process which usually, though not necessarily
always, precedes that of ultimate spirantization. This
change naturally entailed a rearrangement of the Greek
system of transcribing the Hebrew t-sounds. Now it is
fl which is transliterated as 0, while D is assigned to the
Greek T.I
Other early Greek transliterations, as e. g. Kfnrpos
8 Whether the term "emphatic" is strictly applicable to LI is still debatable. Cf.

Dalman, Aramaische Grammatik 2 ed. (Dalman), Leipsic 1903, pp. 65-6. For the
latest literature on the subject see Bergstrasser's (Brg). notes to 6 n. But whateve
be the term which should be used in this connection, for our purposes it is the phonetic
value of the LI sound which is of importance and not the particular name by which
it is designated in grammars.
P. Haupt points out (Beitrage zur Assytiologie (1890), fiber die semitischen Sprach-
laute und ihre Umschrift, pp. 249-267) that just as an aspirate t-sound is really t and
h (n+rT in Aramaic characters) so is Semitic LI a combination of F1+N (p. 252). If
this view is correct (but see below under "emphatic" sounds), it is probably that
additional eletnent in the LI-sound as compared with the original unaspirated nl that
was responsible for the transcription of the former by 0.
10 That spirantization must be older than the borrowing of the alphabet by the
Greeks is likely, but not absolutely certain. It will be shown below that the difference
between Greek aspirates and smooth consonants was very slight even in later times.
We know also that 4 and X are secondary developments and were probably felt as sym-
bols for specifically Greek sounds. There was, consequiently, only the one sound
Oira, to represent a possible Semitic spirant, and that sound had been appropriated'
as we have seen, for early transliterations of LI.
11 Contrast with the Greek names of the letters of the alphabet the later trans-
literations of the names of the Hebrew alphabet in the Septuagint. They are found
with the Greek translation of the acrostic chapters in Lamentations. See Noldeke,
Die Semitischen Buchstabennamen in Beitrdge sur Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft,
Strassburg 1904 124-136, Lidzbarski, Ephemeris II, pp. 124-139. Some new
suggestions (exceedingly doubtfull) are found in Dussaud's translation of the recent
discovered Byblos inscription, Syria V, p. 2, pp. 124-136.
for :9tI2 furnish us with an additional argument in favor

of the assumption that spirantization in Hebrew is not
likely to have been present in so early a stage of the He-
brew language.I3 That spirantized n99D-D do not go back
as far as the invention of the North-Semitic alphabet is
established by the fact that both the stops and the spirants
of that group share the same symbols. Had the spirants
in question been as old as the invention of the alphabet,
they would have been represented in all likelihood by
separate signs.
Just when the process of spirantization actually did

set in, it seems impossible at present to decide with any
approximation to certainty. There is a wide diversity
12 See Lagarde, Mitteilungen v. 2 p. 357ff. Of interest is also a comparison of

some of the Semitic and Indo-European words said to show etymological correspondences
and containing a "tenuis" or a "media," The following examples are taken from
R. v. Raumer, Urverwandschaft der Semitischen und Indogermanischen Sprachen, Frank-
furt a. m. 1867-8; Fried. Delitzsch, Studien jiber Indogermanische und Semitische
Wurzelverwandschaft, Leipsic 1873, and H. M6ller, Vergleichendes Indogermanisches
und Semitisches W6rterbuch, Gottingen 1911:
Hebrew nflf and Greek reniavvV/ut "I widen," "open," Latin patulus "spread out."
Raumer Fortsetzung 12, Delitzsch 55, M6ller 205. Hebrew -- and Greek 7rOL/l77V
"shepherd" Moller 195. (For the interchange of 2 and 9 in Semitir, see Wright,
Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages,64ff; 9D appears on the Hadad Inscription
I.17 (bis) as V23, Lidzbarski, Nordsemitische Epigraphie, vol. 11, pl. 24; see also Cooke,
North-Semitic Epigraphy, p. 168. (Btut most cases cited above may be duie to par-
tial assimilation). Hebrew 1.;t and Greek AypoS, Lat. ager, Raumer, Fortsetzung 21,
(but M6ller, p. 2, compares the above Indo-European root with Hebrew Vsi1). Hebr
9'1h and Greek KapIr6S, "fruit, "Lat. carpo, "Ipluck", Delitzsch 77f., M6ller 141, and
many others.
13 R. Eisler, Die Kenitischen Weihinschriften der Hyksoszeit in den Sinaibergwerken

und der Ursprung des Alphabets, Freiburg i.B., 1919, p. 32, would put the dageshed
M as far back as the 15th century B. C. In the Sinaitic script recently discovered
(by Flinders Petrie, 1905), Eisler finds an instance where the character for 1 in the word
which he vocalizes fl;T8 (sic!) "from the beloved of Baal, " seems to possess an ad-
ditional dot. This he considers the first known Dagesh-sign! Such a statement scarce-
ly requires a refutation. Even if the writers of that word had known the twofold
pronunciation of M, which is extremely doubtful, they would yet not have felt the need
of differentiating the two sounds in writing by the use of the Dagesh. Such a device may
be necessary for those who know the language only from literature and not from actual
usage, and are therefore liable to mispronounce rarer words. To accuse the writers of
the Sinaitic inscriptions of such ignorance is manifestly absurd. The introduction of
diacritical points into Hebrew is lust about two thousand years later than Eisler would
have it, and years in philology still have a slightly greater relative value than they do,
say, in astronomy.
of opinion regarding this moot subject.14 The change has

been placed by some scholars back in the earliest period
of the Hebrew language.Is Others have refused to recog-
nize it as late as the beginning of the Christian era.'6 The
very fact that two so remote periods may be suggested at
the same time as the date of a certain phonetic process is
in itself the most eloquent witness for the lack of sufficient
tangible data on the subject; incidentally also, of the
difficulties involved in the investigation of the problem in
question.
14 The earliest documents in which we find symbols for sounds b and v (really ?e)
differentiated anywhere date from a period about 12 hundred years later than the
Sinaitic inscriptions, and although the alphabet in which this distinction is found has
most likely a Semitic source, the language is very much Indo-European. I am referring
to the Sanskrit characters for b and v. For the Semitic origin of the Sanskrit alphabet,
see Whitney, Sanskrit Grammar ?2 and G. BUhler Indische Palaeographie, I, II. Now
even in the earliest known forms of the Sanskrit systems of writing (of which the most
important are called Brahmi and Kharosthi respectively, see Thumb, Handbuch des
Sanskrit, p. 33) the sign for b differs from that for v only by an additional dash placed
outside the sign. (Cf. Buhler, Siebzehn Tafeln zur Indischen Palaeographie, Strass-
burg 1896). This dash is later placed inside the symbol for b. (It should be noted
that in Hebrew too it is the sign with an additional mark that represents the stop over
against the simpler form of the symbol which stands for the spirant). In some Hindu
alphabets (Bengali), a single dot performs the function. No doubt, then, the Hindus
had, just as the Hebrews and Arameans, only one character for the sounds b and v.
To be sure the Sanskrit v is really a semivowel. However, such a departure in the
application of sound-symbols, would not be surprising. When early Sanskrit borrowed
the alphabet from some early Aramaic dialect it was probably the general idea itself
that was adopted, while an exactly parallel application of sounds was hardly the case.
More could not be expected from two so pronouncedly different languages and at so
early a period. Cf. e. g. the variant spellings of the Indo-European word that appears
in Hebrew as and 13"1 -13 (see below). It is interesting that by the side of those
symbols there is a special sign to represent the sound bh (The stop and the semivowel
share one sign, whereas the aspirate has a separate one). The question may be, there-
fore, raised, whether in representing v the Hindus were not under the influence of the
Semitic parent alphabet; that is to say, whether the Hindu b-sign is not a modification
of the symbol for v because the alphabet from which theirs was derived had only one
sign to represent two similar (though not identical) sounds. This would of coturse
imply a very early date for the dual pronunciation of 2 in Syria and Palestine, as the
introduction of the alphabet into India (about 700 B.C.) antedates considerably the
oldest Hindu documents known at present. The graphic differentiation by means of
an additional mark is, of course, of purely Hindu origin and is to be expected in a foreign
alphabet which had to be adapted to the use of a language for which it had not been
invented. (The Hebrews arrived independently at the same stage many centuries later
when they ceased to be at home in the uise of their own language for every day purposes.) .
There may have been, of course, entirely different reasons, if any at all, that were
responsible for the close graphic relationship of the Sanskrit symbols for b and v.
Nevertheless the problem is well worth considering.
I5 Sievers, MSt. p. 23. Brockelmann, Syrische Grammatik, 63, considers the change
as "Urnordsemitisch ".
16 Cf. H. Grimme OLZ, 1925, col. 533, on very superficial grounds. He admits,
however, elsewhere that the phenomenon may be much older (J Auspr. p. 137).
The rules governing the appearance of the spirants

rl3T2 instead of the corresponding stops in the Aramaic
dialects are on the whole similar to those which obtain in
Hebrew. It should be noted, however, that deviations
from Hebrew are here not uncommon. To mention a few
instances, over against the Hebrew forms 'P?>, MD, and
even *0;12iv , the Syriac has malkai, malkift, katbin,

nelddn, hence stops where Hebrew employs spirants. On
the other hand, Syriac forms are not wanting where a
Rukkacha is required at the beginning of a syllable of the
type *9, e. g. dahbha 'gold .'7 This fact should have
some bearing upon the origin and nature of the process of

spirantization.
For the deduction of an approximate date of the in-
troduction of spirant r997:1 into Hebrew, much has been
made of the Raphe pronunciation in words of the type '
As is well known, the Hebrew sign known as Shwa is am-

biguous in its signification and is employed to indicate two
entirely different phonetic conditions, viz., (1) the so-called
indistinct vowel (vocal Shwa) (2) the lack of any vowel
after the consonant under which it is placed (Shwa
quiescens)'8. After a vocal Shwa the Hebrew stops 1rEDIm
are changed into the corresponding spirants. Now in
syllables of the type 'Op, the preceding Shwa appe
to be silent to all intents and purposes. However, its
influence upon the following r971Y: is that of a vocal
Shwa, the sounds in question being here treated as spirants.
To account for this truly remarkable state of affairs, older
grammarians found it necessary to resort to a curious phon-
etic innovation: If a Shwa looks like the silent memier of
the species, but resembles in its influence upon the follow-
ing Begadkefat the vocal representation of the sign, it
Noldeke, Kurzgefaste Syrische Gramatik 23 D.G.

bor the origin of this ambiguity, cf. below under vowels.
must obviously be a half-breed. They named the object of

their deductions "Shwa medium", and considered the matter
as closed. These speculations were perfectly in place at
a time when the study of phonetics was in its infancy. The
modern science of the subject, however, could be scarcely
expected to approve of such reasoning. E. Sievers, well
known for his work in Germanic philology and prominent
as a phonetist, was prompt in voicing his objections to the
precarious Shwa medium, in his important study of the
metrical problems of the Old Testament: A syllable must be
either closed or open. A middle stage between the two is
unknown to the science of phonetics. The Shwa of malche
is, consequently, declared as silent. The spirant, instead
of the otherwise expected stop, is of historical origin.
It should be traced back to the time when the consonant
was preceded by an original vowel, which was lost
later by syncope. That is to say, malche goes back to a
form *malachai from an original *malachai. Spirantization
inHebrew is, therefore, older than the syncope of the vowel
in the medial syllable of malachai, or in other words it be-
longs to the oldest stages of the Hebrew language. After
the syncope mentioned above the process of spirantization
was no longer in force. In consequence, the spirant could
not be changed back into a stop although it was no longer
preceded by a vowel.Is
This theory of Sievers carried with it an appeal that

has since won for it the support of most of the prominent
students of Hebrew grammar. To mention but a few names,
Brockelmann proved himself wholly in agreement with the
new theory in his Comparative Semitic grammar (1908).20
A year later Kautzsch was induced to give up the trouble-
some Shwa medium in his 29th edition of Gesenius' He-
19 MSt. pp. 22-3, 224 n. 2, 294.

20 GVG 1. p. 105.
brew Grammar,2, although he had still operated with the

former in the preceding edition of the same work. Of
the few critics who raise objections to the view of Sievers,
the most irreconcilable is Eduard Konig, the industrious
champion of Kimhian principles. This venerable scholar
ignores entirely the phonetic scruples of Sievers as regards
Shwa medium. "Whether or not Sievers is able to conceive
of a Shwa medium "-thus Konig concludes his argument-
'matters very little. Such a Shwa exists just the same 22
Bergstrdsser is also reluctant to give up the third kind of
Shwa. Less outspoken, and perhaps less confident of his
grounds upon the whole, he nevertheless refuses to acquiesce
in a wholesale deletion of the type in question.23 He con-
siders it especially far-fetched to place spirantization among
the oldest phenomena of Hebrew grammar. According
to this scholar, the introduction of spirants into Hebrew
belongs somewhere between the 4th century B.C. and the
time of Origen.24
It is unnecessary to pursue this controversy further
in detail. It seems that neither Sievers nor his critics have
succeeded in obviating all the difficulties to which the type
malche has given rise. However, the main point which
Sievers makes is hardly contestable. A syllable is either
closed or open and not half-closed and half-open. In
most of the cases in which the Shwa is considered as semi-
vocal, tradition itself has indicated it as silent. Of this
fact Bergstrasser is well aware.25 There is however a
comparatively small number of instances where the alleged
third type of Shwa certainly points to the existence of a
vowel, especially in cases in which we find the .Vateph-
vowels with non-laryngals. This interesting problem is
21 Hebrdische Grammatik 28 (Leipsic 1909), p. 54.

22 See Theologisches Literaturblatt, 1909, cls. 581-2.
23 G. Bergstrasser, Hebraische Grammatik, Leipsic 1918, (Brg.), 121 q. r.
24 Id., 6 m.
25 lb., s.
beyond the province of the present work. I have dealt

with the matter elsewhere,26 and I may be, therefore, per-
mitted to state here the most general conclusions.
The majority of the instances in which a supposed

Shwa medium actually represents a vowel are due to purely
phonetic, secondary developments. Favored by particular
groups of sounds, those anaptyctic vowels might have been
extended by analogy to a limited number of forms in which
there was no phonetic inducement for the development of
such a vowel. The preceding syllable is then neither closed,
nor "loosely closed ", but open, as before a vocal Shwa.
For practical purposes, therefore, the Shwa in such cases
is vocal. The ambiguity is obviated in some of the instances
through the introduction of the so-called Dagesh forte
dirimens.27
It follows that the assumption of a third kind of Shwa

(and syllable) is unnecessary. At the same time we are
enabled to remain within bounds sanctioned by phonetics,
while the instances in which alleged "compromise" Shwas
are seen actually to represent a reduced vowel, also receive
their explanation. What still remains to be considered-
and it is really relevant to our present problemn-is the
spirantization of the Begadkefat when preceded by the Shwa
under discussion. I do not think that the explanation of
Sievers, according to which the spirant was inherited from
an earlier period, where it had been occasioned by a preceding
vowel, is morphologically tenable. For it is by no means
certain that the construct state form was originally trisyl-
labic. As is well known, the vowel of the medial syllable in
mekdchim, over against, say, Syr. malche, is of an origin which
may still be considered as obscure.28 According to a very
26 Secondary phonetic developments in Semitic phonology (Sec. dev.) AJSL, 1926.

27 Ib.
28 Cf. GVG 1. pp. 430ff.
plausible theory of Ungnad,that vowel itself is of secondary

origin, induced primarily by the strong stress-accent of
the following syllable.29 In the construct state where
this accentual condition did not obtain, anaptyxis had no
occasion to set in, the form remaining regular from the very
beginning as malche. Obviously, therefore, the spirant has
to be explained here along different lines. When we bear
in mind the all-important part which analogy plays in iron-
ing out the discrepancies in the paradigms, that may arise
as a result of the regular phonetic changes, the explanation
of the present problem should not present serious difficulties.
When the plural of *malk finally became mldchim, the stops
were here automatically changed to spirants. In course
of time, the stop came to be the distinguishing mark of the
singular just as the spirant performed the same function
in the case of the plural. For by the side of melachim there
were also the forms with suffixes as melachai, melachenui,
and so forth, hence with a spirant. Conversely in the singu-
lar there was a whole group of forms with a stop, as e. g.
malki, malkJ, etc. It is, therefore, perfectly natural that
Hebrew, having gained such a generally obtaining distinc-
tion between the singular and the plural forms, should
extend the same, on the analogy of those forms, also to the
single case where the distinction was not phonetically
justified, i. e. the pl. cstr. state malche. Analogy is known
to have assisted in many languages in levelings of the
paradigm, even when the forms according to which the
others were modeled, were not in sooverwhelmingamajority
as in the present instance.30 The evidence of Syriac is
29 Zur Erklarung der hebraischen nomina segolata, ZA XVII, 333-43. Stimu-

lating though Ungnad's theory is, his method is not unassailable. Both his handling
of the purely phonetic side of the question and his mention of possible Indo-European
parallels leave much to be desired. Cf. Sec. dev.
30 A striking instance of the far-reaching influence of analogy as regards morpholo-
gical levelings may be seen in the development of the present Eng. sg. foot, pl. feet from
the respective forms of Anglo-Saxon. (The following presentation is based mainly
here very instructive. There are here very few forms of

the type malche with a spirant instead of a stop. In the
majority of the cases the Ku's'saya pronunciation was re-
tained.3' The reason is not far to seek. As the absolute
state is here malke without a spirant, there was nothing that
could influence the change of the stop into a spirant in the
construct state. The few instances in which a parallel may
be found to the Hebrew forms are obviously exceptional.32
It was necessary to go into some detail in the above

discussion because the solution of the problems connected
with the question of the Shwa medium was hitherto con-
sidered conclusive as regards the date of spirantization.
It has been shown, however, that there is no real connection
between the two phenomena. The spirants in the forms
on the remarks of E. Sapir in Language, New York 1921, pp. 183-204). The old
Anglo-Saxon paradigm ran originally:
Sing. Plur.
N. Ac. fot foti >fet
G. fotes fola
D. foti >fet fotum
In the nom. sing. and in the nom. and accus. plur. the o of the first syllables was changed
to e under the influence of the i of the following syllables. (This type of the so-called
i-umlaut is well known in the Germanic languages, especially in West-Germanic. For
similar developments in Old Icelandic, cf. A. Heusler, Allislandisches Elementarbuch'
Heidelberg 1921, pp 20ff.). As such sound changes work mechanically, the above
morphological group was only affected in part, thus introducing a disturbing element
into the pattern of the forms in question. For this reason the paradigm could not
long stand unmodified. The alteration of o>e had proved welcome in so far as it
roughly distinguished the singular from the plural. (Cf. the similar part played by the
alteration of the stop to a spirant in the Hebrew examples discussed above). The
dative singular (fet), however, was soon felt to be an intrusive feature. On the analogy
of simpler and, at the same time, more numerously represented paradigms, the dative
was, therefore, changed to fote. Thus the singular received o throughout. But this
very fact made the genitive and dative o-forms of the plural seem out of place. Since
the nominative and accusative plural forms were more in use than the remaining ones,
fet was soon extended to the whole paradigm of the plural. As a result, there is a less
complicated paradigm at the very beginning of the Middle English period:
Sing. Plur.
N. Ac. fot fet
G. fotes fete
D. fote feten
From there on, the development into the present formsfoot and feet was simply a matter
of time. It hardly needs stressing that, contrasted with these extensive levelings, the
Hebrew analogical formation mentioned above is exceedingly simple. For the influence
of analogy see further V. Henry, Etude sutr l'analogie, Paris 1883.
31 N6ld, 23D.
32 Ib. 93.
of the type malche being mainly due to analogy, the settle-

ment of the date of the process of spirantization in Hebrew
and Aramaic should not be expected from a solution of
the former question.
As a matter of fact we have now no more definite

data about the subject than we had before the appearance
of the work of Sievers. It seems that, for the present at
least, any opinion on the subject will have to remain a
matter of subjective deduction rather than pretend to
scientific accuracy. At any rate, the reasoning of Berg-
strdsser, which leads him to place the date of spirantization
between the fourth century and the time of Origen, is based
on an argumentum e silentio, and is, for that reason, not
sufficiently convincing.33
Before we proceed with the discussion any further,

it will be necessary to examine the phonetic value of the
33 6 m. As his terminus post quem he assumes the period of the loss of Hebrew
= g and 1= h. Else, he believes, there would have been too much confusion
between the aforementioned laryngal and the spirants J and D. This, in turn, would have
left some traces in the form of wholesale interchanges of the sounds in question. The
argument can be scarcely considered convincing. Among others, it is further invalidat-
ed by the fact that the date of the loss of the cited laryngals has been by no means
definitely established. Some scholars would even go so far as to doubt the existence
of the g-sound in Hebrew. Cf. Ruizicka, ZA, 1908, 293-340. We have thus seen that
definite data for the origin of the process of spirantization are as yet lacking. In the
meantime we must be satisfied with what scanty evidence we are able to adduce, in the
hope that the cumulative force of such small points may in the future lead us to more
satisfactory results. In this connection the alternate use of 1 and n as shows in the
writing of the word D'll1E 'precincts' 2 Ki. 23.11 and 1 Ch. 26.18 is certainly wor-
thy of notice. The semivowel I in "'19 is evidently an attempt to indicate by some
means that the consonant after 1 is to be pronounced as a spirant. This inexact spell-
ing may be explained on the assumption that 3 had in the meantime become ambiguous.
In consequence the spelling J1'D is witnessed in the Bible. According to the Hebrew
rules, however, this sound is pronounced as a stop after a vowelless consonant (hence
the Dagesh lene in the text). To avoid such misunderstandings the semivowel I is
rather inexactly, to be sure, used instead. It is also possible that I was used in similar
connections until 3 could appear as a spirant. (All these difficulties are due to the
fact that the word is originally Indo-European, its component parts being very likely
cognates of Sanskrit para 'distant' and bhr 'to bear'. To represent it with accuracy
in a Semitic alphabet was, therefore, a matter of some difficulty). If the above
inferences are correct the date of spirantization is at any rate earlier than the afore-
mentioned passages in Chronicles. More definite as to date is the evidence of an Ara-
maic inscription of the Achamenian period, where the spelling 11'D is also found;
cf. Torrey, The Bilingual Inscription from Sardes, AJSL XXXIV, (1918) 185ff.
Greek so-called tenues and mediae at the time of the Greek

transliterations.
Classical scholars experienced for a long time consider-

able difficulty in connection with the problems arising from
the development of the Greek aspirates. However, there
is now a general agreement that the pronunciation of the
latter in classical times differed considerably from the one
current in modern Greek, where those tenues have become
spirants. In early times aspirates were closely related to
the smooth mutes, which is a necessary inference from the
use of rO, 7r4 and KX when the former are to be doubled.34
Numerous alterations of aspirated and unaspirated mutes
on inscriptions point to the same conclusion.35 Finally
early loan-words in Egyptian and Latin make no distinction
between Greek smooth and rough mutes.36 Later docu-
ments, however (about 200 B.C.), show in more exact
transliterations that the aspirates must have become
strongly articulated by that time. 0, 4, and X are regul
represented by Latin th, ph and ch, beginning with the latter
part of the second century B.C. Very significant is the
failure of the Romans to represent 0 by f, as they would

certainly have done if the Greek sound had been a spirant.37
The use of Latin f for / in carelessly written Latin

inscriptions of the first century A.D. is the terminus post
quem for the spirant pronunciation of Greek aspirates.
From then on traces of the disappearance of those sounds
became more frequent, and by the middle of the fourth
century A.D. breathed consonants are completely supplant-
ed by spirants.
34 Cf. Sturt., Pron., pp. 173-4.

35 See Blass, Pronunciation of Ancient Greek (Blass). Engl. transl. by Purton,
Cambridge 1890, p. 104.
36 For this and the following statements see especially Sturt., Pron., pp. 179ff.
87 Quintilian regrets that Latin does not possess the sound 48, which he terms a
"dulcissime spirans littera ", whereas the Roman f is "an odious and offensive sound".
Blass. p. 106.
The above survey of the pronunciation, of the aspirates

in Greek establishes two facts which are of great import-
ance to our problem. 1) At the time of the LXX the
Greek letters X. 4), 0 were still pronounced with a foll
breathing. At the time of Origen there must have been a
strong tendency to pronounce the aspirates as spirants.
In other words 4, X, and 0 were at the time of the Septuagint

ph (as in loop-hole), kh (as in blackhacnd) and th (as in ant-hill
not like the English voiceless spirant as in thin) res-
pectively; in the third century A.D. the same sounds ap-
proximated to f, ch (German) and English th (voiceless).
As for the voiced mutes, -y was the earliest one to be
pronounced as a spirant. By the end of the fourth century
B.C., y is in Attic inscriptions omitted, or an t is substituted
for it in the neighborhood of palatal vowels (e.g. oXtapXtLa
for oXvyapXta).3s As for i, an early spirant pronunciation
of this sound has been advocated by some scholars. That
it had become v by the middle of the second century A.D.
is established beyond the possibility of dispute by the fact
that ,B was in Attic inscriptions used generally for the rep-
resentation of Latin V.39 There is evidence that Greek a came
to represent the Coptic ds sound at about the same time.40
In view of the changes described above, it is essential
for our study of the Greek transliterations to bear in mind
the distinction between the actual pronunciation of the
Greek sounds Oy6X4O as current at a given period, and that
of the Hebrew sounds for whose representation they had
to be conventionally employed. With X used for Hebrew D
and with K reserved for the transliteration of P, the above
six letters of the Greek alphabet were the only symbols
38 Sturt., Pron., p. 184.
39 In the Cyrillic alphabet which was adopted from the Greek at a later date the
symbol b is used to represent the v sound. The Latin b, too, had in many places the
same development. The spirant pronunciation of the sound has survived to the pre-
sent day among the Spaniards and many of the French of the South, whose vivere is
according to the well-known witticism bibere. Cf. Blass p. 109.
40 Sturt.. Pron., p. 185.
available for the transliteration of the twelve Heb

represented by flM-M2.4' Consequently the evidence of
these transliterations alone is insufficient to prove or dis-
prove the existence of spirants in Hebrew at the time of
the transliterations in question.
We have seen, however, that internal evidence is eq-
uually indecisive to solve the date of the Raphe pronuncia-
tion of the nMD=r when preceded by vowels. But Peter-
mann has shown in his work on the Pronunciation of the
Samaritans42 that spirants were known by the latter since
very early times. For it is an obvious inference to postulate
the existence of spirants in Hebrew at a time preceding the
Samaritan schism, as the twofold pronunciation of Begad-
kefat is common to both Jews and Samaritans. The ter-
minus ante quem is according to Bergstrasser, Origen's
transliteration of I by v, as e.g., in 'Paav WiMV: Jo. 19.30.43
That Begadkefat came to be pronounced as spirants
even at the beginning of a syllable has been suggested by a
few scholars. This assumption is rendered unlikely by
the following facts: (1) The traditional pronunciation of
the Jews, who in this case usually preserve the distinction
between stops and spirants. Where this is not the case,
the tendency is rather in the opposite direction, i.e. the two
classes of sounds coalesce into one, which recognizes
only the stops and not the spirants.44 (2) 3 and fl (the
only two sounds for which the Greeks could employ an
alternative transcription) are sometimes represented in
the Septuagint as K and r respectively.45 (3) Even Origen
seems to have employed occasionally K for D.46
41 Greek Xr does not correspond, of couirse, to Hebrew D.
42 H. Petermann, Versuch einer hebrdischen Formenlehre nach der Aussprache der
heutigen Samaritaner (1868).
43 Brg. 6. m.
44 Cf. Strack and Siegfried, Lehrbuch der Neuhebrdischen SPrache. Karlsruhe
1884, pp. 11ff., Kampffmeyer, ZDPV., 1892 pp. 15, 72. See also Frankel op. cit.
pp. 103ff.
45 Idelsohn, op. cit.
46 Frankel, op. cit. pp. 111-112. K6nnecke, p. 13.
Following are a few examples of Begadkefat as they

appear in the Origenic transliterations:
1. STOPS.
3 /. :1 fcaX 18.30, f 3wp 30.4, M /3woc 89.4646.
3 y. 1l-3 18.30, ?3 ya/u 49.3, t13 ytf3wp Is. 9.6.

' 6. W'-' belu Ma. 2.13, "1;1 &tfp71 I Ch. title.
3 X. DOZ XeXXw6j/ 18.38,?3XoX 31.24 etc. '-40 ooXt 18.29.47
- 4* T1(17V 4a&.O 31.6, 6eJOYEo5vtu 31.21, ?J1 qaaa 36.2.
n 0. D'W OJt/4u,/u 18.26, -';Prl OaJ 35.27.
2. SPIRANTS
n .'WXeoV7 12.9, MPLf Owutac 31.2, 1',3' taotv 92.7.

JY. ;-T'W ayLXa 31.8, 1J4 /uayev 18.31.
t 43. '?n'7; ob3&zg 30.10, YT7 vebluov 49.13.
D x. *7 aXaX 1.1, M9?E a4axO 30.12, 31;7 exaaef 89.36.
9 4. nU?P oa avOa 31.20, MTC --MP qab&o teoae 49.8.
n 0. MP 077o-a, 1.1, i!Pn. 60e0+i(ob 18.27.
(To be continued)
46 Cf. the section on K :X in the preceding chapter.

47 In the Septuagint ,I and f3 are sometimes used interchangeably for 73 and 3.
Cf. Konnecke, p. 118. These exchanges of the labial and the labial nasal have many
parallels in the Semitic languages. Well-known is the Akkadian interchange of m
and w. Cf. e.g., the name of the month arah?amnu (for warah-) which corresponds
to the Hebrew p1vn-13, cf. Fried. Delitzsch, Akk. Gramm. p. 44. Further Akk. arga-
mannu 'purple', cf. Heb. IM3,t btit Aram.1131M, etc. Different in origin is the occurrence
of jq3 for 3, cf. e.g. D1yp7 'A143pajgi. It is due to an imperfect timing in the motions of
the organs required for the pronunciation of two contiguous sounds. In the present
case it is attributable to the premature closing of the soft palate after the utterance of
the nasal (Jespersen LPh 62). Out of the many examples of that class I shall only cite
Engl. timber from Goth. timrjan (cf. Germ. Zimmer), thuinder as compared with Germ.
Donner and Lat. empsi from emo.

Speiser, The Pronunciation of Hebrew According To The Transliterations in The Hexapla, 1926

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The Pronunciation of Hebrew According to the Transliterations in the Hexapla

Author(s): Ephraim Avigdor Speiser

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

ACCORDING TO THE TRANSLITERATIONS IN

By EPHRAIM AVIGDOR SPEISER

FOR a study of the speech-sounds of the Hebrew lan-

among certain Jewish and Christian scholars.4 The writ-

4 Cf. H. Grimme, Grundziuge der Hebraeischen Akzent-und Formenlehre (Grimme,

Such are the scant Canaanitish glosses in the Amarna letters

"wall". Similarly Heb. ah-ru-un-u(jinnm) occurs as a

explained by Heb. csa-te-e = 9

The loan-words in Egyptian and Egyptian translitera-

names scattered throughout the Annals of the Assyrian

11 Cf. F. Hrozny, Denkschrift d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien, philos.-hist. KI. v.52

at best. Attention is also called to the difficulty of

Konnecke should have at least mentioned bvXtcrTTELIU

It has been indicated that the remnants of the second

may be found excerpted in the Supplement to the Oxford

material. " 24 This article deals with all the examples

I. The nature of the available Hexaplaric material

23 H. A. Redpath, Supplements to the Condordance of the Septuagint, 1900-6

NATURE OF THE HEXAPLARIC MATERIAL AND

ORIGEN'S MANNER OF TRANSLITERATION.

As has been indicated above, our sources of Hexaplaric

(Or 'EP3aiKOz' 'EXXfvtKOLS 'yp4,xao-t), which indicates

1 Field, Prologomena p. LXXI.

18. 26-43, 46-48; 28.6-9; 29.1-4; 30.1-13 (complete);

It is clear that such material is preferable to isolated

From a textual point of view, the Hexaplaric material

1. ERRORS DUE TO CONFUSION OF GREEK LETTERS3

Among the letters that are particularly liable to inter-

KO3(0f)W iv7p, 30.5, Xe(ou)tLX i' 49.11; and more frequently

r(E)EXXEXEX T.19 35.18, pao(e)tOa ;lrl'kt, 35.22, Oaawyo(E)

The numerous cases of confusion of letters within

La(W)3o/L 0D', 30.13 (for t33oyu), Le4a(3)e rrTI 49.8, an

ov=l";' / ' 18.46, a(X)5?EXp !? 30.5, ovXa-La(X) ' 91.2,

P/E/a(X) i 92.4; conversely, aX(a)4rqs YOM 35.27 and

N: A. f3aaXu-v(X) i'9V 12.7. As the following word begins

have been Xaaps), the confusion could have originated very

uted to the irregular transliteration of the words in question.

explanatory. Examples: pEo-o-Ev(X),E DfD35. 17,o-/L77P(?7)

';1i7 18.32, ovv(-)&at1.z 0'7' 18.28. In f3qvvav 1';'-vz 36.3

examples. yEyaorrcpo0,EEt for yE/Lao-ry&pw60? 7E ni/

a (AA), and lastly X7 was lost before v (N: H) so that the

I: E. ovE(L)/LLaX / IF'9'1 18.36, yEX0$E(L)pt/.L ?: 9:

hence ovuElAwaX, 1uExkELpL,1. Further E(L)&)o4f,3/ '='i' 49.2,

4 Both examples are possible cases of anaptyxis, see under Hatephs.

EI:H. yEqao-,ycopcwOEL(fl)1 D;'7i MO

OI:H. aXot(r) '9 92.4. Itacism may be noted in jEt,y

for o-tEtu D"' Is. 23.13 O, ay (t)aXtiDo in 31.25 (H: II);

U. 0I: co(oL)E/aL 't $ 35.19. Perhaps also AI: H.

OLEOf3/at ib. and o-vxrq,'at . 'a 35.19. It must not, ho

B:4. (o-)a4(3)-qO / nf=l (?) Je. 39 (46). 14, 0.

This class of textual irregularities is well represent-

(O follows), [E]Etov Itn, 46.9, [o-]a4njO n71 Je. 39 (46).14 0

tion, dittography may be seen, toovyo[X] from to-toov (Nt

X [t]Epa (E) aXa1uqy WD'QI ^ 'M 49.11 (l om, through haplo-

Xi/AE(a)o-aX 4'49.5 (Milan palimps.; Chrys. has Xa/Ao-aX).

5 Cf. e.g., o-acti, for Dit 118.26.

In the case of ovEo-o-aKfl<ov> iPV] Gen. 33.4, yEo--

(followed by 0'Y1M). Cf. further haplography in connection

with the group A i\ A as in <a > o-p "'rY (3 precedes) 49.3,