, [], Ezra 4:1 and Ancient Hebrew sibilants
However, in the book, she raises a comment that Ezra 4:1 calls
the "elite (Heb: s'ry) of Judah and Benjamin" as "Enemies (Heb:
cry) of Judah and Benjamin". In other words, a Sin becomes a
Sade. It is clear that mockery is involved, but what is also quite
impressive is that the two letters hark back to very similar
phonemes in Proto-Semitic. Sin is reconstructed as an emphatic
alveolar lateral coninuant while the Sade in this root is
reconstructed as a voiced alveolar lateral continuant (using
the diagram in John Huehnergard's article on Afroasiatic in the
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages). It
is possible to see that this is the Proto-Semitic root because the
Aramaic reflex of this root has an Ayin. The first thing suggested
by all the above is that the two phonemes still existed as very
close phonetically in the Judaean tongue of the locals and the
exiles around the Persian period. Furthermore, this also
suggests, I think, that the Babylonian influenced exiles could
not identify the original Judaean sin from the Judaean sade-ayin.
So that what we have is a sort of reverse Shibboleth story: The
exiles couldn't tell the original phonemes apart and this created
a situation where the title of the Judaeans in the original phonemic
inventory of Hebrew simply gave itself too easily to mockery in the
exilic pronunciation of Hebrew. (Something along the lines of the
exiles saying: "Ha ha, these people don't know Judaean/Hebrew.
They are calling themselves the enemies of Judah! What Judaean
speaker would say that? This must be some Ashdodite or some
other foreign language!")
One such shift that can be suggested is that under Babylonian
influence, the sin became "s" (which may or may not have included
a merger with Samekh) and also this particular Sade/Ayin phoneme
merged with the corresponding affricate (as is noted in
Huehnergard's article happened in Akkadian too). When the local
Judaeans spoke, the emphatic lateral continuant (Sin), voiced
lateral continuant (Sade/Ayin), and the emphatic affricate all
sounded too similar for the exiled Judaeans to tell apart.
, [], Re: Ezra 4:1 and Ancient Hebrew "Dad phoneme"
Vertaling Bijbel, Kanttekeningen SV, [], Toen nu de [1]wederpartijders van Juda en Benjamin hoorden, dat de kinderen der [2]gevangenis den HEERE, den God Israels, den tempel bouwden; 1. Zie van dezen vs.7,8,9. 2. Hebreeuws, vervaring, of, vervoering, wegvoering, ballingschap; dat is, die weggevoerd en gevangen geweest waren in Babel; alzo dikwijls in het volgende.