Hmmm ... rhotic and non-rhotic.
Fascinating stuff, Leo.
Reminds me of Tyler Perry's Ma Dear and the way she pronounces Hallelujah - Halleluyer!
LOL
Sylvia
Accents and Dialects
by snowbird 27 Replies latest jw friends
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Leolaia
The shibbolet story is continually debated by linguists and biblical scholars and there is no perfect explanation of the Ephraimite pronunciation of "shibbolet". The most important fact is that there are two separate words spelled shibbolet in Hebrew, one meaning "ear of grain" and one meaning "watercourse". The latter is the one relevant to the story itself (which involves crossing the river Jordan), but the more common word is the first one which retains the Proto-Semitic *sh (cf. Akkadian shubultu, Ugaritic shblt, Aramaic shubbalta', Arabic sabalatun). The word meaning "watercourse" is actually quite obscure and there are no direct cognates. The homophones may be explained if there was a merger between originally distinct phonemes. Since it could not have been *sh, one leading theory is that the original Proto-Semitic consonant in the word meaning "watercourse" is *th. This sound remained with the pronunciation of "th" in Ugaritic (compare the goddess "Athirat" in Ugaritic which is equivalent to "Asherah" in Hebrew) but it eventually merged with "sh" in Hebrew and "s" in Arabic. The theory is that in Transjordanian Hebrew, *th remained contrastive until quite late and thus there were two distinct words shibbolet "ear of grain" and thibbolet "watercourse" (spelled with the shin in Hebrew, as there was no separate letter for this sound), whereas Cisjordanian Hebrews only had the word shibbolet "ear of grain". They could say shibbolet just fine (as they had a word with exactly this pronunciation), but that is not what they heard the Transjordanians saying. They heard something different (thibbolet) and tried their best to pronounce a sound that did not occur in their dialect. So they said "sibbolet" as an approximation of "thibbolet", just as a German might be stereotyped as saying "think" as "sink". Whereas if they only had said shibbolet according to their normal pronunciation (i.e. the word for "ear of grain"), the Transjordanians might well have not heard any difference.
That's at least one explanation. The main problem is that there is no ancient attestation of a root thblt meaning "watercourse", demonstrating *th as the original sound, or direct evidence that the Gileadites retained *th longer than other speakers of Hebrew.
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wobble
"And Lo the men of Gilead heard the Epraimites talking sit, and so they smote them with a great smoting" the book of Hezekiah 8v33
Love
Wobble
(I always like to add to a scholarly thread !) Tee hee
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snowbird
Wobble!
Transjordan - the other side of the Jordan - Reuben, Gad, and 1/2 tribe of Manasseh.
Cisjordan - this side of the Jordan - 9 other tribes and the 1/2 tribe of Ephraim.
No wonder they talked differently!
Sylvia
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megaflower
Does having a new england accent count(boston) It friday and time to have a bear(BEER OF COURSE)
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snowbird
After you have that bear, please don't drive your cah!
Sylvia
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kurtbethel
For some unfathomable reason, some broadcasters in SoCal do not handle 'b' and 'p' very well, and would say something that sounds like 'botato' to describe a spud. It sounds very lazy and unprofessional.
One thing I have heard my mother and my aunt say,is that they do not 'wash' something. They 'worsh' it. That sounds so hick! I used it as leverage when my mom would get after me for saying 'ain't' by insisting it is not a word. I would challenge her to find 'worsh' in the dictionary, then chide her for hypocrisy at insisting I refrain from using non words. I admit I was a real pain in the keester to have as a son, but on alternate days I was an adorable treasure.
The matter of misplaced 'r's is best left in the hands of Jehover.
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snowbird
The matter of misplaced 'r's is best left in the hands of Jehover.
LOL.
I remember one elder who pronounced it exactly that way!
Also one dear departed sister who pronounced flesh - flush. Drove me crazy.
Sylvia
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snowbird
How do y'all pronounce Thames?
Sylvia
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Gregor
How can you pronounce anything with a mouth full of head cheese?
"mmmf...I doan wub Dee Dee Kai....gug.."