<div dir="ltr">On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 1:58 PM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:HayyimObadyah@aol.com" target="_blank">HayyimObadyah@aol.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>
RE: Even the Niqqud of Tanach was not settled until the Masoretes circa 700 CE<br>
<br>
This is correct if "settled" means authoritatively documented, put into
writing and accepted by the community. I think there's often confusion when
people talk about "<i>niqqud</i>" as to whether they are talking about the vowel sounds or the vowel points. The scholarly consensus is that the Masoreteso documented a living reading tradition....</div></blockquote>
</div><div><div class="im"><div><br>On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 07:17:00PM +0000, R. Rich Wolpoe wrote:<br><blockquote style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote">(where <i>patach </i>and <i>segol </i>are one vowel, but while <i>sheva na </i>is a vowel, <i>sheva nach </i>isn't written at all.)<br>
</blockquote></blockquote><div> </div><blockquote style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote">Indeed there are differing techniques WRT <i>hataf patach </i>vs. <i>Sh'va na </i>with Heidenheim on one extreme, GRA and R M Breuer on the other, and EG Koren in the middle somewhere.<br>
</blockquote><br></div>I'm talking about various schools of Baalei Mesorah: Bavel vs Teveriah is a whole different kind of extreme than the variations among <i>acharonim</i>.<br><br>RHO and my emails crossed paths, I didn't see his before hitting "send" on my prior email. Besides, there are things in it I could have phrased more clearly.<br>
<br>1- There were multiple accents in the days of the Masoretes. As in any other time in Jewish History. (E.g. we know <i>shevet Ephraim</i> had the same sound for <i>shin</i> as they and most other <i>shevatim </i>has for <i>sin</i>.<br>
<br>2- There were and are many more vowel sounds than vowels. (For those who know even less about this stuff than I do: The finest grain division is the allophone, e.g. the difference between the /p/ in "spin" and the "p" in "pin". Multiple allophones that all share the same linguistic role can be one phoneme. Often the speakers of a language lose the ability to notice the difference between two allophones that are the same phoneme. Such as the two /p/ I just spoke of -- which are obviously different to Mandarin speakers. Much like I was saying about Israelis, <i>chiriq</i>, and the sophomoric "sheet of paper".<br>
<br>But it's worse than that -- a single letter can represent multiple phonemes, too. Qamatz qatan and qamatz gadol. The "a" in each of hat, hate, hard....<br><br>
So, they not only created vowel signs, they divided a continuum into discrete values.<br> <br>So here you have the Mesoretes, taking a see of different allophones, and needing to divide them into phonemes and then into vowel marks. We might all agree what the word "<i>geshem</i>" should sound like, but one person feel that the two sounds are different enough to play different roles linguistically and should be written differently, and another can't notice the difference. As I noted, the Bavliim didn't think <i>patach </i>vs <i>segol </i>were different vowels. (And in fact Rashi calls the latter a "<i>patach qatan</i>"!) And (back to #1) all our various <i>eidos </i>do NOT agree on what "<i>geshem</i>" should sound like.<br>
<br></div>I am reminded also of the Bach (and explicitly rejected by the Magein Avraham), who seems to say that the Yekkes in his day pronounced the <i>patach </i>of<i> </i><i>sheim Adnus</i> as "<i>notah letzeirei</i>". A <i>patach</i>-colored-by-<i>tzeirei </i>sound which would have to share a symbol with a regular <i>patach</i>. (BTW, the MB is clear that it is a <i>chataf patach</i>, and not be said like a <i>patach</i>.) A strange sound in the space of vowel sounds used in Hebrew which wouldn't fit any of the discrete values well.<br>
<br></div></div><div class="im"><div><div dir="ltr"><i style="color:rgb(0,0,153)">Shetir'u Batov</i><span style="color:rgb(0,0,153)">!</span><br style="color:rgb(0,0,153)"><b style="color:rgb(0,0,153)"><span style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif">-Micha</span></b><br>
<br><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace">--</span><br style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace">Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward</span><br style="font-family:courier new,monospace">
<span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><a href="mailto:micha@aishdas.org" target="_blank">micha@aishdas.org</a> by patting yourself on the back.</span><br style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><a href="http://www.aishdas.org" target="_blank">http://www.aishdas.org</a> -Anonymous</span><br>
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