Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

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Stephen Hughes
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Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Working on from the basis that one of the characteristics of the "Biblical" Greek that we are discussing and working towards understanding is that there is a relationship with or influence from Late Hebrew, I would like to know if there has been any research done on how that has influenced Greek spelling?

From what I can see in the printed edition that I use, the spelling of Greek is standardised and "good". Is there manuscript evidence that suggests that first language Hebrew speakers were using the schewa sound for vowels in some places, and then confusing the spelling because of that?

My suspicion is that people whose native language was Hebrew may have superimposed their native vowel system onto the Greek. In Modern Greek, the individual vowels are much more disctinct than the the unstressed vowels are in for example a lanuage like English.

[The assumption - right or wrong - that I am making is that the vocal system of Late Hebrew is more or less the same as it is for the very basic Biblical Hebrew that we learn in Bible Colleges and Seminaries.]
[In Biblical Hebrew, 3 Hebrew vowels - patakh, segol, qametz are written and pronounced as the sh'va in some circumstances - the names of the modified vowels are khataf patakh, khataf segol and khataf qametz]
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

Post by RandallButh »

You needn't worry too much about khataf vowels.
First, such half-vowels are sub-phonemic, that is, they did not affect meaning but were part of a later writing system that tried to record little, extra perceptions in sound.
Second, the system of Hebrew vowels was written close to a millenium later than the GNT.
Third, most of the vowel spelling inconsistencies in Greek are part of a large internal process within Greek and documented in stone and papyrus throughout the history of the language.
Fourth, where we have the kind of influence that you might be looking for is in the phenomenon of Greek loanwords within Hebrew. From after Alexander the Greek up through the Islamic period Hebrew absorbed and recorded thousands of words from Greek and Latin. They were written in rabbinic literature in Hebrew script, but without vowels. As far as I'm aware, they did not usually reenter Greek in altered form. Greek maintained itself on its own terms.
Fifth, (combingin 3 and 4), Modern Greek developments like ὑπάγω becoming πάω "i am walking/going" can be accounted for as natural processes internal to Greek, without "Hebrew spelling" (Hebrew didn't drop a gimel/gamma).
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

RandallButh wrote:You needn't worry too much about khataf vowels.
How many vowels are there in the late Hebrew vocalic system then? Would the six (or five) vowel system that has been put forward for Koine Greeek seem foreign (or similar) to a Hebrew speaker?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

Post by RandallButh »

[quote=]"Stephen Hughes"
How many vowels are there in the late Hebrew vocalic system then? Would the six (or five) vowel system that has been put forward for Koine Greeek seem foreign (or similar) to a Hebrew speaker?[/quote]

Late first millenial Hebrew had two major vowel systems. One of them was a 7-8 vowel system, distinct from Greek, but one of them was a five-vowel system that would have meshed quite well with the five-vowel Byzantine Greek system. It is the five-vowel Hebrew system that is at the base of modern Hebrew.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

RandallButh wrote:Late first millenial Hebrew had two major vowel systems. ... one of them was a five-vowel system that would have meshed quite well with the five-vowel Byzantine Greek system. It is the five-vowel Hebrew system that is at the base of modern Hebrew.
Was that reduction in the number of vowels a development within Hebrew itself or an influence from another language, perhaps Greek? Did Koine Greek have a direct influence on the languages that it co-existed with?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

Post by RandallButh »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
RandallButh wrote:Late first millenial Hebrew had two major vowel systems. ... one of them was a five-vowel system that would have meshed quite well with the five-vowel Byzantine Greek system. It is the five-vowel Hebrew system that is at the base of modern Hebrew.
Was that reduction in the number of vowels a development within Hebrew itself or an influence from another language, perhaps Greek? Did Koine Greek have a direct influence on the languages that it co-existed with?
It wasn't a reduction of vowels. the five-vowel system in Hebrew is quite ancient and preceded the 7-8 vowel system.

As for influence of Greek on Hebrew, yes there was considerable influence following Alexander the Great. For example, Mishnaic Hebrew became more sensitive to ASPECT because of Greek. (Sort of reverses the narrative most students are taught in seminaries.) Aspect was difficult for the older Hebrew to differentiate so mishnaic Hebrew increased the composite use of 'be' + participle. This is especially noticeable in imperatives "be doing". The same was true of 'time', too. It became more precisely defined along with aspect, and probably solidified because of Greek.
In terms of phonology, there were some speakers of Hebrew who mixed up 'sh' and 's' as well as the pharyngeal sounds. This was presumably influenced from having Greek as a first language (aristocracy? Also, rabbis had to study Greek under Gamliel so that they could responsibly interact with the government). But none of this relates to 'half-vowels.'
Stephen Hughes
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Interaction of ASPECT and periphrasis between Hebrew and Gre

Post by Stephen Hughes »

RandallButh wrote:But none of this relates to 'half-vowels.'
Half vowels are, now I see, just a point along the path that I had originally thought was a path worth walking on themselves
RandallButh wrote:Aspect was difficult for the older Hebrew to differentiate so mishnaic Hebrew increased the composite use of 'be' + participle. This is especially noticeable in imperatives "be doing".
.
Did the introduction of that modification of the Hebrew tense system occur under the influence of periphrastic tenses in Greek or is it an organic development in Hebrew?
Did the use of the "be + participle" tense in Mishnaic Hebrew affect the "use" (in our terms "interpretation") of periphrastic forms in the GNT?
RandallButh wrote:It wasn't a reduction of vowels. the five-vowel system in Hebrew is quite ancient and preceded the 7-8 vowel system.
Is that in the time of interaction with Koine?
RandallButh wrote:Mishnaic Hebrew became more sensitive to ASPECT because of Greek. (Sort of reverses the narrative most students are taught in seminaries.) Aspect was difficult for the older Hebrew to differentiate
:shock: :roll: :?:
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

Post by RandallButh »

The Hebrew five-vowel system preceded contact with or existence of Koine.

It was not the Greek periphrastic tenses that was crucial but the Greek distinction between things like an imperfective infinitive (aka 'present') versus a perfective infinitive (aka 'aorist'), an imperfective imperative versus a perfective imperative. A Hebrew speaker could not become fluent in Greek without become more sensitive to aspect because of the need to choose aspectual distinctions in places where no such distinction existed in Hebrew.
Stephen Hughes
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Time and aspect together - pluperfect

Post by Stephen Hughes »

RandallButh wrote:Aspect was difficult for the older Hebrew to differentiate so mishnaic Hebrew increased the composite use of 'be' + participle. This is especially noticeable in imperatives "be doing". The same was true of 'time', too.
Was there an innovation in the Hebrew verbal system to accomodate the idea of combining aspect and time? Such as the pluperfect?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Have the khataf vowels affected Greek spelling?

Post by RandallButh »

if I understand your question correctly, things were the other way around. Time and aspect were imprecisely combined before contact with Greek and the development of more consistency in mishnaic Hebrew.

And there was no separate pluperfect.
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