Hebrew=Aramaic?

B. Ward Powers bwpowers at optusnet.com.au
Thu Aug 29 23:41:26 EDT 2002


At 08:28 AM 020829 -0700, Richard A. Stauch wrote:
>Hi Trevor,
>
>Your post raised one quick question in my mind, on pronunciation. The
>Zeta in BHQZAQA: my understanding is that a non-beginning Zeta is
>pronounced "d-z", but I am having a hard time doing that. Should I keep
>trying, or does it really matter?
>
>Thanks,
>Richard Allan Stauch
>Long Beach, CA


There is a very real practical advantage in pronouncing Zeta as "d-z", and 
teaching one's students to do the same: it is a constant reminder that it 
actually is a "double letter" like Psi and Xi, and behaves as does a double 
letter.

For example when Zeta is initial in a verb, that word follows the rules for 
the formation of the perfect tense forms, taking prefix Epsilon only, not 
reduplication, as ZHTEW has perfect EZHTHKA, like YHFIZW has perfect EYHFIKA .

Moreover, there are times when Zeta transliterates "Z" (as in "Nazareth"), 
times when Zeta behaves like a sibilant (thus all NT words with stems 
ending in Zeta [GAZA, RhIZA, TRAPEZA, and CALAZA] follow the First 
Declension sibilant pattern, and decline like DOXA), and times when Zeta 
behaves like a dental (thus all verbs ending in Zeta like SWiZW and DOXAZW 
- and there are 206 of them in the NT - follow the "Dental drop-out" Rule 
that the Zeta drops out when adding a suffix beginning with a consonant, as 
in ESWSA, EDOXASA etc.).

Thus in my Grammar I teach readers to pronounce Zeta as the double sound 
"d-z", and in my classes my students pronounce it as "d-z" (yes, even at 
the beginning of words - it is no problem) and thus everyone is always 
reminded, even by the effort to do this, that here we have a double phoneme 
which behaves as a double letter, a sibilant, and a dental in function in 
the language.

Recommended to everyone.

Regards,

Ward


                                http://www.netspace.net.au/~bwpowers
Rev Dr B. Ward Powers        Phone (International): 61-2-8714-7255
259A Trafalgar Street          Phone (Australia): (02) 8714-7255
PETERSHAM  NSW  2049      email: bwpowers at optusnet.com.au
AUSTRALIA.                         Director, Tyndale College




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