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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