k and q

[Yoel L. Arbeitman]

Dear Peter,

	There is a name miscalling involved and a prime point missed:
(1) I am Yoel, the Hebrew name that comes into English as Joel, but I am
not Joel. Joel Arbeitman is a cousin of mine, I believe. You'll find him
elsewhere on the WWW.

(2) What is said about Modern Hebrew is largely true. But the pattern of
transliterating alien <k>, <t>, goes back to early Post-Biblical Hebrew
times when the spirantization for b,g.d, k, p, t post vocalic rule was
flourishing. It was likely not flouring or existant at the time that
Anatolian <kupahi> entered Biblical Hebrew (via the Philistines is one main
theory). Modern Hebrew writes both emphatic k. and emphatic t. (there is no
emphatic *p.) for alien /k/, /t/ and such., while reserving t for
transcribing Gk. theta, k for Greek khi. I do not really see that your
exposition of PBH clarifies or in any way diminishes Sapir's magisterial
demonstration. BTW, k. is also transliterated often as q. t., on the other
hand, has no such luxury in the Greco-Latin-English alphabet. And b, g, and
d in Hebrew have no emphatic counterparts (d. does in other Semitic
languages). The Hebrew transliteration of the -h- in Hittite (Anatolian)
kupahi as an ayin confirms the pronunciation of this singularly written
intervocalic laryngeal as a voiced velar laryngeal as at this early period
Hebrew ayin represented both phonemes ayin and ghain.
Yoel

At 06:34 PM 3/14/99 -0000, you wrote:

>Joel draws phonetic conclusions from the representation of Hittite /k/ in
>Biblical Hebrew as <k> or <q>.

>Modern Hebrew routinely represents English /k/ as <q> even though it is
>phonetically closer to Hebrew /k/.   The reason is morphophonemic, not
>phonetic.  The written <k> is subject to fricativisation in certain
>conditions, whereas the written <q> is not.   Writing the loan sound as <q>
>prevents inappropriate fricativisation.   This indicates that the logic
>behind Joel's argument may not necessarily follow.

>Peter