k and q

[Nicholas Widdows]

<Yoel said:>
We cannot ignore the famed example of Sapir's. Hittite <kupahi> /kubaGi/
(/G/ - voiced pharyngeal, ghain) has a double representation in Biblical
Hebrew: qoba'' ('' = ayin) and koba''. From this Sapir concluded that
whereas Hebrew <k> is aspirated phonetically and Hebrew /q/ is
non-aspirated, but glottalized or pharyngealized (emphatic), the Hittite
<k> which was phonetically [k] i.e. [-aspiration, -emphaticness], could not
adequately be represented by either Hebrew grapheme. So the alternating
writings.
</Yoel>

<Peter replied:>
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>

Not necessarily, but it's pretty good. Modern Hebrew is inapplicable; it has
two phonemes /k/ and /x/; the first is written with qoph or (initial/double)
kaph, the second with heth or (postvocalic) kaph. Modern Hebrew has been
through a European mangle and lost its Semitic phonetics. (I don't know any
Modern Hebrew and maybe non-European Jews did preserve [q], but I believe
I'm describing the standard modern language.)

Biblical Hebrew had /q/ and /h./ and /k/. At the time it was borrowing from
Hittite these would have been like the Arabic. (Okay, the batteries on my
tape-recorder ran out that day.) The three consonants /q/ and /s./ and /t./
(qoph, sadhe, teth) were emphatic and didn't have a voicing contrast.
Whereas /k/ was part of the series /p b t d k g/: and at a much, _much_
later time (Masoretic pointing is about as close to us in time as it was to
the Hittite period) these had fricative allophones (entangled with
morphology but not depending on it), suggesting that at an earlier time the
voiceless members either had aspirated allophones or were aspirated. I don't
know what the evidence is for when the fricatives came in, but my pedantic
old Hebrew teacher saw no good evidence for them in the Biblical language.
The point about Hittite /k/ falling between the available [kh] and [q'] is
reasonable.

Nicholas Widdows
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