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Sound changes in (Proto-) Hebrew
- 1. Sound Changes in (Proto-)Hebrew by Israel “Izzy” Cohen
- 3. Sound Changes These sound changes include: Aleph: CHS/GHT T glottal stop Bet ‒ Mem parallel Heh: DH/TH Vav: PH/F V Zaiyin: S Z and Tzadi: S TZ Het (without a schwa): W X kH Yod: G/K/CR Y Latin I/J & aiyin: G/K/CR gh, /ʕ/ Lamed, Nun & Resh rotate: L N R L Mem – W parallel Shin: D/T SH
- 4. Schwa-less Het = W examples cow (female) ל ָחְּכ udder that gives milk dawn ר ַׁח ַׁש dawn shin < D, resh < N Few, paucity חּותָפ less, minus flower ח ַׁרֶּפ flower resh > L law (Latin lex) ַׁלּוח tablet, הברית לוחות newt ש ָָחנ snake shin < T pewter 85-99% tin פחחות work of tinsmith plow, fellow, fallow ַׁח ֵפל plow; peasant Ps 141:7 There are more examples where het/W is the first letter
- 5. Siblant + Het = SW examples swarthy חֹור ָש black (German schwarz) swat ֶּשחּוט beat flat 1 Kings 10:16-17 sweat י ִח ֶּש armpit (Russian pot/podmuchka) swell(pride) ל ַׁח ַׁש pride of lions Psalms 91:13 swill ה ָי/סּוח ִח ְּס garbage Lament. 3:45 (sui-sui) swipe,swab חֹוב ְּה/ס ָב ָח ְּס pilfer / rag, wiper Proverbs 28:3 swirl ת ֶּרחֹור ַׁח ְּס dizziness, vertigo, swirl swoop ף ַׁח ַׁש seagull (dives to catch a fish)
- 6. Het = X Parallel Sometimes, het arrives in English via both Germanic W and Greek or Latin X. The Ten Commandments = LooXoS haBRiS הברית לוחות tablets of the covenant, in Hebrew. Compare English law and Latin lex. We lay down the law. Germans set down the law (Gesetz), perhaps because those tablets were so heavy
- 7. Aleph: CHS/GHT T glottal stop The aleph had het-like GHT & CHS-sounds. That’s why the Rashi-script aleph looks like a het. You can retain this ancient sound by substituting het-shin .חש חשב produces words that mean to think (in a logical sequence) and count (1, 2, ...), that is, to aleph-bet something. The shape of the aleph began as the head of an ox. Its sound began as CHS / GHT.
- 8. Aleph: CHS/GHT T glottal stop (cont.) The Forget-me-not flower is named for its Hebrew color: ן ָמָרג ַׁא argamon. Moving the aleph with a T sound back to the end of that word produces aRGaMoNoT that became foRGetMeNoT
- 9. Bet – M parallel The bet – M parallel explains cognates such as BaiS 3oLaM ית ֵבם ָעֹול and mausoleum. Mem ‒ W parallel I call this the min-max wane-wax phenomenon. For example, ד ַׁמ MahD = measure + ה ָע ָש SHa3aH = hour (wrist) WaTCH.
- 10. Shin: D/T SH The Rashi-script shin looks like a tet ט turned 90 degrees clockwise. A handwritten shin looks like a closed tet. SHeN ן ֵש = tooth is cognate with Latin dent-. LaSHoN שֹון ָל = tongue is cognate with “Latin,” the tongue of the Romans.
- 11. Aiyin: G/K/CR gh, /ʕ/ The aiyin is often parallel to G via Germanic and a K, hard C or CR via Greek or Latin. Giving the aiyin its G sound, 3aZa ָהז ַׁע = Gaza. With a CR sound, 3oFeL עופל Ophel = CRoPoL, Greek acropolis.
- 12. Zaiyin: S Z and Tzadi: S TZ Both the zaiyin and tzadi seem to be differentiations of an earlier S sound which often did not become modified in cognates. The Greek uppercase sigma looks like a Hebrew script tzadi rotated 180 degrees. The Greek lowercase sigma looks like a closed Hebrew script zaiyin rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
- 13. Lamed, Nun & Resh rotate: L N R L Lamed, nun & resh can rotate across languages. Usually, lamed becomes N, nun becomes R, and resh becomes L. Example: peh-resh-het ח ַׁרֶּפ becomes FLoWer. Rotating twice has the same effect as rotating once in the opposite direction. shin-het-resh ר ַׁח ַׁש becomes DaWN.
- 14. Yod: G/K/CR Y Latin I/J and The yod is also often parallel to G via Germanic, K via Greek, and a hard C or CR via Latin.
- 15. Heh: DH/TH H The ancient heh had a ד+ה DH/TH sound. The definite article is ה in Hebrew but "the" in English and ToRaH ה ָתֹור is cognate with “truth.” ָך ְּת ְָּתֹורות ֶּמֱא And Thy law is truth. Ps. 119:142 Vav: PH/F V The consonantal vav had a PH / F-sound. For example, Greek phasis (phase of the moon) was borrowed into Hebrew as ת ֶֶּּסו VeSeT = menstruation.
- 16. Based on these ancient sounds, Tetragrammaton yod-heh-vav-heh יהוה is equivalent to Gott/CaTH + FaTH, that is a father-god or CReaTor in normal Semitic noun-adjective word order. Compare Latin Ju[t]+PiTer Jupiter, with loss of the t that cannot be pronounced before a P.
Editor's Notes
- The first sound change I discovered was the earlier W-sound for the het (without a schwa). The classic example is חַרְסִינָה for chinaware. The het-resh is from חֶרֶס, clay. When the Romans were in this area, the het had an X = KS sound. My most recent finding is the dalet+heh or TH-sound for the letter heh.
- Het without a schwa usually appears in English as a W by way of the Germanic rune Wynn or ancient Greek digamma. I think the het lost its W sound due to the influence of Greek which had already lost its W sound and had stopped using its 6th letter digamma except for representing the number 6.
- I found 20 siblant + het cognates of English words that begin with an SW-sound. That is 40% of the 50 common English words beginning with a lowercase sw in the paperback American Heritage Dictionary. (I excluded duplicates such as sweetheart and sweet potato.) Most of these words entered English from Scandinavian languages.
- The het-X (KS) parallel is not my invention. Some linguists even use X to represent het because that shape has a current het-like sound in several modern languages. Compare the English and Spanish pronunciations for MeXico.
- The aleph had a northern GHT and a Mediterranean CHS-sound. With a GHT sound, the second word in Tanakh bet-resh-aleph ברא (created) seems cognate with BRouGHT (forth). The aleph often moved from the end to the beginning of Hebrew words, especially nouns. I think this was due to Aramaic influence because Aramaic uses the aleph as a suffix for the definite article.
- "Forget me not" seems to be a weird name for a flower. But its not. Like many flowers it is named for its color … in Hebrew: אַרגָמָן purple, violet, or scarlet. Giving the aleph a T-sound at the end of that word makes it sound very much like “forget me not”. The English name may have been translated from that flower’s name in German, vergessen mich nicht, where the CHS/GHT sound of the aleph was retained.
- The word mausoleum is attributed to King Mausolus. I suspect he adopted that name because he wanted his “house” to rule forever. Another bet-M parallel is BoGeR בּוֹגֵר and (reach) majority. Another mem – W parallel using the same Hebrew word MahD מַד is the word “water” meaning “measure,” as in a diamond of the first water.
- The shin’s ancient dental D/T sound is widely accepted and explains why a Rashi-script shin looks like a tet turned 90 degrees clockwise and why a handwritten shin looks like a closed tet. Pig Latin means “child’s tongue.” The “pig” is from Hebrew peh-gimel PaG פּג which originally meant an unripe fig, but came to mean a child prior to bagrut בגרות reaching majority, and now refers to a premature infant. I suspect Mt. Olympus, a navel of the world, was derived from Greek omphalos by a secret language whose primary rule was the precise opposite of Pig Latin. Perhaps the Greeks did not want to pronounce the actual name of the abode of their gods for the same reason we do not pronounce the name of God.
- Canaan כְּנַעַן has two A’s in English. In Hebrew there is an aiyin between them. Giving that aiyin a G-sound makes Canaan a reversal of Greek gyneco- as in gynecologist. Now you know what body part that was on the map of Aphrodite. Giving the aiyin a K-sound indicates the adopted name of Columbus may have been derived from עוֹלָם meaning the world + הבא the next or forthcoming.. Corvine meaning like a crow or raven is from Latin corvus. That word is parallel to Hebrew עוֹרֵב, a raven.
- The lamed often becomes N. For example, לֹא becomes “no”. The nun often becomes R. For example, nun as a Hebrew suffix is equivalent to –er and –or as an English suffix. The resh often becomes an L as in פֶּרַח becomes FLoWer. Flower was respelled in English from “flor.” Perhaps the respelling modeled the word after peh-resh-het. Sometimes the sound of every consonant in a word has changed. שַׁחַר to DaWN is a good example. אשר @oSHeR (when the aleph was at the end of the word) to DeLiGHT is another.
- The moon is the growing-est object in the sky. Yod-resh-het יָרֵחַ = moon is parallel to Germanic GRoW and Latin crex which metathesized to cresc- from which we get increase, decrease, crescendo (grow louder), crescent (moon-shaped), and croissant (a crescent moon-shaped pastry).
- My first indication that the heh originally had a dalet+heh sound was the place name Bithynia which had to be the thumb of Hermes or the big toe of Loki on a body-part map. When the heh lost its DH or TH-sound, it was often replaced with a dalet. As a result, Hebrew sometimes has a dalet where Greek has a breathing H-sound. For example: Hebrew dalet-mem דָם and Greek αίμα hemo- When het was W and vav was F, the name of Adam’s wife het-vav-heh חַוָה sounded like WiFath or wife. Giving the het its later X=ks sound produces a phonetic similarity to Latin uxor.
- Based on these ancient sounds, the Tetragrammaton yod-heh-vav-heh יהוה is equivalent to Gott/CaTH + FaTH, that is a father-god or CReaTor in normal Semitic noun-adjective word order. Compare Latin Ju[t]+PiTer Jupiter, with loss of the t that cannot be pronounced before a P.