User:Sartma/Sandbox

Arabic transliterations

• فَعَّال (faʕʕāl)
• فَعَّال (faʕʕāl)

Classical Greek with macrons

• U+FE25 = ἅ︥ ἵ︥ ὕ︥
• U+FE24 = ἅ︤ ἵ︤ ὕ︤
• U+0304 = ἅ̄ ἵ̄ ὕ̄
• ᾱ ῑ ῡ + ◌̔ + ◌́ = ᾱ̔́ ῑ̔́ ῡ̔́

• ᾱ̓́ ῡ̔́ ῡ̓́ Ᾱ̓́ Ῑ̔́

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עָפָר ʿāp̄ārʿāp̄ār afárafár

Coloured vowels

• אאִ
• אלהיםאֱלֹהִים

• עעָ

• (ִ◌ַ)

MH & BH

עָפָר (ʿāp̄ār - afár)

אֱלֹהִים (BH ʾε̆lohí^ym, MH elohím)

אֱלֹהִים (elohím, Biblical: ʾε̆lohīm)

• mǽlæḵ, məlåḵím
• mɛ́lɛḵ, məlɔḵím
• mä́läḵ, məlāḵím

Sumerian

𒆠𒌓𒁀 (⟨ki-ud-ba⟩ ki'udbâ)

𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 (⟨ka₂ dig̃ir-ra^ki⟩ kan dig̃irak, literally “gate of god”).

𒉣𒆠 (⟨NUN^ki, eridu^ki, eridug^ki⟩ Eridug, “Eridu”).

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𒆠⫽𒉘 (ki ag̃₂ /⁠ki ag̃⁠/)

𒁺 • ⟨du⟩ du (imperfective singular 𒁺 (⟨du⟩ du), perfective singular 𒁺 (⟨g̃en⟩ g̃en), imperfective plural 𒁻 (⟨su₈, sub₂⟩) sub, perfective plural 𒁻 (⟨re₇, ere×(DU.DU), er⟩ ere), present participle 𒁲 (⟨di⟩ di), imperative 𒂷 (⟨g̃e₂₆, g̃en⟩ g̃en))

Normalization

ᛋᛡᛏᛖ (sAte sattē)

All the reason why we should separate Neo-Hebrew from Biblical Hebrew (and all other historical forms)

We talked about this in different occasions before, but I'd like to start afresh here.

I've now started to learn Neo-Hebrew and even more than before I’m convinced that keeping the two languages together doesn’t make any sense. From previous discussions I know that Neo-Hebrew editors (which pretty much is all current Hebrew editors) don't agree on the basis that "every historical Hebrew word can potentially be used in Neo-Hebrew". I do understand that, and it's all good and well for Neo-Hebrew, but the opposite is never true. Biblical Hebrew (and all other historical forms of the language) don't include Neo-Hebrew: their orthography, phonology, lexicon, grammar and parts of speech can all be different.

We should also consider the fact that user studying Hebrew are, for the vast majority, separated in two groups: those who are mainly interested in Neo-Hebrew and those who are mainly interested in Biblical Hebrew. All textbooks and grammars are clearly divided in teaching either Neo-Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew, and the same division is found when it comes to dictionaries. At the moment Wiktionary is exclusively catering to Neo-Hebrew learners, but not to Biblical Hebrew ones, who will constantly have to navigate through Neo-Hebrew meanings and spellings, something they never have to deal with when using a Biblical Hebrew dictionary or would ever find in their Biblical Hebrew textbooks and grammars.

So here are, in detail, all the reasons why we should separate Neo-Hebrew from Biblical Hebrew and all its historical forms.

Phonology

Neo-Hebrew phonology is completely different from Biblical Hebrew.

1. Neo-Hebrew merged many consonantal and vocalic sounds that in BH were not the same. A couple of examples will suffice to show this:
   • NH מֶלֶךְ (mélekh) = סֵפֶר (séfer), but BH מֶלֶךְ (mɛ́lɛḵ) ≠ סֵפֶר (sép̄ɛr)
   • NH קוֹל (kól) = כֹּל (kól), but BH קוֹל (qól) ≠ כֹּל (kól)
   • NH טָעִים (ta∅ím) = תָּאִים (ta∅ím)}, but BH טָעִים (ṭɔʕím) ≠ תָּאִים (tɔʔím)
   • NH אַתָּה (atá) = עַתָּה (atá), but BH אַתָּה (ʔattɔ́) = עַתָּה (ʕattɔ́)

   etc.

2. Sound mergers forced other sound changes in MH:
   • BH אֲלֵיכֶם (ʔăleḵɛ́m, “to you”) and עֲלֵיכֶם (ʕăleḵɛ́m, “on you”) would sound the same in NH, which merged /ʔ/ and /ʕ/, but to avoid confusion the current pronunciation of the first has changed to אֲלֵיכֶם (elekhém).

Both romanizations should be given in words that exist in BH as in NH, but we saw how difficult and messy it would look now that NH and BH are treated as the same language. With BH separated from NH we would be able to give each its own Romanization in a clean and friendly way.

Orthography

1. The systematic difference between plene/defective spellings only exists in Neo-Hebrew.
   • The vast majority of Neo-Hebrew “Alternative spellings” do not exist in Biblical Hebrew. If someone wanted to know what spellings are actually attested in the Bible and/or other classical texts, at the moment they wouldn’t be able to.
   • Some NH spellings are etymologically wrong, like חוכמה and all words with kamats katan spelt with a ו.
   • BH learners would have to deal with constantly being redirected to entries with NH spellings (I’m talking from experience here: the frustration of being constantly redirected to other pages for no reason at all is real).
2. Differences in the use of diacritics to show the accent
   • Neo-Hebrew language materials prefer using the meteg to show the accent when non-final.
   • Biblical Hebrew materials consistently use the ole to show the accent and the meteg to indicate that the syllable is open (in those cases when it otherwise would be understood as closed).
   • Those two uses of the meteg are not compatible. While it is true that at the moment we don’t generally use these signs to show the accent on headwords, we might want to do so when we implement the automatic transliteration module some of us have been working for years now. Having NH and BH as two different languages would help immensely with implementing the module.

Lexicon

Biblical Hebrew as a corupus of 8,198 attested words, of which 2.000 hapax legomena which meaning is often unclear/impossible to determine with certainty. Modern Hebrew has more than 60,000 words, all with clear definitions.

Neo-Hebrew new meanings

Biblical Hebrew words often don't have the same meanings as Neo-Hebrew words. People exclusively interested in the classical language find a lot of "noise" in current Hebrew entries. There are hundreds examples of this, here are a couple:

• רָצָה (rɔṣɔ́) means "to be pleased with, to accept favourably", not "to want" (NH).
• מִיץ (míṣ) means "squeezing", not "juice" (NH).
• צָב (ṣɔ́ḇ) is an unidentified kind of lizard, a hapax legomenon in the Bible, and it doesn't mean "turtle" (NH).
• בָּנִים (bɔním) means "children (of mixed or unknown sex)", not "boys" (NH).
• פֵּאָה (peʔɔ́) means "edge, end; corner; side; sidelock", not "wig", "side face (in geometry)" (NH), from which פֵּאוֹן (pe'ón, “polyhedron”) is derived, and which only exists in NH.
• סִפְרָה (sip̄rɔ́) means "book", not "digit, figure" (NH).
• רֵיקוּת (reqúṯ) means "emptiness", not "vanity".

etc.

There are thousands of words with exclusively new Neo-Hebrew meanings, just open the [Klein] and look for "NH", you'll find many in each page.

Different word usage: frequency and registers

Neo-Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew have many differences in word usage:

• כְּמוֹ (kə̆mó) is "poetic" in BH, corresponding to כְּ־ (kə̆-), used in prose. Neo-Hebrew generalised the use of כְּמוֹ (k'mó), and כְּ־ (k-) is virtually unused.

Grammar

There is quite a number of grammatical (morphological and syntactical) differences between Biblical Hebrew and Neo-Hebrew. Here are some examples:

1. BH was a VSO language, MH is as SVO language.
2. They have fundamentally different verbal systems: BH's system is based on aspect, where perfect and imperfect forms can either be used for past, present and future, while MH has a "European" tense system of past (BH's perfect), present (BH's participle) and future (BH's imperfect).
3. Verbal forms have different names, so MH inflection tables makes no sense for BH. For instance:
   • MH past/present/future correspond to BH perfect/active participle/imperfect.
   • MH present and past participles correspond to BH active and ppassive participles.
4. BH has verbal forms non existent in MH:
   • waw-consecutive forms
   • cohortative
   • jussive
   • apocopated imperfect forms. E.g: יִהְיֶה (yihyɛ́) becomes יְהִי (yə̆hí)
5. BH has a system of pronominal suffixes attached to nouns and verbs that are not used in BH:
   • BH בֵּיתִי לָבָן (beṯí lɔḇɔ́n) vs MH הבית שלי לבן (ha-báyt shelí labán, “my house is white”)
   • BH נְתַתִּיהוּ (nə̆ṯattíhu) vs MH נתתי את זה (natáti et zé, “I gave it”)
6. BH has pausal forms, MH doesn't.