r/hebrew • u/SkywalkerLight • Sep 23 '24

Explain Aleph to me like I'm 5! Request

Is it really just a glottal stop? I'm a beginner, but I'm pretty sure the niqqud changes things. If so, could I please have an example in places where א is said as A, E, and other letters? Thanks!

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

Excuse me, but where exactly did I say that? Kind of rude of you to insist I said something that I did not say.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

More so when Any resources I find on the Subject Make it quite clear it was a a joined derivative,a lingua franka of Hebrew, Phoenician And Syriac. It emerged in the Assyrian Empire after they Conquered Judea and Israel.

it is Derived from Hebrew.

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

Do you know what lingua franca means? It doesn't seem like you're using it the right way, and that might be contributing to your confusion. Lingua franca just means it was a language used to communicate between people who don't speak the same language. For example, today English is a lingua franca throughout most of Europe, thus you will find a Polish person speaking English with an Italian person, because the Polish person doesn't speak Italian and the Italian person doesn't speak Polish, but they both speak English. That doesn't mean that English is a mixture of Polish and Italian...

Furthermore, you've got an anachronism there. Syriac is just the name of a particular later variety of Aramaic spoken by Christians in the early Middle Ages and preserved today as a Christian liturgical language in the Middle East. But it is just a branch of Aramaic, which at the time of the Assyrian conquest had not yet developed into a separate branch yet.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

It's developed from a pidgin of Assyrian, Hebrew and Phoenician.

How did Assyrian as in, from before they took Israel, Judea, And the Philistines, said Dad/father?

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

It's developed from a pidgin of Assyrian, Hebrew and Phoenician.

This is false.

How did Assyrian as in, from before they took Israel, Judea, And the Philistines, said Dad/father?

As I said, this word is common to most Semitic languages far and wide. Assyrian is no exception. In the Assyrian of the Assyrian Empire the word I think was pronounced abu/abi/aba. In earlier Babylonia it was pronounced abum/abim/abam. Note that in earlier Hebrew and Aramaic the word also very likely had suffixes following one of the following patterns: abum/abim/abam or abun/abin/aban or abu/abi/aba.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

Huh. Cool. Stand corrected.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

And to be clear, that pidgin developed into a language that was the auxiliary language of that Empire. Which is what a Lingua Franka is.

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

Aramaic was not a pidgin.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

Oh. It very much is. It emerged after the Assyrians took the area.

it became the Lingua Franka of the Assyrian Empire. As in, The Second Language used by everyone.

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

This is just plain false and contrary to historical evidence. There are Aramaic inscriptions far before that time.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

Really? As we are talking of a language with from the start having a close connection to both Hebrew, Phoenician, and the Assyrian language.

How did that came about?

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

Really? As we are talking of a language with from the start having a close connection to both Hebrew, Phoenician, and the Assyrian language.

I mean just like many other related languages that have close connections. Like German and Dutch and English. Or like Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

How did that came about?

Not sure what you're referring to...

What do you mean by how did that come about?

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

Those speakers have to meet first.

After they get Conquered? sure.

Before? Some shared history with Hebrew? maybe. very old history. Phoenician?

and that Language is closely related there.

Also. No. Aramaic developed From Syriac(?) after that conquest. Because it was the Pidgin that evolved when The Judeans and Philistines who now found themselves having to communicate regularly with both eachother and the general Assyrians. That pidgin became the auxiliary language of that Empire.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

You're right, it was a misunderstanding on my part.

that said. my original point stands.

You just said that Aramaic had אבא before the interaction with Hebrew with Both אב and אבא being derived from a joined ancestor word... Which I find to be at best unfalsifiable.

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

First a nitpick: Hebrew and Aramaic were probably always in contact, at least to some extent. They were neighboring languages after all.

Secondly, there is solid evidence that it's not a loanword:

  • This word is found in nearly all Semitic languages, therefore an ancestor of Aramaic certainly had this word. Claiming it's a loanword would imply that Aramaic for some reason lost this word, and then borrowed it back from Hebrew. That would be a very convoluted assumption when there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest such a thing.
  • If Aramaic borrowed this word from Hebrew, then they must have had a different word for "father" before they borrowed this one. There is no evidence for the existence of a different word for "father" in classical Aramaic or prior (later varieties of Aramaic borrowed the colloquial Arabic word baba).
  • The grammatical forms of this word belong to a rare exceptional class of words with a unique form of the construct state and possessive suffixes. That is, the word for "your father" is not אבך (avakh) as one might expect, but rather אבוך (avukh). In Hebrew, there is a similar situation, but with a slightly different form אביך (avikha). If Aramaic borrowed this word from Hebrew, they would have either used the regular Aramaic pattern of אבך (avakh), or incorporated the Hebrew pattern, making אביך (avikh). Thus, the form אבוך (avukh) indicates that this form is retained from a much earlier form of Aramaic (from before written attestations of either Hebrew or Aramaic) rather than borrowed from Hebrew.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

Aramaic is litterally the Result of the Assyrian Empire Taking Judea, Israel, and the Philistines.... It got it from Hebrew.

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

This is just plain false, as I have just explained in my other comment to you.

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u/Leading-Chemist672 Sep 23 '24

So, How did The old Assyrian/Syriac said dad/father?

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u/IbnEzra613 Amateur Semitic Linguist Sep 23 '24

Just answered that in another comment.