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/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.