§ 7. The Vowels in General, Vowel Letters and Vowel Signs.
In Arabic writing there are vowel signs only for a, i, u; the combined sounds ay and aw are therefore retained uncontracted and pronounced as diphthongs (ai and au), e. g.jAv Arab.sautÌ , and~yIn:òy[e Arab. ‘ainain. It was only in later Arabic that they became in pronunciationeÖ andoÖ , at least after weaker or softer consonants; cf.!yBe Arab. bain,beÖn ,~Ay Arab. yaum,yoÖm. The same contraction appears also in other languages, e. g. in Greek and Latin (qau/ma( Ionicqw/ma ; plaustrum = plostrum), in the French pronunciation of ai and au, and likewise in the German popular dialects (Oge for Auge, &c.). Similarly, the obscuring of the vowels plays a part in various languages (cf. e. g. the a in modern Persian, Swedish, English, &c.).2
(a) The need of a written indication of the vowel first made itself felt in cases where, after the rejection of a consonant, or of an entire syllable, a long vowel formed the final sound of the word. The first step in such a case was to retain the original final consonant, at least as a vowel letter, i. e. merely as an indication of a final vowel. In point of fact we find even in the Old Testament, as already in the
According to § 91 b and d, the suffix of the 3rd sing. masc. in the noun (as in the verb) was originally pronounced c
Wh . But in the places where thisWh with a preceding a is contracted intooÖ (after the rejection of theh ), we find theh still frequently retained as a vowel letter, e. g.hroy[ià htoWs Gn 49:11, cf. § 91 e; so throughout theMeÖsëaÇ inscriptionhcor>a;à htoyBe (alsohtoBe ),hnOB.à hBoà hl{à hmox]T;l.hi ; on the other hand already in the Siloam inscriptionA[re .5hmy MeÖsëaÇ , 1.8 =wym'y" his days is unusual, as alsohXr . 1. 20 if it is forwyXar his chiefs. The verbal forms withh suffixed are to be readhupel.x.Y:w: (l. 6),hubex's.a,w)' (l. 12 f.) andhuver>g)'y>w: (l. 19).
As an example of the original consonant being retained, we might also include the d
y of the constr. state plur. masc. if itseÖ (according to § 89 d) is contracted from an original ay. Against this, however, it may be urged that the Phoenician inscriptions do not usually express thiseÖ , nor any other final vowel.6
The orthography of the Siloam inscription corresponds almost exactly with the above assumptions. Here (as in the f
MeÖsëaÇ inscr,) we find all the long vowels, which, have not arisen from original diphthongs, without vowel letters, thusvaià ~bic.xoà !miymi (or!miY"mi );tMoa;à lqoà vlv.à rcu . On the other handac'Am (frommausÌa ),dA[ (from ‘aud);!mym also, if it is to be read!miymi , is an instance of the retention of ay which has coalesced with i intoiÖ . Instances of the retention of an originally consonentala as a vowel letter are~yIt;ñam'à ac'Am , andar'q' , as alsovaor . Otherwise finalaÒ is always represented byh hM'a;à hy"h'à hdzà hbqn . To this~yO alone would form an exception (cf. however the note on~Ay , § 96), instead of~Ay (Arab. yaum) day, which one would expect. If the reading be correct, this is to be regarded as an argument that a consciousness of the origin of many long vowels was lost at an early period, so that (at least in the middle of the word) the vowel letters were omitted in places where they should stand, according to what has been stated above, and added where there was no case of contraction. This view is in a great measure confirmed by the orthography of theMeÖsëaÇ inscription. There we find, as might be expected,!byd (=DaiboÒn , as theDaibw,n of the LXX proves),!n"roAx (oÖ from au), andhtoyBe (eÖ from ai), but also evenynI[;vih 7 instead ofynI[;viAh (fromhausë ),bXaw =byviAaw"à tBe four times,htoBe once, fortyBe andhtoyBe (from bait);hll =hl'y>l.; !a =!yIa;ñ or!yae .
See Gesenius, Gesch. d. hebr. Spr., p. 182 ff.; Hupfeld, in Theol. Studien u. Kritiken, 1830, pt. iii, who shows that neither Jerome nor the Talmud mentions vowel signs; Berliner, Beiträge zur hebr. Gramm. im Talm. u. Midrasch, p. 26 ff.; and B. Pick, in Hebraica, i. 3, p. 153 ff.; Abr. Geiger, 'Zur Nakdanim [Punctuators-]Literatur,' in Jüd. Ztschr. für Wissensch. u. Leben, x. Breslau, 1872, p. 10 ff.; H. Strack, Prolegomena critica in Vet. Test. Hebr., Lips. 1873; 'Beitrag zur Gesch. des hebr. Bibeltextes,' in Theol. Stud. u. Krit., 1875, p. 736 ff., as also in the Ztschr. f. die ges. luth. Theol. u. K., 1875, p. 619 ff.; 'Massorah,' in the Protest. Real.-Enc.3, xii. 393 ff. (a good outline); A. Merx, in the Verhandlungen des Orientalistenkongresses zu Berlin, i. Berlin, 1881, p. 164 ff. and p. 188 ff.; H. Graetz, 'Die Anfänge der Vokalzeichen im Hebr.,' in Monatsschr. f. Gesch. u. Wissensch. d. Judenth., 1881, pp. 348 ff. and 395 ff.; Hersmann, Zur Gesch. des Streites über die Entstehung der hebr. Punktation, Ruhrort, 1885; Harris, 'The Rise … of the Massorah,' JQR. i. 1889, p. 128 ff, and p. 223 ff.; Mayer-Lambert, REJ. xxvi. 1893, p. 274 ff.; J. Bachrach, Das Alter d. bibl. Vocalisation u. Accentuation, 2 pts. Warsaw, 1897, and esp. Ginsburg, Introd. (see § 3 c), p. 287 ff.; Budde, 'Zur Gesch. d. Tiberiens. Vokalisation,' in Orient. Studien zu Ehren Th. Nöldekes, i. 1906, 651 ff.; Bachrach, 'Diakrit. Zeichen in vormasoret. Zeit,' in ZAW. 1907, p. 285; C. Levias, art. 'Vocalization,' in the Jewish Encycl, — On the hypothesis of the origin of punctuation in the Jewish schools for children, cf. J. Derenbourg in the Rev. Crit., xiii. 1879, no. 25.
Footnotes:
1[1] In proper names the LXX often use the diphthongs