Proto-Austronesian Hebrew/Phonology
Like all the languages fanning out from Taiwan 3000 years ago, an intense flattening of the phonemic landscape slowly decimated PAH. By the time of they were living on Palau, a wide array of simplifications had taken place. Almost all the changes parallel the development of Proto-Austronesian (PAn) > Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP).
History
Paleo-Hebrew
| PH Levantine Vowels | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Near-front | Central | Back | |||||||
| High | i iː | u uː | ||||||||
| High-mid | e | o oː | ||||||||
| Near-low | a aː | |||||||||
| PH Levantine Consonants | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post-A. | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||||||||||
| Stop | unvoiced | p | t | k | ? | |||||||||||
| voiced | b | d | g | |||||||||||||
| ejective | t' | k' | ||||||||||||||
| Fricative | unvoiced | *f | *θ | s | ʃ | *x | χ | ħ | h | |||||||
| voiced | *v | *ð | z | *ɣ | ʁ | ʕ | ||||||||||
| ejective | s' | |||||||||||||||
| lateral | ɬ | |||||||||||||||
| Approximants | w | l | j | |||||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||||
Before being carried off, the Ancient Hebrews of Canaan had a robust and diverse phonology, with nine places and ten manners of articulation. Tiberian Hebrew orthography utilizes 22 consonants with three diacritical marks (the dageš, sin-dot, and šin-dot) to notate 31 sounds, though it is a very recent rediscovery that two letters were homographs.[1]. It is highly unlikely that the begadkefat letters had two sounds until well after 800 B.C.[2] Also, šin and sin should be counted among the begadkefat letters, with /ʃ/ a mere allophone of /ɬ/.
It also seems reasonable to assume that PH had not yet developed the schwa (or other reduced vowels) before leaving the ANE. /e/ would and did function as the epenthetic vowel of choice, before pre and post transport.
Sounds changes
The amalgamated Semitic people who found themselves slaves in Southeast Asia had a phonology that largely overlapped with the surrounding PAn language(s). The sounds which were uniquely Afro-Asiatic seemed to have dropped off very quickly. The fricative “versions” of the stops (which had always been allophone) fell away almost immediately, [3], as did the “emphatic” versions (i.e. /k’/ became /k/ and /t’/ became /t/). PH *ɬ > PAH *ŋ[4]. The addition of the velar nasal may seem strange, especially in the syllable onset, but is entirely predictable given the new surroundings in Southeast Asia and Oceania[5]. The alveolar fricative ejective (Tiberian צ/ṣaḏé) may well have become the alveolar affricative before leaving the Levant. The Phoenician Helenization of ‘ayin into /a/ also seems to have happened before the exodus.
Onset consonant changes
- PH *k',χ > PAH *q[6]
- PH *ɤ,ʁ > PAH *g
- PH *t’ > PAH *t
- PH *ɬ > PAH *ŋ
- PH *ħ > PAH *e
- PH *ʕ > PAH *a
- PH *z > PAH *s
- PH *s’ > PAH *ts[7]
Coda consonant changes (the same but also)
- PH *? > PAH compensatory lengthening
- PH *b,p > PAH *h
- PH *g > PAH *k
- PH *d > PAH *t
- PH *r,l > PAH reduplicate previous syllable
- PH *ts > PAH *s
Consonants
| PAH Consonants | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||||
| Stop | unvoiced | p | t | k | q | |||||||||||
| voiced | b | d | g | ? | ||||||||||||
| Affricate | ts | |||||||||||||||
| Fricative | unvoiced | s | h | |||||||||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||||||||||||
| Tap/Flap | r | |||||||||||||||
Vowels
| PAH Vowels | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Near-front | Central | Back | |||||||
| High | i iː | u uː | ||||||||
| High-mid | e eː | o oː | ||||||||
| Near-low | a aː | |||||||||
The major change from PH to PAH in regard to vowels came not in what vowels were you, but how they were used. With uvular and pharyngeal fricatives changing into vowels, the tri-consonantal roots began to unravel, or just metamorphose into something different. A vast array of diphthong opened up, an array which would only expand.
| PAH Diphthongs | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final vowel | ||||||||||
| a | e | o | u | i | ||||||
| Initial | a | ā | ae | ao | au | ai | ||||
| e | ē | eo | eu | ei | ||||||
| o | ō | ou | oi | |||||||
| u | ū | ui | ||||||||
| i | ī | |||||||||
Phonotactics
PAH syllables are CV(V)(C). Any consonant except /r l w y/ may be in the coda through gemination, but only /k m n ŋ s t/ may be written there. For students of Hebrew, this can be recalled through the modified mnemonic begadqepac as the new "gutterals", with /r l/ being even more sensitive.
| able to be... | h | ' | k | m | n | ŋ | s | t | b | g | d | q | p | c | r | l | w | y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| geminated | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes as uw | Yes as iy |
| in coda | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | as u | as i |
An example of the most complex two syllables is ペォㇺッ̣カィ peomkkai. The number of katakana character is useful in counting morae.
When c is geminated, only the t is in the coda of the previous syllable. Hence カッ̣ス゚ is pronounced /kat.tsu/
- ↑ JBL 124, No. 2, Richard C. Steiner, p.229-267
- ↑ For those unfamiliar with Biblical Hebrew, this means that /f ɣ ð x f θ/ either did not exist at all in 1000 B.C., or they were allophone of /b g d k p t/
- ↑ that is /f v θ ð x ɤ/ always remained /p b t d k g/
- ↑ likely akin to PAn *ɬ > PMP *ñ, l, n.
- ↑ See geographic distribution, The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Chapter 9: The Velar Nasal
- ↑ The emphatic consonants are hotly debated, so /k'/ may well have been /q/ in the ANE.
- ↑ Again, may have been such originally.
