Akhi

Chicago, IL, United States

Posted

10 Nov 16:15

Mothers of Reading - ancient vowels for the consonant only text

Nikkud was developed around 9th century AD. Even during Old Testament times, an older system to help figure out the vowels was invented.

י - (Yod) was inserted in the word after a consonant to indicate long vowel I or E.

ו - (Waw/Vav) was used for long O or U

ה- (He) generally used at the end of a word to indicate mostly A or E

א- (Alef) used mostly for long A

So you could find words written with or without these helper consonants which stood for vowels instead. E.g. יהושוע vs יהושע (Yehoshua), notice the missing ו at the end. For more see:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plene_scriptum

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mater_lectionis

The system of "mothers of reading" is employed all the time in Modern Hebrew, with extra rules and more consistency, as opposed to the ancient more relaxed and inconsistent way.

Posted

10 Nov 15:43

Nikkud - help for an alphabet with consonants only

Hebrew, like the rest of the Semitic languages is written using the consonant skeleton of the words only. All 22 letters of the Hebrew alefbet (alphabet), are consonants. When reading such text, reader has to fill in the missing vowels.

This is the reason why the full name of God - יהוה (YHWH) is not known by the common man. We don't know what vowels to fill in!

TLS with its stated history of over 5,000 years, must be knowing this, as this knowledge was lost after the first centuries AD. This knowledge though, might be guarded by them and other such groups. TLS or other TLS affiliated people, care to comment on this?

As spoken knowledge of the Hebrew language began to be lost, around 9th century, some very learned Jewish scholars developed a system of dots, placed on and around the consonant, to indicate vowels, shin/sin differentiation, consonant doubling or primary or secondary BegadKephat pronunciation. Such system is called נִקּוּד (Nikkud), dots or diacritics.

Given that The Pyramid Code is not available with Nikkud, and also Modern Hebrew very rarely employs it (most commonly used in Biblical Hebrew), we will not dwell on it here.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud for more details.

Posted

10 Nov 15:06

ת Tav - 22nd letter, Gematria 400

ת is pronounced, both in Modern Hebrew and Aramaic, as T found in Romance languages or as English T (but less "breathy").

ת is not only the last letter of the AlefBet, but also the last letter in BegadKephat group of letters that may have a secondary pronunciation, depending on what other sound proceeds them. In Aramaic, for ת, the secondary pronunciation is like TH in Thick or Thistle. In Modern Hebrew, ת is always pronounced as T only.

Translated from Greek, Jesus says "I am Alpha and Omega".

Supposing that Jesus spoke to John in Hebrew and then that was translated into Greek, then He would have said:
"אני האלף והתו" (Ani ha'Aleph vehaTav) - I am the Alef and the Tav.

Now if He spoke in Aramaic (which was the commonly spoken language in Israel at the time), He would have said something like:
אנא אלף ואנא תו  (Ana alap we'ana taw) - I am Alap and I am Taw.

Posted

10 Nov 14:10

ש Shin/Sin - 21st letter - Gematria 300

ש is peculiar in that it has 2 equal pronunciations, as SH or as S in English. When it is pronounced as S it has exactly the same phonetic value as ס (Samekh).

The reason for these 2 different pronunciations is not known to the modern simple man. Maybe TLS with its claim of 5,000 years of unbroken history knows? If so, could they share that secret with us as well, please?

In Aramaic ש is pronounced as SH.

Peace (or Hello, Goodbye) in Hebrew is שלום (Shalom). In Aramaic is שלמא (Shlama).

A common word that starts with ש pronounced as S is שׂמח (same'ach), meaning Joyful, Happy. 

ישראל (Israel) is also written with a ש (Sin) not a ס (Samekh) in Hebrew.

When dots are added to the consonant word skeleton, to indicate vowels, begadKephat value, doubling of consonants or to distinguish between Shin and Sin, a dot is added to the right to indicate a Shin sound, like in שָׁלוֹם (Shalom). And a dot is added to the left to indicate Sin, like in יִשְׂרָאֵל (Israel)

Posted

10 Nov 13:38

ר Resh - 20th letter, Gematria 200

In Modern Hebrew, ר is pronounced as R in French, Danish, etc. Some pronounce it also as a rolled R, the way it is pronounced in Aramaic, Arabic and Romance Languages. Even if you pronounce it as an English R, you will be understood.

But what can beat the fancy of a French R? If you can pronounce it as a French R, your social standing will immediately shoot up in Israel :-). Modern Hebrew, these days, sounds more like a European language, not rough and harsh, as other Semitic languages like Aramaic or Arabic sound to the ear of a Westerner. But rest assured, in history Hebrew sounded more like Arabic/Aramaic. It did not have the European sound and feel it has today.  Hebrew grammar is also totally Semitic, similar to Aramaic or Arabic.

The word רב (Rav) in Hebrew means "Rabbi" or "great/many", depending on the context.

In Aramaic רבא (rabba) means "great". רבי (Rabbi - pronounced Rabbee, not Rabbai) means My Great One, which is the literal translation of the word Rabbi. Rabbi can also mean My Teacher, My Master, etc.

Note that according to Sepher Yetzirah ר is also considered to have double pronunciation, bringing the total number of consonants like that to 7.  Maybe we should say begadkepherat instead of begadgephat. But that second pronunciation is not known to the common man these days.  Again, maybe TLS does?

Posted

10 Nov 13:13

ק Qoph, 19th letter, Gematria 100

In Modern Hebrew, ק is pronounced exactly like the primary sound for כ, as K in English.

In Aramaic, ק is pronounced as a K that is vocalized deep in the back of your mouth. The sound ends up being a bit different than כ.

The Modern Hebrew word for Monkey is קוף (Qoph). In Aramaic is קופא (Qupha). Fancy me.

Posted

10 Nov 13:00

צ \ ץ Tsade, 18th letter, Gematria 90

צ is the last letter of the set of 5 letters that has a different final (end of word) form ץ.

In Modern Hebrew, צ is pronounced as TS in Tsunami, or Cats.

In Aramaic צ is pronounced like an S sound between S and TS. Get your mouth ready to say TS, but vocalize an S instead, keeping your tongue like a rounded cup against the edges of the roof of the mouth. That's צ in Aramaic.

In Hebrew a rightous/holy person is called a צדיק (tsadik). In Aramaic is צדיקא (ṣadiqā). I am guessing TLS calls Rabbi AA a צדיק.