it wouldn’t be without precedent: i think @azforeman.bsky.social has commented that the length distinctions of Tiberian are almost impossible to maintain outside of chanting. i *do* suspect that outside of this, however, Andalusi Hebrew did not have contrastive vowel length 8/
i suppose the real question is whether the heavily ritualized context of most Andalusi Hebrew—recitation of the Tanakh in the synagogue or poetic compositions at court—would justify maintaining a typologically unusual length distinction. 7/
four short vowels out of 69 total—two of them the prefix וְ ‘and’, and one in the function word אֲשֶׁר, ‘that, which’. unusual, to say the least.
all this on top of the fact that Andalusi Arabic, the native language of these Hebraists, had in fact lost the length distinction found in most Arabic. 6/
take this brief passage, 2 Sam. 18:9, as more or less representative of Hebrew prose:
/wajjiqqare abʃalum lifni ʕabði ðawið ‖ wăʔabʃalum ruxib ʕal happereð ‖ wajjabu taħaθ ʃubex haʔila haddʒaðula wajjeħĕzaq ruʃu baʔila ‖ wajuttan bin haʃʃamajim ubin haʔaresˤ ‖ wăhappereð ʔăʃer taħtaw ʕabar/
5/
but šəwāʾ and the ḥăṭāfīm aren’t *really* phonemic vowels; they’re epenthetic vowels that show up when phonotactics require them, which would make the distribution of long and short vowels according to this hypothesis really strange. 4/
the surface-level reading here would be that šəwāʾ and the ḥaṭaf vowels were quantitatively shorter than the seven məlāḵīm, and that Andalusi Hebrew therefore had a two-level length distinction. 3/
however, unlike Tiberian Hebrew, any syllable, except for those which end in šəwāʾ or a ḥăṭāf vowel, is considered closed by an invisible quiescent letter analogous to those that mark long vowels in Arabic. 2/
some plasterwork from the Synagogue of Córdoba, with visible Hebrew epigraphy
did the Hebrew of Andalusi Jews have vowel quantity? i am of two minds
Andalusi Hebrew prosody, like that of Classical Arabic, depends on an opposition between open syllables and closed syllables (those that end in a consonant or mater lectionis). 1/
وقد عاش بعد الخلد في الأرض آدمُ ... فإن شئتَ فاعذرني فإني ابنُ آدمِ فياليتني أمسيتُ دهريَ راقداً ... فإني متى أرقد بذكركَ أحلمُ
After perfect Paradise, Adam dwelt on Earth,
so forgive me if you will, for I am human too:
I'd spend my whole life sleeping,
since when I sleep I dream of you.
— Anonymous, quoted in al-Thaʿālibī, Yatīmat al-Dahr
i definitely say [sɪksθ] in isolation or before a vowel! i.e., [sɪksθ ˈævɪnjɪw ⟨Sixth Avenue⟩]
my impression is that preglottalization of coda single voiceless stops is pretty common in both Britain and North America: i say ⟨tip⟩ [tɪʔp], ⟨set⟩ [sɛʔt]
in my (fairly General American) accent i preglottalize the /k/ in [sɪʔk] ⟨sick⟩, and have something more like [sɪksː] at the beginning of ⟨sixth street⟩
i mean crying is definitely a bit of a strange read but i don’t think it’s terribly complicated (and it helps that it’s only a hundred pages or so!)
i’m a big fan into leaping things i might not be ready for (currently tackling Proust!)
both the base and meta texts in Pale Fire are narrative, but they are distinctly separate: a poem and its eccentric endnotes
i’m not *exactly* sure what you mean here, but maybe the Crying of Lot 49 fits the bill? the two layers are more or less integrated: one a sort of detective story in 60s California, the other an elaborate alt history
it might be an obvious choice, but i really enjoyed Nabokov’s “Pale Fire”
i am incapable of making it through a post without a typo. at the end of the third hemistich it should read /baˈʔaresˤ/ with a glottal stop
as a side note, i think the succession of almond blossoms, then cherry blossoms two weeks later, makes this part of the year perhaps the loveliest in this part of the world.
‘since—look—the winter has passed:
the rains are gone away;
blossoms show themselves upon the earth;
the time of singing has come,
and the sound of the turtledove is heard in our land”
(note that זמיר here has the double meaning of ‘to sing’ and ‘to prune branches’)
a spray of almond blossoms, on an otherwise bare branch, against a cobalt blue sky. the Granada Charterhouse is in the background
an alley/stairway in the Albaicín: whitewashed walls, tile roofs, and Torres Bermejas in the background
here’s Song 2:11–12 in Andalusi Hebrew in honor of a lovely spring day in Granada:
/ki hinni hassăθaw ʕabar ‖ hadˈdʒeʃem ħaˈlaf haˈlax lu ‖ hannissˤaˈnim nirˈʔu baˈaresˤ ‖ ʕiθ hazzaˈmir hidˈdʒiaʕ ‖ wăqul hattur niʃmaʕ băʔarsˤinu/
nomencyclopedia is excellent work (and it’s a lovely thread by the way!)
craal → unyscraal, or un’craal if you’re so inclined
(looks like something out of a bad fantasy novel)
Unfortunately i have to beg for some help again!
i still have found no income, got denied for foodstamps, and need money for rent and other expenses
Anything helps.
gofund.me/9f62d93fa
٢٨٥ — إِذَا ظَلَمْتَ مَنْ دُونَكَ فَلَا تَأْمَنْ عَذَابَ مَنْ فَوْقَكَ
No. 285
Arabic proverb of the day:
"If you oppress those below you, don't feel secure from the punishment of Him who is above you."
idhā ẓalamta man dūnaka fa-lā taʾman ʿadhāba man fawqaka
Morass is perfect because Afroasiatic, to the extent we can detect it, appears to us not as a stately tree with obvious branches overhanging but as a buried rhizome of connected features sprouting distantly, like one might find spreading through a peat bog.
what’s weird is that it’s not how people normally talk about Arabic varieties either! that convention is almost always locality name/adjective + “Arabic”
i can’t think of a single situation where i’d say something like “Damascene Syrian”
More JBA cats (from my grammar notes):
also fortuitous that if you remove the initial "but" from the English line, you have beautiful dactylic hexameter, feminine caesura and all
thank you!!
excellent passage aside, what translation is this? i’ve never seen one that renders the Divine Name that way
i’m very happy to hear. thank you for the updates
