Switching of Labials in Biblical Hebrew

chapter 1 Switching of Labials in Biblical Hebrew

Philippe Cassuto

1 Introduction

This paper is a development of my previous article, ‘Le concept de paix et ses expressions en hébreu’ in Redéfinir la paix à l’aube du xxie siècle (Cassuto 2001: 85–93). Pierre Larcher wrote an article in the same context entitled ‘Le concept de paix et ses expressions en arabe’ (Larcher 2001: 95–105). Pierre Larcher’s analysis was based on a pair of Arabic words: silm and salām, while in Hebrew there was only the traditional shalom. While seaching for a Hebrew analogue, I was unable to find an equivalent pair in Hebrew as easily as Pierre Larcher did in Arabic. The closest pairing of words I have identified is shalom and shalwa, which have a highly similar meanings. This was possible because of the switching between the letters mem and waw—two labials. After deeper observations, it appeared that numerous permutations of this type exist in various Semitic languages. My analysis explores this phenomenon.

Cette intervention est le fruit d’une collaboration avec mon collègue Pierre Larcher. Elle a mûri au long de conversations et d’échanges entre nos domaines respectifs. Dès le début, il nous a semblé que le concept de couple pouvait être très riche. Pierre Larcher l’a vite dégagé en arabe avec le couple salām /silm. Pour l’hébreu, aucun couple n’apparaissait de façon aussi claire et évidente. Mais avec un minimum de connais- sances en langues sémitiques comparées, il m’a été possible de dégager un couple de même nature. Pour ce faire, il faut savoir que dans le pas- sage des mots de l’akkadien vers l’hébreu, souvent les lettres waw et mem sont interchangeables. Ainsi le mois babylonien warẖu shamanu (la huitième lunaison) est il devenu le mois juif de marẖeshwan, le waw initial devenant un mem initial et le mem interne étant transcrit par un waw. Pour l’hébreu shalom, on peut donc concevoir un élément de paire qui aurait changé son mem en waw. Or, il en existe un, il s’agit de shalwa, avec le suffixe typique du féminin.1

1 Cassuto 2001: 85–86. English translation: ‘This paper is the product of insightful collabora-

There are four labials in Hebrew: bet, waw, mem, and pe. Any Hebrew scholar would also point out that the conjunction waw becomes the vowel u, before the cognate labials bet, kaf, and pe. This rule can be observed in the Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar:

e (c) Before words with simple Shewa under the first consonant (except in cases under f ), the waw becomes the vowel û (cf. §26 a), e.g. u-le-khol and to all, so also (except in the cases under g) before the cognate labials bet, mem, pe, hence u-melekh … gesenius et al. 1963: 306

I made the following translations of Hebrew verses of the Bible. I used the Dotan’s edition of the Hebrew bible (Dotan 1973). The English translation I used for reference was taken from The New Revised Standard Version (nrsv) Reference Bible with the Apocrypha (Verbrugge 1993). This paper is structured in two parts: the first concerning the couple shalwa—shalom and the second regarding the Massoretic lists of qere-ketiv2 involv- ing labials.

2 The Couple shalwa—shalom

The word shalwa occurs 9 times in the Hebrew bible and the word shalom appears approximately 230 times. Below are the 9 occurrences of the word shalwa.

tion with my colleague Pierre Larcher. It matured from long conversations and exchanges between our respective fields. From the beginning, it appeared to us that the concept of pairs was very promising. Pierre Larcher promptly illustrated this concept in Arabic through the couple salām/silm. On the other hand, in Hebrew, such a pair was not as apparent and clear. However, with a minimum of knowledge on compared Semitic languages, it became possible for me to distinguish such a pair. This was possible because the letters waw and mem are interchangeable when switching from Akkadian to Hebrew. Thus, the initial waw in the Babylonian month warẖu shamanu, becomes an initial mem in the Jewish month marẖesh- wan, and the internal mem is transcribed as a waw.’ Hence, it would be pertinent that a pair element exists for the Hebrew shalom, changing its mem into waw. Indeed, such a pair exists: shalwa, with the typical feminin suffix. 2 Literally, qere-ketiv means lecture-scripture (lessons).