# Ancient Hebrew vs. Arabic



## Ectab

I know that Ancient Hebrew was similar to Arabic in the grammar, morphology and a little pronunciation (like pronouncing the w b q as in Arabic not v v k as in Modern Hebrew).
But Modern Hebrew, as well as Biblical Hebrew, is like a dialect comparing to Arabic.
So is there any sources of Ancient Hebrew texts that have a grammar similar to that found in Modern Standard or Classical Arabic?
Like an ancient Genesis.


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## Drink

Both Modern and Biblical Hebrew have a grammar similar to Arabic. Of course Modern Hebrew has changed a bit more, but the similarity is still clearly visible. By the way, the Hebrew text of the Bible we have today is the original Ancient Hebrew. I think Modern Hebrew translations have been made, but nobody really uses them.


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## Drink

As a sample, I'll transliterate for you the verse Genesis 1:5. Let's see how much you can understand:

וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה וַיְהִי עֶרֶב וַיְהִי בֹקֶר יוֹם אֶחָד

ويقرأ إلهيم لأور يوم ولحسك قرأ ليله ويهي غرب ويهي بقر يوم أحد

Some hints:
ه ي ي is the root for "to be"
إلهيم = God
أور = light
حسك = darkness
غرب = evening
بقر = morning


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## elroy

بكر not بقر.

Why غرب and not عرب?


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## Drink

elroy said:


> بكر not بقر.
> 
> Why غرب and not عرب?



I tried to do a more etymological transliteration to make it easier. ק is ق even if in Modern Hebrew is pronounced like ك. I don't think בוקר is related to Arabic بكرة if that's what you were thinking, but maybe I'm wrong.


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## elroy

The Arabic cognate root is ب-ك-ر.


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## Drink

elroy said:


> The Arabic cognate root is ب-ك-ر.



See my edit to my comment above. But also, Hebrew also has the root ב-כ-ר with meanings related to earliness and firstness, so I think בוקר is separate.


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## elroy

Drink said:


> I don't think בוקר is related to Arabic بكرة if that's what you were thinking, but maybe I'm wrong.


 It definitely is.


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## Drink

elroy said:


> It definitely is.



Ok, Gesenius agrees with you, saying that ב-ק-ר and ב-כ-ר are "kindred roots", even though they each correspond to the Arabic roots بَقَرَ ("to cleave, to open") and بَكَرَ. Still, ق the proper transliteration of ק. With غ, it's a different story since both ع and غ _regularly_ correspond to ע, so I had to pick one anyway.


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## elroy

Drink said:


> ق the proper transliteration of ק


 Not in this case, where you were trying to see how much Ectab would be able to understand.


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## Drink

elroy said:


> Not in this case, where you were trying to see how much Ectab would be able to understand.



Let's agree to disagree to disagree. I gave a translation of the word anyway.


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## elroy

You're confusing phonology and morphology.  _Morphologically_, ק corresponds to either ك or ق.

In Arabic, بقر means "cow" and, to an Arabic speaker, totally distinct from بكر.  The two are just distinct from each other as either is from, say, بشر or بصر.

This is not a matter of opinion.  This is linguistic fact.


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## Drink

You're confusing phonology with lexicon. Phonologically, ק only corresponds to ق. At the lexical level, there are some incidental interchanges in some words, but they can all be said to be phonologically irregular. But still, it doesn't matter that بقر means cow in Arabic, because this is Hebrew not Arabic (not to mention that בקר also can mean cow in Hebrew). I was merely presenting a Hebrew text sample in Arabic letters to show the similarity of the grammar, so it totally doesn't matter which letter I chose, especially since I gave a translation of this word anyway so that there would be no lexical confusion. If you still disagree, that's fine, but let's not discuss it further because, again, the purpose of this was grammar not phonology or morphology or lexicon.


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## elroy

Drink said:


> You're confusing phonology with lexicon.


 


Drink said:


> Phonologically, ק only corresponds to ق.


 I know.  That's why I said you were confusing phonology with morphology. 


Drink said:


> I was merely presenting a Hebrew text sample in Arabic letters to show the similarity of the grammar,


 I thought you were also showing how many cognates there were - which is another huge part of the similarities between the two languages.  If you were just focusing on the grammar, you could have glossed the sentence in English.


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## Ectab

Drink said:


> As a sample, I'll transliterate for you the verse Genesis 1:5. Let's see how much you can understand:
> 
> וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה וַיְהִי עֶרֶב וַיְהִי בֹקֶר יוֹם אֶחָד
> morning


I asked this question after reading a transliterated Hebrew Bible which sounded like an Arabic dialect, because it had a lot of influences by other languages as dialects have, like the existing of vowels and consonants that had not been in Ancient Semitic languages.
I was just wondering if there is Hebrew texts similar to Arabic in the vowels, consonants, morphology and grammar (like the dual, broken plural, verb voices and forms and moods) which does not exist perfectly in Modern Hebrew.

As for your verse, I had read an Arabic Genesis so I have an idea of it.
ودعا الله النور نهاراً والظلمة دعاها ليلاً وكان مساءاً وكان صباحاً يوماً واحداً

يقرأ in Arabic means: to read, to recite rather than to call.
اور in Classical Arabic meant: flame, the heat of sun or fire and thirst which is caused by heat rather than light. And is pronounced اوار
يوم the first one is translated as نهار and the second as يوم
غرب may be similar to Arabic غروب sunset
بقر ,as elroy says, I think should be بكر however both are pronounced the same in Modern Hebrew.

finally Hebrew uses the imperfect tense after wa but it is translated as perfect(past) while CA, MSA and any dialects can not use imperfect for this, it is translated into perfect tense.


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## Drink

elroy said:


> I thought you were also showing how many cognates there were - which is another huge part of the similarities between the two languages.  If you were just focusing on the grammar, you could have glossed the sentence in English.



It's also important to show that even with the congnates, they aren't exactly the same. It's better not to make up similarities that don't exist. It's important to see that בקר and بكر are similar, but not the same.



Ectab said:


> I was just wondering if there is Hebrew texts similar to Arabic in the vowels, consonants, morphology and grammar (like the dual, broken plural, verb voices and forms and moods) which does not exist perfectly in Modern Hebrew.



Ok. You should have given these details in your original question, I would have given you a better answer.

Vowels: This is one of the hardest things to know about, because they weren't written down until just over a thiusand years ago. But still it is probably that in Biblical times the vowels were already very different from Arabic.

Consonants: There were a lot more similarities to Arabic in Biblical times. For example, we know from ancient transliterations into Greek that Biblical Hebrew still had both the sounds ع and غ, which were both written with ע, and both the sounds ح and خ, which were both written ח. The spirantization of the non-emphatic stops after vowels had not yet taken places, so the letters בגדכפת had only one pronunciation each, as b/g/d/k/p/t and not yet also as v/gh/dh/kh/f/th.

Dual: In both Biblical and Modern Hebrew, the dual exists, but is used only for certain words. For example, you would say שְׁנֵי בָּנִים for "two sons" and not בְּנַיִם, but you could say שְׁנָתַיִם for "two years".

Broken plural: There was never a broken plural in Hebrew and all plurals have a plural suffix. But there are some irregular plurals where the stem changes, for example יוֹם (yōm) becomes יָמִים (yāmīm). Another example is אִשָּׁה (related to أُنْثَى) has the plural נָשִׁים (related to the broken plural نِسَاء).

Verb voices: Both Biblical and Modern Hebrew have internal passives like in Arabic, but not for all verb stems. For example, the internal passive of the Form I stem is missing. In the original Biblical Hebrew, there was probably a Form I stem internal passive that was later vocalized as a Form II stem, for example the passive of לָקַח laqaḥ was probably originally luqaḥ, but was revocalized as לֻקַּח luqqaḥ.

Verbal moods: Biblical Hebrew had more verbal moods than Modern Hebrew, but not all of them correspond to Arabic. Other than the imperfect, there was the jussive ("may he..."), the cohortative ("let me/us..."). Before object suffixes, there is sometimes an -n- infix (or a reflex of an -n- infix), which may be related to the -an of the Arabic short energetic. Some people also say that the Hebrew word נא ("please") was actually dislocated from the verb but is related to the -anna of the Arabic long energetic. There was also a "long form" of the masculine singular imperative, which had the suffix -a (it's meaning is not well understood, but the most convincing theory I read is that it indicates motion towards the speaker), but I don't think Arabic has an equivalent of that. See also my comment below.



Ectab said:


> finally Hebrew uses the imperfect tense after wa but it is translated as perfect(past) while CA, MSA and any dialects can not use imperfect for this, it is translated into perfect tense.



This is actually not the imperfect tense, but the old past tense, related to the Arabic مجزوم. In Arabic it is used as the past tense after لم, in Biblical Hebrew it is used as the past tense after ו ("and").


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## aavichai

I agree with Drink

and you shouldn't search for so much accurate things in the grammar and syntax between Arabic and Hebrew
the Arabic is a southern semitic language and the hebrew is north west

of course they both derived from the same source
but some ancient things had been kept in arabic and some in hebrew, and so its the differences
and some kept in both language and so the simmilar things

as for the tenses
in hebrew, the verb forms in their essense is not about tenses but about aspect (and i think the process is shown in the bible)
in arabic, as far as i know, there is perfect an imperferct
and as for the hebrew we still see the traces of the verb represented an aspect alone
which the Qatal sometime can represent an imperfect tense or stative (even without the prefix W)
and the Yiqtol can represent perfect tense
for example:
אז ישיר משה
in the meaning of אז שר משה
the Yiqtol doesn't represent the tense


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## elroy

Drink said:


> It's also important to show that even with the congnates, they aren't exactly the same. It's better not to make up similarities that don't exist. It's important to see that בקר and بكر are similar, but not the same.


 But they _are _the same, morphologically and etymologically.  Again, _morphologically_ ק corresponds to either ك or ق.  Saying that the cognate of בקר (in this meaning) is بقر is simply wrong.  If we were discussing phonology that would be a different matter entirely.  But we're not.


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## Drink

elroy said:


> But they _are _the same, morphologically and etymologically.  Again, _morphologically_ ק corresponds to either ك or ق.  Saying that the cognate of בקר (in this meaning) is بقر is simply wrong.  If we were discussing phonology that would be a different matter entirely.  But we're not.



I didn't say that the cognate of בקר is بقر, I said that the _transliteration_ of בקר is بقر.


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## elroy

Drink said:


> I said that the _transliteration_ of בקר is بقر


 There is not just one possible transliteration.


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## Drink

elroy said:


> There is not just one possible transliteration.



Right, and I chose what was in my opinion the most appropriate one for this purpose.


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## elroy

Drink said:


> Right, and I chose what was in my opinion the most appropriate one for this purpose.


 And you chose the wrong one.


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## Drink

elroy said:


> And you chose the wrong one.



You just said yourself, "There is not just one possible transliteration."

If I were transliterating the word צִוָּה, should I transliterate it as وصه just because the Arabic cognate is وَصَّى? No because that would be a misrepresentation of the actual Hebrew. I would transliterate it as صوه and separately mention that it is related to وَصَّى through metathesis. Because this is an irregular metathesis, just like the correspondence between the ק and ك in בקר and بكر is due to an _irregular_ sound change that affected only this word and maybe a couple other words. The _regular_ correspondence is only between ק and ق. Thus, I say in transliteration that Arabic بكر is a cognate of Hebrew بقر. If I spell the Hebrew word as بكر that is misrepresenting one of the lexical differences between the languages.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Not in this case, where you were trying to see how much Ectab would be able to understand.


That is precisely the wrong argument. Transliterating Boqer with k instead of q would be a fake transliteration to make things easier for him.



elroy said:


> And you chose the wrong one.


As we are speaking of transliteration and not of translation then ق is ‎‎ק‎ and ك is כ. This is absolutely straight forward and there is no room for interpretation.


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## elroy

It's not about making anything easier for anyone.  Phonology was not relevant in this case (unless I missed something).  The point was to show morphological and syntactic similarities between the two languages.  In this case, بكر is unquestionably the only valid choice as far as I'm concerned.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> In this case, بكر is unquestionably the only valid choice as far as I'm concerned.


In this case Hebrew and Arabic differ in root consonants, even though the two words may be and probably are related. Transcribing _q_ with _k_ to conceal this difference would be grossly misrepresenting the situation and would be from a comparative linguistics point of view a very serious mistake.


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## elroy

The two words are _definitely_ related.  It's not about concealing anything; it's about using the cognate.  Once again, phonology is not relevant to my argument.  בקר (in this meaning) is a cognate of بكر, _not_ بقر.  When I saw بقر in Drink's original post, it stuck out like the sorest of thumbs.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> The two words are _definitely_ related.  It's not about concealing anything; it's about using the cognate.  Once again, phonology is not relevant to my argument.  בקר (in this meaning) is a cognate of بكر, _not_ بقر.  When I saw بقر in Drink's original post, it stuck out like the sorest of thumbs.


Absolutely, but the one and only correct transcription is still بقر. Two words being cognate does not mean they are identical. "Transcription" hear means that he is writing the Hebrew (not the Arabic) word with Arabic letters for ease of reading. The Hebrew word contains a _q_ and not a _k _and that is accurately represented in the transcription بقر irrespective of how much you might loathe the look of it.


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## elroy

I disagree, clearly, and it doesn't look like either of us is going to convince the other.


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## berndf

I am afraid, there is no room for agreeing or disagreeing. In comparative linguistics, _transliteration _is a very precise and strictly defined technique. The purpose is to represent the characteristics of an attested form in one writing system as accurately as possible in another writing system preserving as many of its peculiarities as possible (ideally all). And the Hebrew word _boqer _contains a _q _and not a _k _and that really is the only thing that matters.


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## elroy

I will think about your arguments and maybe research this.  If I think of anything else worth sharing, I'll come back and post it.


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## Ihsiin

berndf said:


> In this case Hebrew and Arabic differ in root consonants, even though the two words may be and probably are related.





elroy said:


> The two words are _definitely_ related.



This doesn't seem so obvious to me. What then is the (proposed) explanation of the _q_ <-> _k_ shift?


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## Drink

Ihsiin said:


> This doesn't seem so obvious to me. What then is the (proposed) explanation of the _q_ <-> _k_ shift?



There are many examples of interchanges of emphatic and non-emphatic root letters. But they are sporadic and irregular. Therefore it is likely they are related, even though the precise reason for the difference is not known.


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