# Merger of /x/ and /ħ/ in Hebrew



## Abu Rashid

*Moderator note:
Copied from here.*



> or Hebrew speakers trying to pronounce any Arabic words with /ħ/ for  that matter


I think even in Hebrew itself, pretty much all Semitic roots with /ħ/ have become /x/, the two sounds have completely merged (like ayin and ghayin also and sod and dod and zayn and dhal etc.), and have always been represented with the same grapheme anyway. But in the past they were distinct.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> I think even in Hebrew itself, pretty much all Semitic roots with /ħ/ have become /x/, the two sounds have completely merged (like ayin and ghayin also and sod and dod and zayn and dhal etc.), and have always been represented with the same grapheme anyway. But in the past they were distinct.


You are confusing two different mergers. In early Canaanite /x/ merged into /ħ/, not the other way round. E.g. the semitic roots ħ-l-l and kh-l-l are both ħ-l-l in Hebrew (חלל). The phoneme /x/ was completely lost. The sound reappeared later as an allophonic variant of /k/ (E.g. ). In Hebrew spelling without diacritic marks, /k/ and /x/ are spelled the same, namely "כ" (or "ך" in word final position; e.g. מלך=king is pronounced "melekh") while /ħ/ is spelled "ח".

In modern Hebrew which is based on the Spanish pronunciation, "ח" is pronounced /x/. Spelling is not affected by this.


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## Abu Rashid

berndf,



> You are confusing two different mergers. In early Canaanite /x/ merged  into /ħ/, not the other way round.



I don't see where I've confused anything, they've both merged down into one sound, that was my point. Which one it ended up being was not relevant to my point.

Om1,



> But those sounds both correspond to /ħ/ in Arabic, namely ħayawaan  (animal) and ħayya (snake), so I'm not sure how distinct they actually  are?



The example given seems to have not been a good one, a better one would be the words حَرَثَ (Haratha) and خَرَسَ (kharasa). Because kha and Haa have merged in Hebrew and tha and shin (sin and shin are reverse to how they are in Arabic) have merged also, both of these words are spelt and pronounced the same in Hebrew as חָרַשׁ (kharasha)


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> I don't see where I've confused anything, they've both merged down into one sound, that was my point. Which one it ended up being was not relevant to my point.


If this is so of course I agree with you but then the way you expressed yourself was mistakable because you wrote explicitly:





Abu Rashid said:


> I think even in Hebrew itself, pretty much all Semitic roots with /ħ/ have become /x/


which is not true. It was the other way round: /x/ disappeared as a phoneme and the /x/ became /ħ/.

In modern Israeli Hebrew /ħ/ has become /x/ again. But since you wrote





Abu Rashid said:


> …have always been represented with the same grapheme anyway.


you can't have been talking about this because the phonetic merger of _Chaf_ and _Het_ is not reflected in spelling.


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## Abu Rashid

> which is not true. It was the  other way round: /x/ disappeared as a phoneme and the /x/ became /ħ/.
> 
> In modern Israeli Hebrew /ħ/  has become /x/ again. But since you wrote




So they merged and today they are pronounced as /x/, that's precisely what I said 

What they did in the intervening time is irrelevant to my statement, but it's nice to know for trivia sake, thanks.




> you can't have been talking  about this because the phonetic merger of _Chaf_ and _Het_ is  not reflected in spelling.




They always used the same grapheme, true or not true?


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> They always used the same grapheme, true or not true?


No, Chaf and Het are distinct graphemes. As a reminder:


berndf said:


> In Hebrew spelling without diacritic marks, /k/ and /x/ are spelled the same, namely "כ" (or "ך" in word final position; e.g. מלך=king is pronounced "melekh") while /ħ/ is spelled "ח".


If you use diacritical marks you put a central dot into "כ" and "ך" to indicate the pronunciation /k/ otherwise the pronunciation is /x/. The grapheme "ח" is pronounced /x/ by most Israelis while some (especially Yemenite Jews) pronounce it /ħ/.

E.g. most Israelies pronounce the Hebrew word for Salt als "melakh" which has the same consonants as "melekh" (King) but the spellings are distinct: "melekh"="מלך" and "melakh"="מלח".


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## Abu Rashid

> The grapheme "ח" is pronounced /x/



Thank you 

The fact a tiny minority pronounce it as /ħ/ again doesn't really change the original statement I made.



> central dot into "כ" and "ך" to indicate the pronunciation /k/ otherwise  the pronunciation is /x/.



I'm well aware lack of dagesh makes kaph pronounced much the same as /x/ (I think it's a little lighter though). That's a separate issue, and best not to confuse them.



> E.g. most Israelies pronounce the Hebrew word for Salt als "melakh"  which has the same consonants as "melekh" (King) but the spellings are  distinct: "melekh"="מלך" and "melakh"="מלח".



This is really just a further mixing of sounds that's not even mentioned in my post, I'm really lost as to why you added it in, since it does not clarify the issue at all, only serves to further complicate it (unnecessarily I might add).


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> I'm well aware lack of dagesh makes kaph pronounced much the same as /x/ (I think it's a little lighter though).


They are exactly the same. Children regularly confuse Chaf and Het when they learn writing.





Abu Rashid said:


> That's a separate issue, and best not to confuse them.


That's what I said. The /x/,/ħ/>/ħ/ merger in Canaanite must not be confused with the Chaf, Het merger in Modern Hebrew. If you are aware of, then it's fine. Many others aren't and that sometimes creates confusion.

/x/ is the "proper", the "original" pronunciation of Chaf in Hebrew and modern speakers, even when they pronounce Chaf and Het the same, are aware that Het "ought" to be different. Therefore when you wrote "I think even in Hebrew itself, pretty much all Semitic roots with /ħ/ have become /x/" most people would think of the modern Chaf/Het merger and not of the old /x/,/ħ/ merger. And, to my knowledge, this merger is older than Hebrew. It is common Canaanite maybe even common NW-Semitic. That is why the Phoenician alphabet had no separate letter for /x/.


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## Abu Rashid

> /x/ is the "proper", the "original" pronunciation of Chaf in Hebrew



It is?



> It is common Canaanite maybe even common NW-Semitic.



Definitely not. Ugaritic distinguishes between them. And I think that Hebrew distinguished between them for quite some time. Other languages (besides Phoenician) possibly did too, but since we never heard them spoken, we don't know. But due to their borrowing of the Phoenician abjad we only see one distinct letter where there was possibly two. Especially given the fact many of those languages became extinct prior to the advent of diacritics for Semitic abjads.

I was looking at it from an etymological point of view, in the sense that all common Semitic roots that have /x/ and /ħ/ in other Semitic languages (like Arabic, Ugaritic, OSA etc) are merged into the one letter "ח" which is pronounced by the vast majority of Hebrew speakers as /x/.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> It is?


The separation of Kaf and Chaf happened in or before Mishnaic Hebrew.


Abu Rashid said:


> Definitely not. Ugaritic distinguishes between them.


This was half a millenium earlier. The earliest attested Hebrew is from the 10th century BC. But you are right, there are indications that Biblical Hebrew still maintained some separation though it was not expressed in spelling. In Mishnaic Hebrew the merger was certainly complete. Aramaic also merged /x/ and /ħ/ to /ħ/ and the fact that Phoenecian script has only one letter for the two is an indication that other Canaanite dialects had merged them too; it is certainly not a phenomenon restricted to Hebrew.


Abu Rashid said:


> I was looking at it from an etymological point of view, in the sense that all common Semitic roots that have /x/ and /ħ/ in other Semitic languages (like Arabic, Ugaritic, OSA etc) are merged into the one letter "ח" which is pronounced by the vast majority of Hebrew speakers as /x/.


I totally agree with that.


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## Abu Rashid

> The separation of Kaf and Chaf happened in or before Mishnaic Hebrew.


Is it actually a separation? Or is it just a shifting of the sound? The sound in all other Semitic languages seems to be /k/ as it seems to have been in early Hebrew, it just drifted to a new sound later it seems.



> This was half a millenium earlier. The earliest attested Hebrew is from  the 10th century BC.


Latest Ugaritic texts were only about 2-3 centuries prior to that I think.



> I totally agree with that.


Good, that's all my point was. Since I was making it to an Arabic speaker, I think he would've understood it fine. The idea of kaf and kha being merged/mixed just seems strange to Arabic speakers (even the idea of خ and ح being mixed up is strange but more understandable, and is often mocked in film as foreigners trying to speak Arabic), it would've been quite obvious I was talking about the fact all words which appear in Arabic with خ and ح appear graphemically with  "ח" in Hebrew (and the sound of خ)  so I don't think there's any chance it would've been confused.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> Latest Ugaritic texts were only about 2-3 centuries prior to that I think.


Those were the last preserved Ugaritic texts. Ugaritic inscriptions exist for a period of about 4 centuries. I read that some distinctions were lost during this period indicating mergers taking place during that time. I don't know if the /x/-/ħ/ distinction was one of them.


Abu Rashid said:


> ...so I don't think there's any chance it would've been confused.


Well, you confused me, because I associate /x/ primarily with Chaf. The way you wrote it now ("merged into the one letter "ח") is much clearer.


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## Abu Rashid

> I read that some distinctions were lost during this period indicating  mergers taking place during that time. I don't know if the /x/-/ħ/  distinction was one of them.


Yes some distinctions were lost in Ugaritic between the time of the oldest and latest texts, such as between dal (د) and dhal (ذ), much like in Aramaic and some dialects of Arabic, but I've never come across a merger of Haa/khaa.



> Well, you confused me, because I associate /x/ primarily with Chaf. The  way you wrote it now ("merged into the one letter "ח") is much clearer.


Sorry I shouldn't have assumed everyone would be on the same track.


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## berndf

Coming back to this old discussion:

Do we have any idea when this ḫ - ḥ merger happened precisely in which Canaanite language?


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## origumi

Are we talking about ح and خ? In this case, both were alive but started to merge in the 1st century BC or AD, as attested in the Gemara: "חמר למירכב או חמר למישתי עמר "למילבש או אימר לאיתכסאה, translated to "حmr (donkey) to ride or خmr (wine) to drink? 3mr (wool cloth) to wear or 'mr (sheep) to butcher?". This is said to a Jew from the Galilee who traveled to Jerusalem. It demonstrates that the four consonants were different in Jerusalem but merged in the Galilee, maybe under Greek influence. Aramaic was already dominant at this time of course.


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## berndf

I am not sure this really answers the question. The fact that the Phoenician alphabet has only one letter for both PS sounds indicates that mergers must have existed in at least some Canaanite languages long before. I am not sure that hints about the Judeo-Aramaic dialects of the late 2nd temple period really answer the question. Maybe I am missing something.


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## fdb

Current thinking is that the merger of /ḥ/ with /x/, and of /ʻ/ with /γ/, took place independently in Hebrew and Aramaic in historic times and cannot be ascribed to proto-Canaanaic, to say nothing of proto-North-West-Semitic. Don’t forget the famous city of Gaza (LXX Γάζα, MT  עזה‎‎). But it must have taken place early in the language of the people who devised the Phoenician script.


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## Testing1234567

Proto-SemiticUgariticGe'ezArabic (Standard Modern)Aramaic (c. 700 BCE)Aramaic (Modern)Hebrew (c. 200 BCE)Hebrew (Modern)Phoenician*ḫ /χ/ /χ/ኀ /χ/خ /χ/ܟ /χ/ܟ /ħ/ח /ħ/ח /χ//χ/*ḥ /ħ/ /ħ/ሐ /ħ/ح /ħ/ܟ /ħ/ܟ /ħ/ח /ħ/ח /χ//χ/

(Source: Wikipedia)

Note: order of languages is mostly arbitrary.


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## rayloom

fdb said:


> Current thinking is that the merger of /ḥ/ with /x/, and of /ʻ/ with /γ/, took place independently in Hebrew and Aramaic in historic times and cannot be ascribed to proto-Canaanaic, to say nothing of proto-North-West-Semitic. Don’t forget the famous city of Gaza (LXX Γάζα, MT  עזה‎‎). But it must have taken place early in the language of the people who devised the Phoenician script.



Would you say the use of a script that didn't distinguish between these two letters "facilitated" their merger even in languages which used to preserve them?


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## Testing1234567

rayloom said:


> Would you say the use of a script that didn't distinguish between these two letters "facilitated" their merger even in languages which used to preserve them?


Well that did not facilitate the merger of shin and sin... I mean, they are still distinct phonemes to this date.


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## rayloom

Testing1234567 said:


> Well that did not facilitate the merger of shin and sin... I mean, they are still distinct phonemes to this date.



True.
But for example, other mergers that happened can be assumed to have been relatively ancient. For example Hebrew and Aramaic exhibit different merging patterns for interdentals, so would we be able to assume that these mergers had happened prior to literacy?
While pharyngeals ح خ ع غ show similar merging patterns in both languages, and in Hebrew's case is relatively recent, so could literacy have had something to do with it?
Another example, Arabic after the Islamic conquests, according to early lexigographers, showed a similar phenomenon until dotting was introduced. Well Arabic was a different situation with a lot of new converts learning Arabic.


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## Ihsiin

The same shift occured in Maltese, one assumes at a time when the speakers were still familiar with the (dotted) Arabic script.


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## origumi

rayloom said:


> While pharyngeals ح خ ع غ show similar merging patterns in both languages, and in Hebrew's case is relatively recent, so could literacy have had something to do with it?


Hebrew was heavily influenced by Aramaic since 6th century BC. Consequently the ح/خ  ع/غ merger in Hebrew was likely a copy of the Aramaic one - since maybe 200 BC most Hebrew speakers spoke Aramaic most of the time. Therefore we're not dealing with two parallel development lines, only one.

I am not sure about the time of merger in Aramaic, yet as Jerusalemite Judeo-Aramaic had not suffered this merger until 1st century BC (demonstrated above), it seems that its speakers maintained the unmerged sounds from their Hebrew heritage rather than (1) having them merged in Hebrew and then (2) re-learning them from western Aramaic (eastern Aramaic had lost ح خ earlier).


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## rayloom

Ihsiin said:


> The same shift occured in Maltese, one assumes at a time when the speakers were still familiar with the (dotted) Arabic script.



True. 



origumi said:


> Hebrew was heavily influenced by Aramaic since 6th century BC. Consequently the ح/خ  ع/غ merger in Hebrew was likely a copy of the Aramaic one - since maybe 200 BC most Hebrew speakers spoke Aramaic most of the time. Therefore we're not dealing with two parallel development lines, only one.
> 
> I am not sure about the time of merger in Aramaic, yet as Jerusalemite Judeo-Aramaic had not suffered this merger until 1st century BC (demonstrated above), it seems that its speakers maintained the unmerged sounds from their Hebrew heritage rather than (1) having them merged in Hebrew and then (2) re-learning them from western Aramaic (eastern Aramaic had lost ح خ earlier).



I see.


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## berndf

origumi said:


> I am not sure about the time of merger in Aramaic, yet as Jerusalemite Judeo-Aramaic had not suffered this merger until 1st century BC (demonstrated above), it seems that its speakers maintained the unmerged sounds from their Hebrew heritage rather than (1) having them merged in Hebrew and then (2) re-learning them from western Aramaic (eastern Aramaic had lost ح خ earlier).


But you agree that at least in some Canaanite languages the same merger must have occurred much earlier and independently of Aramaic? Otherwise it would not be explicable why the two distinctions are missing in the Phoenician script.


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## origumi

berndf said:


> But you agree that at least in some Canaanite languages the same merger must have occurred much earlier and independently of Aramaic?


Apparently.

Saying that it could have happened in Hebrew as late as about 1st century BC, or maybe never happened in Hebrew while there were still native 1st language Hebrew speakers, doesn't mean anything about Phoenician or whoever invented the 22 letters alphabet.

ADDED: I see now the misunderstanding. You wrote:


> Do we have any idea when this ḫ - ḥ merger happened precisely in which Canaanite language?


referring to a specific merger, while I took it as trying to understand when it happened (apparently independently) in the various languages.

So were you asking who invented the alphabet, or assumed that this merger happened once in a certain proto-language and discussed its details?


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