Re: [TIED] Hebrew and Arabic

From: Marc Verhaegen
Message: 2465
Date: 2000-05-19

Thanks, Dennis. Very illuminating. If Kamal Salibi is right, Arabic could almost be called a daughter language of Hebrew?     Marc
 
Perhaps, but I think it's very unlikely that Kamal Salibi is right. I don't know much about his ideas, although I remember something from way back, about equating Wadi Damis (root /dms/) with Sodom (root /sdm/), and Ghamra with Gomorrah. The problem is that once you start rearranging the order of Semitic root consonants, you can make just about anything equate to anything. Also Canaanite/Hebrew sound changes would have rendered Ghamra to 3amra.
 
Yes, Damis<Sodom is not very likely, but I believe Salibi's other examples are less far-fetched.
 
Hebrew seems very definitely to belong to the geographically north-western group of Semitic dialects with Phoenician and other "Canaanite" dialects such as Eblaite, Ugaritic etc. Arabic does not.    So, if the Israelites originated in south-west Arabia, why didn't they speak a south Semitic (e.g. Sabaean) or Arabic dialect?
 
If that is so, Salibi must be wrong. I always wondered why I never saw a serious discussion of his idea.
 
This is all a bit off-subject for this group, but if you're interested in this kind of thing, you should check out Ahmed Osman ("The House of the Messiah", "Moses:Pharaoh of Egypt"). He basically claims (more plausibly IMO) that Moses was Akhnaten, and the Israelites his Egyptian followers.
On the other hand there's David Rohl ("A Test of Time") who equates the biblical pharaoh Shishak with Ramses II, and thereby "proves" the historical accuracy of the OT. However, to do this he has to remove some 300 years from history, thus bringing events such as the Invasions of the Sea Peoples down to about 900BCE or later.
I rather suspect contemporary political motives behind such writings.        Cheers    Dennis
 
I'm not very interested in biblical writings, only wanted to hear some opinions on Salibi's at first sight intriguing idea. It seems that I can now dismiss the whole thing. Thank you for your explanation.

Marc Verhaegen
http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
http://www.infres.enst.fr/confs/evolang/actes/_actes74.html