Re: [tied] Re: PIE laringeals

On Mon, 05 Mar 2007 03:14:15 -0000, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <miguelc@...>
>wrote:
>
>> Well, the use as a glottal stop symbol is late, and the sign
>> had been in use for /ax/ (or /Vx/ in general) since Sumerian
>> times. Sumerian has only one back fricative (so probably an
>> unvoiced velar or uvular [x] ~ [X]). Akkadian uses Sumerian
>> <x>-signs to write Semitic /x/ (while Semitic /?/, /h/, /H/,
>> /¿/ and /G/ were not written until the "glottal stop"-signs
>> were introduced).
>
>How were they not represented? Syllable initially, were they
>represented by vowel initials?

Yes.

>I've read that the Akkadian Vx symbol
>was once used as the 'glottal stop' sign - Jerrold Cooper's
>contribution to the World's Writing Systems says on p47, converting
>his symbols to Latin-1: "AX = any vowel + /x/, and in earlier periods
>' + any vowel; in later periods a separate sign derived from AX is
>used for ' + any vowel, or any vowel + '".
>
>The glottal stop symbol seems to be older in Babylonian than Assyrian
>- Labat has the symbol for old Babylonian but not old Assyrian.
>
>> There's little relevance, I think, for the question of the
>> PIE laryngeals: the sign <Vh> is used in Hittite for writing
>> PIE *h2 _and_ *h3.
>
>Old Babylonian is earlier than Hittite, so the Hittite <Vh> sign could
>derive from the Old Babylonian 'glottal stop' as one Hittite font
>implies by its encoding, and I'd like you to check that the Akkadian
>use of AX for 'glottal stop' sounds is too late to have been copied by
>Hittite.

I already gave the sign list from Rüster & Neu (common
syllabic signs containing /h/). Here it is again:

Hitt Akk Sum
ha ?a4 ha
he hi
hé hí hé
hu [mus^en ("bird")]
Vh ?V ah, uh
hal hal
hap hab
hVr har, àr, hur, ur5
has^
hVt hat.
hul hul
hup hub
luh làh làh, luh
mah mah
s^ah s^ih s^ah
tVh tah

All of the signs with Sumerian readings contain Sumerian
/x/. Four of the signs with Akkadian readings contain
Akkadian /x/. Only two were (secondarily) used in Akkadian
to write /?/ (i.e etymological /?/, /h/, /H/, /¿/ and /G/).

Note especially the sign <hat>, Sumerian PA, G~IDRU (staff,
scepter), UGULA (overseer), with Akkadian reading <hat.> (as
in <hat.t.u> "staff, scepter"), used in Hittite to write the
name of <Hatti>, <Hattusas>, <Hattusili>, etc.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...