aleif beit

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, ዳንኤል ያዕቆብ
<tamrin@...> wrote:

> > The ' b g d order is known in traditional Ethiopian circles,
> because it
> > appears in Psalm 119 (just as it does in the Septuagint).
>
>
> Evidence of the order appears to be from the alphabetic section

names:

> "aleif", "beit", "gameil", and "daleit'", simple variants on the
> Hebraic letter names (a modern Amharic Bible even includes the

Hebrew

> letters).* The first syllable of each word follows "a-bei-ga-da".
> The "ga" in "gameil" I've certainly seen change forms (gi,ge,g) but
> "beit" is a very stable semitic root. So I lean towards the

rotated

> table as the origin of the word and hebraic scripts for the order.
>
> The "abegede" order is fairly well known, the Ethiopian Orthodox
> Church applied it for a time but abandoned it. The order is at

times

> loosely refered to as "abugida" (as per the table). The "bugida"
> (horizontal) aspect of the syllabary wouldn't be applied

in "ordering"

> though, so I find it misleading.
>
>
> > It has liturgical uses.
>
> do tell!

I was able to find psalm 119 in the pdf link. Then I checked an old
Latin/Hebrew psalter (1666?) that I have and found that on the Latin
side the Hebrew letters are retained to perserve the parallel with
the Hebrew side. There is no attempt a substitution.

However, in the Septuagint, it looks as if a Greek 'omega' was used
as an equivalent for Hebrew 'vav'. Did 'omega' have a latent 'v'
sound?

Suzanne

>
>
> /Daniel
>
>
> *Psalm 119 in UTF-8:
> http://www.bible.org/foreign/amharic/psa-119.htm#P2194_104986
>
> Psalm 119 in PDF (with Hebrew) page 66:
> http://www.gospelcom.net/ibs/bibles/amharic/pdf/ot/psalms.pdf