Re: Maria del Carmen means?

Douglas G. Kilday wrote:
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...
> > Douglas G. Kilday wrote:
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...
> > > > Douglas G. Kilday wrote:
> > > > > "Alan" <in_flagrante@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > [...]
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Although this gets us no closer to solving the "Carmen/el Monte
> Caramelo"
> > > > > > puzzle, it would appear that Carmel _does_ have a Hebrew origin.
> According
> > > > > > to an Israeli friend of mine, Mt Carmel is known as "har
> ha-karmel" which he
> > > > > > says literally means "the mountain of the vineyard of God".
> "Kerem", in my
> > > > > > old pocket-book Hebrew dictionary, is defined as "garden" or
> "vineyard", so
> > > > > > "karmel" as "vineyard of God" would seem to make some sense . . .
> > > > > > This information, of course, doesn't explain how /n/ became a
> variant of /l/
> > > > > > on its way to Europe . . .
> > > > >
> > > > > Your Israeli friend is mistaken, because the vowel is short: it is
> <karmel>
> > > > > not *<karme:l>. The -el is a formative suffix (cf. <Se:pel> 'dish,
> bowl',
> > > > > <barzel> 'iron') and has nothing to do with <?e:l> 'mighty one,
> hero' used
> > > > > as an epithet of God (and Nebuchadnezzar, see Ezek. 31:11 <?e:l
> go:yim>
> > > > > 'hero of nations').
> > > >
> > > > How are you arriving at vowel lengths for Hebrew?
> > >
> > > From Davies-Mitchell. (Yeah I know, but for 25 cents at a rummage sale
> you
> > > can't go wrong.)
> >
> > I don't know what that is.
>
> B. Davies, _A Complete Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon_, 3rd ed. rev. by E.C.
> Mitchell [Boston 1880], "chiefly founded on the works of Gesenius and Fürst,
> with improvements from Dietrich and other sources".

Looks like a side-branch of the Gesenius lexicographic tradition, of
which the main line stalled with BDB around 1920 and the 1927 German
edition -- also too early for Ugaritic.

> Mitchell cites sections
> of Gesenius in his brief section on phonology, so I presume that was the
> source for his treatment of the vowels. W.R. Harper uses the same scheme in
> his _Elements of Hebrew_, of which I have the 19th ed. [Chicago 1886].

There were no revisions. That's merely the 19th printing. My copy was
printed in the early 1970s.

> > > > I hope not via the alinguistic SBL transliteration, which is utterly
> > > > useless for the linguistics of Biblical Hebrew.
> > > >
> > > > The Masoretic pointing denotes only vowel quality; there can be short
> > > > tseres and even long segols.
> > >
> > > If that's so, it's a simple matter to rephrase what I said in terms of
> vowel
> > > quality. For that matter, the consonantal text has <krml> not *<krm?l>,
> so
> > > it's surprising that Alan's Israeli friend (who is presumably literate)
> > > would fall for the pious folk etymology.
> >
> > Literacy in Modern Hebrew doesn't entail familiarity with the pointing
> > of every word in TaNaKh, and of course neither length nor quality
> > distinctions are found in ModH. It just has the normal five vowels.
>
> Still, I would expect a literate Israeli to recognize that <krml> did not
> have the same formation as <y$r?l> and the like, even if 'alep no longer
> counts for much in modern pronunciation.

"Pointing" refers to segol vs. tsere, not to the presence of 'alep
(which counts for _nothing_, not _not much_, in modern pronunciation).
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Many a H. A. Gleason
    ... >> Douglas G. Kilday wrote: ... No "Appalachian Baptist fellow" has been previously mentioned; ... College is a Mennonite/Anabaptist college in Indiana, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Bolinger Re: Banjos, squeeling pigs, and all that
    ... >> Douglas G. Kilday wrote: ... >>> Do some speakers, or most speakers in some regions of the UK, consistently ... *Language: A Loaded Weapon* is a masterpiece, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: American as creolish [was] Re: Baltic Is Gothic
    ... What ever you are try to do Douglas G Kilday, ... > simplifications and generalizations on linguistic change and neglected to ... > explain why language was not already simplified into the ground millennia ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: oldest writing we know and another question
    ... >> Douglas G. Kilday wrote: ... >>> Not all specialists are convinced. ... > R. Coleman, "Dialectal variation in republican Latin, with special reference ...
    (sci.lang)