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# Rhotic Phonemes in Semitic Languages – The Case of Classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew

**Authors:** Bartosz Pietrzak · **Year:** 2018 · **Venue:** Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature 42/1, 33– **Link:** [doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33](https://doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) per OpenAlex only, not confirmed in the PDF — treated as read only, summary only

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- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33)
- [PDF](https://journals.umcs.pl/lsmll/article/download/5922/4904)
- [DOI 10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33](https://doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33)
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**Authors (1)**

1. [Bartosz Pietrzak](https://openalex.org/A5035801699) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4588-3380) · h 1 · 4 citations · 14 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex (2026-10-18); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

A comparison of two Proto-Semitic sounds counted as rhotics, the trill /r/ and the fricative /ġ/, in conservative Classical Arabic and innovative Biblical Hebrew. /r/ survives in both; in Hebrew it later patterned with the gutturals (no doubling), while Greek and Latin transcriptions show it could still be doubled in the biblical period. /ġ/ is kept in Arabic (probably uvular) but in Hebrew merged with /ʿ/ (ע) by about the 3rd century BCE; the Septuagint shows the old split (Γάζα for עַזָּה with gamma, but Βαλααμ for בִּלְעָם with a vowel). Matching 259 Hebrew ע-roots with Arabic cognates, the author identifies 216, of which 30 are homonyms; restoring them gives 246 roots, about 24% with original /ġ/. Words from /ġ/-roots are rare (98 lexemes, a third hapax) and gather in a few, mostly post-exilic, books.

## Ideas

- I1. For the Torah dictionary: tag ע-roots with their Proto-Semitic value (/ʿ/ or /ġ/) where a cognate is clear, and split homonymous entries that the merger created (the paper's example is עֲוִילִים "unjust ones" vs "young boys").
- I2. Use Septuagint transcriptions of names (gamma for ע) as a cheap test for /ġ/ in Torah names: עַזָּה, עֲמֹרָה (Γόμορρα), and check them against the list.
- I3. A phonology note: ר behaves as a guttural in Tiberian vocalisation (compensatory lengthening, no dagesh) but not in older transcriptions; give counts of ר + dagesh in the Torah (a handful of exceptions).

## For Mova

I1 is a column and a split rule for `macula dict` ([The lexicon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/10-lexicon/), homonyms). I2 and I3 go into [Phonology of Biblical Hebrew](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/03-phonology/) (gutturals and resh, historical sound changes). I3 is a quick count on the trees' forms; the `yetzirah` crate's letter tables may cite ע's double history as a note.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33](https://doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33)

```
@article{pietrzak2018rhotic,
  title = {{Rhotic Phonemes in Semitic Languages – The Case of Classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew}},
  author = {Pietrzak, Bartosz},
  journal = {Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature},
  year = {2018},
  doi = {10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2018.42.1.33}
}
```

- [← previous At the interface of syntax and prosody: Differentiating left dislocated and tripartite verbless clauses in Biblical Hebrew](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hbo-2018-naude-interface-syntax-prosody-differentiating-left/)
- [next → Towards a complex analysis of Wayihî + T constructions in Biblical Hebrew](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hbo-2018-westbury-towards-complex-analysis-wayihi-t/)
- [↑ back to Ancient Hebrew](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hbo/)

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