Talk:רוח

RFV discussion: February–March 2021

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רוח

Rfv-sense "breath". Tagged by @Ruakh in 2020 and not listed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:31, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Remove "breath". I've never heard it in this sense, and it doesn't appear in any dictionary. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Maybe it's only Biblical? "Breath" is the first sense in Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius, with cites at Job 15:20, Lamentations 4:20, Jeremiah 10:14 and 51:17, Habakkuk 2:19, Psalm 135:17, etc. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• The phrase וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים (wə-rū-aḥ ’ĕ-lō-hîm) from Genesis 1:2 is translated in the KJV as “the Spirit of God”, but the Septuagint has καὶ πνεῦμα θεοῦ (kaì pneûma theoû). The original literal sense of Ancient Greek πνεῦμα (pneûma) is “breath”, but the term acquired a more ethereal sense around the time the Septuagint was compiled; for example, the Holy Spirit is Πνεῦμᾰ τὸ Ἅγῐον (Pneûma tò Hágion). In Job 19:17, Job laments ר֭וּחִֽי זָ֣רָה לְאִשְׁתִּ֑י (rū-ḥî zā-rāh lə-’iš-tî), “my spirit/wind/breath is strange to my wife”. Here, the sense “breath”, used in the KJV, appears to be the better fit.  --Lambiam 18:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

  In Genesis 1 the meaning is probably "wind". But the meaning "breath" is quite usual in the Hebrew Bible (for instance in combination with the words for "mouth" or "nose"), so keep as clearly in widespread historic use. Just check a dictionary of Biblical Hebrew. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:39, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• RFV-kept. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:49, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Is there any evidence that the -a- was syllabic in Tiberian Hebrew? I'd have expected that the pronunciation was something like /ruːɐ̯ħ/. At least originally, this -a- was just a gliding sound, which can easily arise between a high vowel and a pharyngeal. Of course, it may then have become syllabic, but is there any evidence for this (e.g. from Metrics)? 2.203.201.113 12:08, 16 December 2021 (UTC)