Attempt to uncover Sin's original pronunciation

[Zvi]

~I hope for Your salvation, O YHWH~

The letter Shin (ש) represents two letters, one of them known as "Sin" (שׂ) that has been pronounced the same as Samekh since the early Second Temple era.
The specific pronunciation of /ś/ as [ɬ] is based on comparative evidence (/ɬ/ is the corresponding "Proto-Semitic" phoneme and still attested in Modern South Arabian dialects) as well as early borrowings (e.g. balsam < Green balsamon < Hebrew baśam).
/ɬ/ began merging with /s/ in Late Biblical Hebrew, as indicated by interchange of orthographic שׂ and ס, possibly under the influence of Aramaic. In all Jewish reading traditions /ɬ/ and /s/ have merged completely.

This phoneme was a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative and can be heard at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_fricative. It kind of sounds like a blend of 'S' and 'Sh' sounds.

If anyone has a better audio file with this specific sound, please post a link.

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PS: upcoming -- the original pronunciation of the other Shin phoneme that merged with the 'Sh' sound.

[Kphiyr]

Shalom Zvi,

This is really interesting. I suppose it wouldn't be odd that the sounds of many letters have changed since those times, but the Sin never occurred to me.

Thank you for sharing.

Kphiyr

[Kphiyr]

[Yaaqov Ben Yisrael]

Shalom,

 

 Hebrew is a late Canaanite dialect; among the earliest of the Canaanite dialects is Ugaritic. Ugaritic has many consonants which do not appear in Hebrew, but does appear in Akkadian and Arabic. Aramaic, a Northwest Semitic language, demonstrates alternate pronunciations in cognates which could indicate possible alternate consonants which were subsequently dropped from the Hebrew dialect. There are words such as דבח (Aramaic) v/s זבח (Hebrew); תבר (Aramaic) v/s שבר (Hebrew) etc.

 I find it very interesting that Ugaritic resembles the Akkadian (the earliest recorded Semitic language) and Arabic in conjugation and case endings more closely than it resembles the conjugation of Hebrew and Aramaic (neither of which utilizes case endings). The Ugaritic, like Arabic, has only three vowels (a, i, and u). Both Hebrew and Aramaic have similar vowels with a broader range of vocalization. Among Hebrew and Aramaic vowels is the seghol, an e vowel. Interesting enough, the e vowel also appears in Akkadian; Akkadian had the a, i, e, and u vowels. The conjugation of Ugaritic resmebles Arabic almost exactly: QTL- QaTaLa- YaQTuLu. 

I am including some pictures of the Ugaritic consonants compared to the Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and Akkadian languages.

 

 Yaaqov ben Yisrael