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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lrbguy, post: 2835047, member: 88829&quot;]I just came across this thread this evening, and was intrigued to watch you noodle it through, TIF.&nbsp; I was glad to see you staying with it on the vocalization track, and impressed.&nbsp; You did very well for one not trained in this.&nbsp; Congrats.&nbsp; Let me fill in a blank spot or two.&nbsp; You mused about rules for vowels.&nbsp; They had them.&nbsp; Phoenician is in the family of languages called &quot;West Semitic.&quot;&nbsp; The length and quality of vowels in West Semitic is related to the position of the associated consonant in a word, and the location of stress. </p><p><br /></p><p>Your second word: as a verb &quot;to rule&quot; takes <i>a</i>-vowels (<i>malak</i>), but as a noun &quot;king&quot; it follows a different vocalic pattern (more typical of East Semitic) and reads as <i>malku</i>.&nbsp; In further West Semitic linguistic development (Hebrew) this becomes the base form for words called &quot;segholates&quot; (with <i>e</i>-vowels) and as a segholate noun reads as <i>melek</i> = king.&nbsp; The form you have given did not exist.</p><p><br /></p><p>The name of the city on the maritime coast is similar but not so simple.&nbsp; Cutting to the chase: if we vocalize on the basis of Hebrew parallels, the vowels are (reduced + a) as <i>g(<u>e</u>)-bal</i>&#039;, accent on second syllable.&nbsp; The reduced vowel is not a short &quot;e&quot; but a <i>shewa</i> like the e in &quot;the cat&quot;&nbsp; If we vocalize on the basis of the Akkadian parallel (East Semitic) we read &quot;<i>Gubli</i>&quot; (that is the more likely based on the normal behavior of Ugaritic which is essentially Phoenician).&nbsp; Chances are very good that back then people pronounced the city name differently depending upon where they were from.</p><p><br /></p><p>So <i>&#039;Uzba&#039;al malku Gubli</i> (if you were Eastern) or <i>&#039;Uzba&#039;al melek G(e)bal</i> (late western accent - i.e. Hebrew)</p><p><br /></p><p>The ancients had as much variation in language as we do.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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