parsha bit: Vayeira

[cellio]

S'dom and 'Amorah were destroyed because of their great evil. Rabbi Yehudah said that the leaders of S'dom made a proclamation that anyone who so much as gave a loaf of bread to a poor man would be put to death. He further says that Lot had a daughter who fed a poor man and was punished in this way.

(Source: Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer)

Aside: can anyone reading this tell me how the translators got from 'Amorah (ayin, patach) to "Gomorah"? There's no gimel there. (The vowel change is less surprising, as random vowel changes in translation/transliteration aren't uncommon. But adding a consonant is novel.)

Comments

[sethg]

I have heard that the classical Hebrew gimel was a kind of gurgly sound in the back of the throat, like the modern Israeli Hebrew resh, so transliterating ayin as "g" might have been more reasonable once upon a time.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Ah yes -- I believe the hard g was only when it was doubled (dotted). But Jews in ancient times really did say their ayins as "ng". See the Jewish Encyclopedia for more.

Basically classical Hebrew sounded a lot like we hear Arabic today, with gutterals and aspirated consonants.