The Greek Prototypes of the City Names Sidon and Tyre: Evidence for Phonemically Distinct Initials in Proto-Semitic Or for the History of Hebrew Vocalism‪?‬

1. The once virtually standard affirmative answer to the first part of the question posed above was based on a belief that the initial of Gk. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "Tyre" represented a direct reflex of Proto-Semitic (PS) *t while the initial of Gk. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "Sidon" was different because it reflected PS *s, cf., e.g., Koehler/Baumgartner (1958 and 1983 s.v. sor II), (1) Friedrich/Rollig (1970: 9), Hadas-Lebel (1981: 43f.), Segert (1993: 89). (2) This has been replaced in Maria Amadasi Guzzo's third edition of Friedrich/Rollig (1999: 11f. n. 4) with what is probably now the generally accepted negative answer based on Steiner (1982: 66f.). An important feature of the argument, first noted by Wild (Steiner 1982: n. 117), is that Ugaritic does not distinguish between the initials of the two names any more than Phoenician or Hebrew do, a fact, incidentally, that appears to have been known to Segert well before 1993 (cf. Segert 1984: 198f., s.vv. sdynm et srm). (3) 2. Unfortunately, Steiner's (and the new Friedrich/Rollig/Amadasi Guzzo) account based on the idea of differing Greek attempts to represent an affricate absent from the Greek of the Classical period (cf. Steiner 1982: 62f.) is in danger of anachronism since the date of adoption of both names is likely to have preceded the period of Classical Greek (fifth to fourth centuries B.C.E.).