Great posts. Keep 'em coming.
I have seen this "th" sound rendered in the Latin alphabet as ṯ, and described as a separate sound altogether in proto-Semitic to both תּ (t)and ט (ṭ) (and presumably ת (th) too). Any idea how it might have been pronounced?
I think the presumption may rather be that the sound became "sh" before there was a distinction made between tav with and without dagesh.
Evil Doctor G - I'm having trouble with the character you entered for "th", so I'm not sure I fully understand your post or Joel's reply.
If I recall correctly from my Biblical Hebrew classes, the proto-semetic letter was "th" -- pronounced like the "th" in "thought" as opposed to the "th" in "the." As the languages developed that letter became "shin" in Hebrew and "tav" in Aramaic (there is also a "th" letter that sounds like the "th" in "the" - this letter became "dalet" in Hebrew and "zayin" in Aramaic - hence the interchange of these letter in many words of these languaged e.g. zahav vs. dehav (gold) etc. These letters and others like them are still found in Arabic. The sounds of these letters reentered Hebrew via the development of the "soft" pronounciation of some letters. E.g. the soft "tav" acording to Yemenite pronounciation is like the "th" above, as opposed to the Ashkenazi "s")
I once read a great article (the author escapes me at the moment) which explains the "shibolet" story in Shoftim 12. According to the article, the Shibolet "litmus test" was really whether the suspected Efraimite could say "thibolet" - something which remained (according to the theory proposed) in the dialect of Gilad, but not in that of Efraim, who could only estimate "sibolet" (Think of native Israelies trying to pronounce the word "thought"...)
According to Rabbi Akiva Tatz, shmona and shemen do indeed share the same root. The number seven connotes this world- the natural (seven days etc...) while eight goes OVER the mundane making it supernatural- hence the shemen that lasted shmona days.
kasamba, from what I have heard of him, I would not expect Rabbi Tatz to be an expert etymologist. He comes from a traditional mindset in which he is exposed to rabbinical etymologies, which are in many (though not all!) cases untrustworthy folk etymologies, but which he will accept due to the whole Orthodox chain-of-authority thing (to oversimplify, it says it in the Talmud so it must be right!).
Further, by regarding Hebrew as the original language, he will therefore reject etymological arguments relating Hebrew to other languages, particularly through proto-Semitic (i.e. pre-Hebrew) roots.
As an example of the former (reticence to counter the weight of authority), consider the example illustrated in this shiur, in which it is demonstrated that a paragraph of Mishna is actually commentary that got inlined, rather than the original text of the Mishna—yet traditional publishers like Artscroll continue to print it as part of the Mishna.
And in regard to the latter, the first Hebrew grammarians, a thousand years ago, argued about whether Hebrew was an independent holy language that must be looked at solely in its own terms, or a language like other languages, and comparable to similar languages like Aramaic, and Arabic; and came down on the side of the second argument.
Acknowledging the common Semitic origins of the Hebrew language—in this case, that שמונה and שמן have different origins, because their first letters are different in proto-Semitic, and other Semitic languages—does not detract from the Hebrew language's holiness.
Besides, pre-Biblical Hebrew is attested archaeologically; the Encyclopaedia Judaica cites for example the Canaanite proverb ki-i na-am-lu tu-um-ḫ-a-zu la-a ta-ka-bi-lu u ta-an-si-ki qa-ti amelim ša yi-ma-ḫa-aṣ-ṣi "If ants are smitten, they do not accept [it quietly] but bite the hand of the man who smites them". (Presumably the clunky division into syllables and reduplicated vowels reflect coercing Hebrew into a syllabic alphabet (cuneiform) it's not really suited for—cf. Greek written in Linear B.) In Biblical Hebrew this would be something like כי נמלים נמחצו, לא תקבלו ונשכו יד איש שימחצו.
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