Seventy Eyes, SHiVeeyM ENaYiM:  The Varieties of  ע AYIN

In the eternal endeavor of studying Hebrew Scripture, there is the saying that Torah has:
   ענים   שבעים   SHi(V)eeyM  ENaYiM, 70 “eyes,” faces or facets, or ways of looking at any text. Hearing Biblical Hebrew read, or reading it from a scroll without diacritical marks and punctuation, engenders a built-in multiplicity.  More so than ב  Bet/Bhet orש   Shin/Sin, the ע Ayin was designed to be diversified.  Edenic letters and words were exiled, scattered among the nations.  Only an exceptional half-million words, exceptions that prove the rule, are likely to be repatriated as Edenic.

עין  [A]YiN  (eye) gave  Middle English  “eyes” like ein and eyne.  Modern English dropped the N.  The Old Teutonic augon either switched a guttural Ayin/G with a vowelized  Yod/Y, or shifted the י Yod to a J-like sound.   So, Germans too, after dropping the Noon/N,  could not see eye to eye with Hebrews with their Auge (eye) .

The easiest  forms of עין      [A]YiN (eye) to see are in Dravidian.  There’s the Hindi  aankha (eye), similar in Guriati.  But even in S. India the guttural Ayin appears in the Telugu eye: kanu
In Mandarin Chinese there is yan (eye) matching noun  עין AYiN (eye), and Cantonese (Hong Kong) gin to see, which matches the verb עין  GHaYeN (to see).

Another good ע Ayin word to see this diversity is the large circle of words built around  עגל  [A]GoaL (round). Vowel-Ayin words include the round EGG (Lamed/L dropped). As a vowel, it is usually the Ayin that dropped. Thus round words in English like GEAR and GYRE, Hindi  challā  (hoop) and Polish  kolo (wheel). CALENDAR and CYLINDER are from Greek kylindein (to roll), like גלגל   GaLGaiL, to roll.  Arabic sounds way too guttural to Western ears, to Ashkenazik Hebrew University professors. But Arabic has vowel-Ayin words, even an   עגל     [E]GoaL word.  That round, black thingy that keeps an Arab kaffiya in place on the head is called an agal.

The guttural Ayin gets us CIRCLE, CIRCUITRY and CIRCUS from Greek κύκλος  kýklos   (circle).  German Kugel  is a  ball or any sphere. The Yiddish  קוגל  KUGEL, is a kind of pudding.

But wait, there’s more.  Ayin can also be a guttural letter between the silent vowel and the harsh G or K.  The letter H.   HELIX , from Greek helikos (spiral), seems to have switched the #2 and #3 letters of  Ayin-Gimel-Lamed (round).  We then have words like HELICOPTER and HELICON (the circular tuba).  Here are three H-from-Ayin words in Finnish (not Indo-European):

heimo, a tribe or clan <  S-G עם  GHahM, nation, people  [COMMON]
hereillä, awake; herätys, wake-up call, awakening; herä, wake  < S-G  ער GHeR
          awake  [ORIENTATION]
hunaja, honey  <  עונג  GHoaWNeG], delight  [HONEY] as German hoeing (honey)

In sum, more than most Edenic letters the ע Ayin was designed to diversify.
More at E-Word Digital Dictionary entries like CYCLE, EGG and EYE. Even with these few examples it is clear that the Israelis who think that a guttural Ayin is from Arabic influence need to get out more.

POST NOTE: Posterous is closing it down soon. Posterous subscribers to this blog will be informed by Facebook, Twitter, www.edenics.org and my last Posterous post as to where the blog is moving.  If you know any computer gamers, suggest that they play with Google Translate and help our overwhelmed Edenics team put world vocab back together again.