However, the older transcription remains predominant in most literature, often even among scholars who either disagree with the traditional interpretation or remain noncommittal. The traditional view, as expressed in the conventional transcription and still maintained by some of the authors in the field is that was a voiceless postalveolar fricative (), was a voiceless alveolar sibilant () and was a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (). Accordingly, is seen as an emphatic version of () as a voiced version of it () and as an emphatic version of (). The reconstruction of as lateral fricatives (or affricates) is certain although few modern languages preserve the sounds. The pronunciation of as is still maintained in the Modern South Arabian languages (such as Mehri), and evidence of a former lateral pronunciation is evident in a number of other languages. For example, Biblical Hebrew baśam was borrowed into Ancient Greek as balsamon (hence English "balsam"), and the 8th-century Arab grammarian Sibawayh explicitly described the Arabic descendant of , now pronounced in the standard pronunciation or in Bedouin-influenced dialects, as a pharyngealized voiced lateral fricative . (Compare Spanish alcalde, from Andalusian Arabic al-qāḍī "judge".) The primary disagreements concern whether the sounds were actually fricatives in Proto-Semitic or whether some were affricates and whether the sound designated was pronounced (or similar) in Proto-Semitic, as the traditional view posits, or had the value of . The issue of the nature of the "emphatic" consonants, discussed above, is partly related (but partly orthogonal) to the issues here as well. With respect to the traditional view, there are two dimensions of "minimal" and "maximal" modifications made: In how many sounds are taken to be affricates. The "minimal affricate" position takes only the emphatic as an affricate . The "maximal affricate" position additionally posits that were actually affricates while was actually a simple fricative . In whether to extend the affricate interpretation to the interdentals and laterals. The "minimal extension" position assumes that only the sibilants were affricates, and the other "fricatives" were in fact all fricatives, but the maximal update extends the same interpretation to the other sounds. Typically, that means that the "minimal affricate, maximal extension" position takes all and only the emphatics are taken as affricates: emphatic were . The "maximal affricate, maximal extension" position assumes not only the "maximal affricate" position for sibilants but also that non-emphatic were actually affricates. Affricates in Proto-Semitic were proposed early