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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Aramaic to them?

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Aramaic to them?
  • Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 03:41:37 -0800

On 02/03/2004 19:50, Karl Randolph wrote:

Peter:

Judah haNasi’s maid is not a good example to this discussion—she worked in an environment where Hebrew was spoken, namely Judah haNasi’s house and school: if she had a head on her shoulders and any amount of linguistic ability, she could have picked up Hebrew from her surroundings. Just because she was a maid does not mean that she wasn’t smart nor able to learn Hebrew.


True - but if I remember correctly the point was that she knew Hebrew BETTER than Judah haNasi, at least that she had a wider vocabulary. She could hardly have learned that from Judah haNasi and his circle.

... The evidence I have seen indicates that a fluent knowledge of Hebrew was pretty much the realm of the elites by the first century, and for the common people, Aramaic was their primary language.


What evidence? There is evidence pointing the other way as well. The most probable situation, it seems to me, is that Aramaic was primary in some areas and social circles, and Hebrew in others (and perhaps Greek in yet others, though rarely among Jews in Palestine).

Notice, nowhere do I claim that Hebrew was not spoken fluently by at least a minority elite, just that the evidence pointing to a possible majority of the people speaking Hebrew as their primary language is weak at best.


The important question here is one you have left open. Do you accept that there was a continuing community for which Hebrew was the mother tongue? That is what the DSS evidence strongly suggests, at least for the period before the destruction of the Temple. And if this did exist, it is what makes the significant difference from Latin in the modern period.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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