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

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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 11:22:53 -0800

On 03/03/2004 11:03, Karl Randolph wrote:

Dear Peter:

On second thought, maybe Judah haNasi’s maid is a good story for evidence in this question after all: Judah haNasi himself did not expect that a common person had fluent knowledge of Hebrew. If there were a community of Jews for whom Hebrew was their mother tongue, Judah should have known about it and it would not have been a surprise that a maid from that community would know Hebrew. That Judah was surprised indicates that either Judah was ignorant of Jewish society (which I think is highly improbable) or that this is evidence that such a community did not exist. (If the maid knew Hebrew better than Judah haNasi, the question remains, where did she learn her Hebrew? But there are answers that do not require a living community of Hebrew speakers, such as being herself from an educated home.)


I repeat that it is highly improbable that Judah's maid was more highly educated in Hebrew than Judah was himself, and without Judah knowing it. In fact I think I would go so far as saying that this is impossible, given the status of women at the time, the lowly status of a maid, and Judah's probable status at the top of the educational elite.

It would indeed be surprising if there was a Hebrew-speaking community which Judah did not know about - but not impossible, if he was living in a bit of an ivory tower. But my argument does not depend on that, only on that he did now know that his maid was from that community, and might have been surprised to learn that especially if the community was not local.

For a modern analogy, it would be surprising but not impossible for a modern scholar (in a western country) of ancient Aramaic not to know that there exist communities of speakers of modern Aramaic dialects. If he happens to discover that his cleaning lady speaks one of these dialects, he might be rather surprised, but that does not imply that he did not know of the existence of such thes communities.


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





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