Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] English to Hebrew?

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Reinhard G. Lehmann" <lehmann AT uni-mainz.de>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org, "lehmann >> \"Reinhard G. Lehmann\"" <lehmann AT uni-mainz.de>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] English to Hebrew?
  • Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:05:09 +0100

b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org schrieb:
William Sanford LaSor's "Handbook of Biblical Hebrew, vol.1(Grand Rapids:
Errdmans, 1978, p.3:

"All learning is in context. The context, however, is not artificial, composed
perchance by one who does not use the language naturally, but rather it is the actual
language of those who used it as their mother-tongue. For this reason, I refuse to ask
students to compose sentences in Hebrew. To do so is to impress errors on the student's
mind. And, frankly, most of us who teach Biblical hebrew do not have sufficient fluency
in the language to speak or write it."
He ist absolutely right. We are to perceive Ancient Hebrew as a historical language - avtually there is no contemporary speaker of that language anymore. And as far as BIBLICAL Hebrew is concerned it is important to keep in mind that it is an artificial language, mixing up several synchronic and diachronic different layers (registers, dialects and so on). So, what is BIBLICAL Hebrew to speak? See, for instance, Edward Ullendorf's important studies "Is Biblical Hebrew a language?" and other papers in his: Is Biblical Hebrew a language?, Wiesbaden 1977, and, more recently, E.A.Knauf, War "Biblisch-hebräisch" eine Sprache? Empirische Gesichtspunkte zur linguistischen Annäherung an die Sprache der althebräischen Literatur: ZAH 3 (1990) 11-23.
Because there is no one to speak to who has a native speaker's competence in Biblical Hebrew, there is neither a sound reason to translate a paragraph of any language into Biblical Hebrew nor a chance to learn anything from that lest that we are ignorant.

Reinhard G. Lehmann
Academical Director
Forschungsstelle für althebräische Sprache
Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page