Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Paul Zellmer <zellmer AT cag.pworld.net.ph>]

Matthew Anstey wrote:

Dear B-Haverim

I have been reading the recent flurry of discussion on 1 Sam and discourse
analysis lately and have kept wondering about the following: most native
speakers use language with on average, let's guess, 95%+ grammatical
accuracy according to _their_ own understandings. However we all know that
most native speakers cannot describe their language very well. One day, a
linguist comes along and describes _totally_ (in utopia?) the rules of this
language at every level. Next, take two people who want to learn the
language. One is immersed in the culture with no handbooks, and the other
has lessons with the linguist. After three years we all know who will learn
it better.

Matthew, your intimation (that the one who is immersed in the culture learns
the language better) is most probably accurate *if* you define "learn"
as "the ability to use with ease."  If, on the other hand, "learn"
is the "ability to understand how and why a thing is done a certain way,"
stick with the linguistic explanation.  Even if the explanation is
inaccurate in some aspects, it gives you a footing for your own discoveries. 
And, of course, your example only works if there is actually a culture
into which to be immersed.  In BH, I fear there is not.
> Now I have (among other things) two goals re BH.
> First I want to
> have as good as possible understanding of BH, and second I want to
> find
> methods to teach students (one day) the same. By analogy to my little
> example, it seems that I have to be "immersed" as much as possible
> in the
> language, and that this takes precedence over linguistic description.
> Linguistic description helps enourmously at certain points, but does
> it ever
> help one "feel" a language? So, some questions:
>         1. how can one best be immersed
> in a dead language?
>         2. how can one best teach
> others in this way?
>         3. at what point does one
> move to linguistic description, particularly
> discourse analysis stuff and how?
Again, please don't equate being able to form "good" BH with a good understanding
of BH.  I take it that your goal is *not* to generate new "BH text." 
I am assuming that you are trying to understand what is going on with the
extant text.  In this light, you might be doing a disservice to classify
all linguistic description as something other than "getting immersed" in
a dead language.

Bryan Rocine, while not professing to be expert in this field, has none-the-less come up with a tool that I have found useful in teaching students with little or no formal training in foreign language study.  His A New Approach to Learning Biblical Hebrew Using Discourse Analysis (1997) seems to give the students a quicker "feel" or understanding of what they see in the text.  And its use of only BH examples and verse-by-verse guidance in examining several longer texts seems to keep their interest and excitement going through the tedious parts of learning a language.  I believe he has not yet signed on with a publisher, so you will have to write to him for information on how to get a copy.

 

Now, some thoughts about own questions.
        1. Randy Buth suggested to me that reading large slabs of BH, particularly
Torah, was the best way. He also suggested learning modern Hebrew, which I
hope to do later down the track. What do others think? Goldfajn makes the
point that Bible translators of BH seem to fairly well intuitively grasp the
meanings of the text and the discourse features, and translate these
remarkeably well, in many cases without a theoretical knowledge of
text-linguistics.

This is one advantage of using a discourse analysis approach--it "forces"
you to look a "large slabs" of BH, and keeps them in "slabs" rather than
individual verses.  I personally have found modern Hebrew to be of
only marginal value, since the grammatical constructions have changed greatly.

Concerning your comparison of BHebrew language acquisition vs. German language acquisition, you are talking apples and oranges.  You learn German by constructing a sentence, phrase, etc., and trying it out.  Then you get feedback on what is correct and what is wrong.  And you repeat the process.  I know of no way that you can do the same in the modern world with Biblical Hebrew.  However, you would probably gain some benefit if you added reading the BH text out-loud during your study.  After you got to the point where you were not having to work as hard to figure out the pronunciation, your "hearing" the language might give you another hook on which to hang some of your rapid understanding of what is being said.

By the way, you realize that you are talking two different problems here when you describe your own studies and the passing the language on to students.  For you, Matthew, the bottom line is to stop studying about the text.  From your description of your studies, you already have the tools to get started (and then some!).  Now you have to develop your handling of the tools.  And you do that by reading the text itself.  For the students, however, the task is to give them the tools in a way that does not kill their enthusiam with details.

--
Paul and Dee Zellmer, Jimmy Guingab, Geoffrey Beltran
Ibanag Translation Project
Cabagan, Philippines

zellmer AT faith.edu.ph