Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT sil.org]

Matthew Anstey asked:

     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?

I've read several proposed answers, but I'm not convinced, except 
perhaps by Randy Buth's ideas. When I learned Azerbaijani, a living 
language of course, I started with the basic grammar and conversation 
(helped by a teacher), and after that I did a lot of reading, guided 
at first by another teacher who also helped with further grammar 
studies. I was also able to learn some by speaking to people on the 
streets, but it was hardly "immersion" - the "immersion" was by 
reading simple texts.

Most of this could be repeated with b-Hebrew, perhaps using a grammar 
book instead of a teacher. Either drop the conversational part or 
replace by modern Hebrew. (In Azerbaijani also there is a contrast 
between the relatively "pure Turkic" written language and a spoken 
form which is much influenced by Indo-European (Farsi and Russian) 
syntax and vocabulary; but one learns that different registers are 
different.) So my key recommendation is: read a lot of b-Hebrew, at a 
level you can just understand, i.e. start with the simple and work up 
to the complex.

One reason for discouragement is surely that the Hebrew alphabet is so 
difficult for us westerners. For years our attention is primarily on 
getting the correct pronunciation, and understanding takes a second 
place. So how about reading the Hebrew in a good clear 
transliteration? It is not hard to make a complete (readable) 
transliterated Bible text from e.g. the Oxford Text Archive BHS - I 
have one myself.

As for question 3, I must disagree with Bryan: first get to know the 
language well, and then start looking at discourse analysis type 
things.

Peter Kirk