Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

yochanan bitan wrote:

> {bryan wrote:}
> >if the question is "what do you do?"
> >'elmad `ivrit    {end quote}
>
> somehow this doesn't feel quite right.
>
> i find it very interesting that you are drawn back to prefix verbs as
> though to a magnet. i wonder what it is in training material that does
> this? [=i don't think it is the biblical text itself doing this.]
>
> even in the above example i would not expect habitual/future prefix verbs
> to be most frequent.
>
> do you have some "plain vanilla" prefix examples that refer to the a real
> present?
> we might look at them together to see what is happening, just where and
> when are they permissible.
>
> (e.g. they are very frequent in questions about actual goings-on! but in
> the answers?) [also, e.g., uxal "i can" lo uxal "I can't" is one such
> idiomatic prefix present, but its modality is lexicalized. yaxol "able
> (part/adj)" doesn't even exist in BH.]
>

<snip>

> at least now students may be able to think and talk in Biblical Hebrew. :-)
>   If their only choices had been prefix verbs and suffix verbs they might
> never really get started thinking or doing something in the language in the
> hear and now.    ma na`ase?

But, Randall, the first point you made in this response points out the great 
fallacy
in this as a teaching goal, namely, the students *may* form sentences, but 
how can
they possibly know if those sentences are really correct?  In short, they 
can't.  They
are bound by the examples brought forth in learning grammars.  And these 
examples are
not selected to give a good perspective of "normal" usage of forms in a 
language.
Rather, they are selected to illustrate the form being discussed at that time.

I could draw out numerous examples from the "English to Hebrew" (or, as is 
even
clearer in my mind right now, "English to Greek") exercises used in beginning
grammars.  But, in short, the best that could be hoped for is a specialized 
pidgeon
that allows the students in one school or group of schools to communicate 
with each
other.  This pidgeon, while using Hebrew words and grammatical forms found in 
Hebrew,
would have no guarantee to be at all close to Classical Hebrew.  Even if we 
were to
get world-wide agreement on the use of the pidgeon, so that all Classical 
Hebrew
students could talk amongst themselves, there would still be no surety of the 
accuracy
of students' products.

I do see value in trying to formulate sentences in Hebrew.  It definitely 
builds
vocabulary and recognition of various forms.  But the results will always be
inaccurate to some degree, since we no longer have "native language speakers" 
to
correct and polish our attempts.  Knowledgable feedback will always be 
missing.

BTW, Randall, was your "hear and now" a play on words, combining the idiom 
"here and
now" with the fact that you promote the students actually *hearing* the 
language?

Paul

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

zellmer AT faith.edu.ph