Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jack Kilmon <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

Kelly McGrew wrote:
> 
> Let me posit a question....if the library of a modern day chasidic shul 
> were found in
> 2,000 years, what conclusions would you draw based on the fact that:
> 
> -Most works were in Hebrew, although it varies from 'Classical' (Biblical) 
> through
> Mishnaic, Medieval, and Rabbinic, but little modern Hebrew is to be found;
> -Many works included Aramaic along side the Hebrew or Yiddish (like the 
> Mikraot
> Gedalot for both Torah and NaKh; the Talmud, and Midrashim);
> -Several works were entirely or largley in Yiddish (some editions of the 
> Mikraot
> Gedalot, the Mishnah Berurah, and other classics of Eastern European Jewry);
> -and no works were in English.
> 
> That about sums up the Skulyner shul in Williamsburg (on Keap Street).  No 
> one speaks
> Hebrew or Aramaic as a daily language, although some do have the ability 
> speak modern
> Hebrew (the langauge isn't used much outside of Israel in the chasidic with 
> which I'm
> familiar); most speak Yiddish as their first language.  English is commonly 
> spoken for
> business purposes (yet the only evidence might be on the reverse of the 
> title page:
> "Printed by Gross Brothers Inc.").
> 
> My point, in case you missed it, is that it is probably difficult to 
> determine the
> exact nature of the language based on a library which includes texts 
> hundreds (in the
> case of Qumran) or thousands (in the case of Williamsburg) of years old.  
> We can
> determine the languages in which they studied, all else is probably pure 
> speculation.

I agree in that the linguistic distribution among the DSS is not
probative of the
linguistic usage of the general population in 1st century Palestine.  If
I was a
philologist examining the Skulyner shul library in 4,000 CE, I might get
the
impression that Aramaic was the common language because the "expansion"
texts
on the Hebrew texts (Targumim, Talmud, Gemara) would be in
Aramaic....that is if
I had no extensive literature base for Williamsburg in general.  The
same would
be true for libraries in Germany, Russia, etc.  I might not know that
the Gemara
continues in Aramaic out of tradition from a time when Aramaic was the
common language.

Jack

-- 
______________________________________________

taybutheh d'maran yeshua masheecha am kulkon

Jack Kilmon
jkilmon AT historian.net

http://www.historian.net