Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Dear Peter,

I also could give numerous analogies. Take English, or example in 1066. Old
English had just about settled down into a number of dialects flattened out
by interchange of trade and culture. The French speaking Norsemen cross the
channel and attack the English language which absorbs an enormous amount of
vocabulary, morphology and a little grammar as well. However, after about
two hundred years on Norse-French high cultural domination of the
Anglo-Saxons, the Norse French hadn't changed (though Parisian French had
moved on), but the English had absorbed all the influences without giving
up its English identity. (It was then that Richard II decided to hold his
parliament in English.)

Or again, Romanian absorbed a great deal from the Slavic languages without
ever losing its Romance nature. But you can sure see the influence.

>But then I think this whole rather childish argument 

Naughty.

>is flawed by trying to generalise over a period of more 
>than 200 years (from the Maccabees to Josephus) of political flux, in 
>which the fates of different languages at least among elite groups 
>may have changed very rapidly. 

Part of the problem, Peter, is that Jack and I have done some of this tango
before. It included texts from the DSS and those of the ben Kosebah revolt
as evidence. Hence it was an argument that spanned from the Maccabees until
after Josephus!

If we are dealing with texts from both periods, why can't one generalise
over the time between them?

>The participants have started writing 
>of "the first century" without defining which of the two first 
>centuries they are writing about and quoting authors from both. 

Usually when one talks of the first century without saying BCE, then it is
of this era.

>If 
>you tried to generalise about the language situation here over the 
>last 200 years, you would be wasting your time!

Not a good analogy! (But I think you've heard that before.) Try the Latin
from Cicero to Suetonius.


Ian