Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>"There are several possibilities that could give rise to t - sibilant
>variant forms (in Greek transliterations or otherwise), the most
>obvious being the Proto-Semitic interdentals (non-sibilant coronal
>fricatives) which merged with sibilants in Canaanite, and ultimately
>with stops in Aramaic."

(The trajectory does seem coherent.)

>"Coronal" is a vague cover term for dental, alveolar, etc.
>"Interdental" is the term which means "th"-type sounds.

Ta.

>I would be surprised if there was a significant number of Jews who had
>Hebrew as a native language, and who were not also bilingual and
>natively fluent in Aramaic.  

And I would be surprised if there were. I have no doubt that both
languages, plus Greek, were in use at the time of Josephus, but I've seen
little evidence of bilingualism, though there must have been some for trade
to have existed, but that need only have been some sort of pidgin.

Beside the physical presence of perhaps 20% Aramaic in the texts from
Qumran, I see no indication of any bilingualism whatsoever. I could imagine
that a speaker of Hebrew could read Aramaic just as I can struggle through
French material because I know Italian (and going to Spain I could speak to
Spaniards in Italian and be understood, though I couldn't understand spoken
Spanish). But for bilingualism, I know of no traces in any of the texts to
indicate it. Are there in fact any bilingual texts from the period?

We know that DSS Hebrew was a spoken language as shown by the care in
orthographic representations of sounds of words. It is also shown by the
fact that although the language had had a large influx from Aramaic it
still produced texts, ie new texts were being produced in an Aramaic
influenced Hebrew which was at its base not Biblical Hebrew, but another
form. Orthography and phonology indicates that this Hebrew was spoken and
the existence of a literature in a heavily Aramaic-influenced Hebrew shows
that it was productive.

A number of contracts from Murabba'at were in Hebrew, though it would be
strange that such documents of everyday importance would be written in a
language of little use. If Aramaic were, by then, the language of the
Hebrews, why write civil documents in Hebrew? Murabba'at suggests the
status quo, ie all the languages were productive.

I am surprised that you could posit that most "a significant number of
Jews" could have "Hebrew as a native language," and also be "bilingual and
natively fluent in Aramaic". With no bilingual texts to support such claims
(well, Hasmonean coins were usually inscribed with both Hebrew and Greek)
yet good evidence for productivity in all the languages, I can't see why
you think as you do, though I know that Aramaic ascendancy has been assumed
for centuries. The DSS have undermined that assumption.

>Josephus could have been perfectly
>consistent (according to his own lights) in using the terms "Hebrew"
>or "the Jewish language" for the language employed by the majority of
>Jews, which would have been what we call Hebrew in ca. 700 B.C., but
>Aramaic (or Jewish dialects of Aramaic) in Josephus' own time.
>(Josephus' knowledge of Hebrew is not relevant to whether Hebrew was
>his native language, and anyway "shabbat" or "shambat" was also an
>Aramaic word.)

I have already mentioned on this list that Josephus's form of Sabbath is
that normally found in the LXX and therefore can in no way reflect on his
native language.

Why should Josephus, using the term "Syrian tongue" to describe Aramaic (in
the Rabshekeh example), then refer to his own language as Hebrew? Why does
he use the Aristeas material (AJ 12,2,1) -- saying that the religious texts
were not in Syrian but in a language peculiar to the Jews -- without
clarifying the situation in his own day?

I see no reason to believe that he was not a speaker of Hebrew. In fact,
given the statements I've mentioned from his works, I think the onus is on
anyone who believes the contrary to provide some evidence. 

(Whatever the case, it seems to me that Josephus probably used the Greek 1
Esdras as his source in AJ for his Ezra story, which in itself needs
explanation -- not that one is forthcoming.)


Cheers,


Ian