Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 06.06 15/07/99 +0800, you wrote:
>Ian wrote:
>
>> 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?
>
>Since you are basing your impression in part on your own modern-day
>experience, and then combining that with an argument of silence, perhaps
>you are looking at the wrong part of your experience.   

Sorry, Paul, plainly the argument from silence regards Aramaic. We have a
lot of Hebrew texts that show that Hebrew was a spoken language (as shown
in the orthography and phonology in the DSS: Qimron talks of weakenings,
assimilations, elisions, pronunciations in final positions, etc).

>Rather than
>taking comparisons with two languages in which you claim not to be
>proficient, perhaps you would have done better to use your writings in
>English and Italian.  

Perhaps you missed the logic of the comment. I was not claiming
proficiency, but, at least in the second example, showing how others dealt
with a language that was not their own but sufficiently close for them to
understand. This could be strictly analogous with the situation of ancient
Hebrew speakers dealing with Aramaic.

>While I have not seen any of your Italian
>writings, I can definitely state that your English writings reflect no
>traces of bilingualism with any other languages.

It depends if you know Italian well.

>What I have generally observed is that people who are truly bilingual
>tend to stay in one language or another during a conversation or
>discourse.  I think of a recent case where I asked a friend to interpret
>for me in a business dealing with a person from the Ilocano language of
>the Philippines.  The friend got so much into his Ilocano mode that he
>forgot to switch back to Ibanag (our common language) in his explanation
>to me.  Yet Ibanag is his first language, and the language that is
>spoken in his house and normal business dealings.

This is true from my observation as well, with certain provisos. "Truly
bilingual" is a trap: no-one is truly bilingual, for there are always gaps
in knowledge between the two languages. I had a girlfriend once who was as
close to "truly bilingual" as you can get and, besides feeling deficient in
both languages, when relaxed and not being "truly bilingual", spoke a
pastiche of the two languages choosing the words that were more effective
from both the languages. Get beyond the superficial level of conversation
material and there will be a choice of one language or another: she could
talk about horticulture in Italian but not English; she could talk about
grammar and linguistics in English but not in Italian; and there are
numerous other topics. And while she is one example she reflects a wide
range of people in a similar situation.

And I can come off the phone after a conversation with an Italian and
continue in my pidgin Italian with English speaking friends who look at me
a little bemused.

What would the conversation have been like if the Ilocano speaker were also
a good speaker of Ibanag? The case I was arguing against was not one of
individual bilingual speakers, but essentially a bilingual community. I'm
sure there were some bilingual speakers.

>If someone is truly multilingual, not just conversant in many languages,
>you should probably *not* expect to see cross-over and borrowings.

If they are talking about the weather. Or if there were socio-political
constraints.

If we truly have some sort of cosmopolitan situation as some people try to
put forward, what I would expect with two such similar languages is
interplay between the two languages. This is not found in the specific case
of ancient Israel, so it would seem that the Hebrew and Aramaic communities
were quite distinct.

I have hopefully shown that when two languages are sufficiently similar
there can be exchange of information without learning the other language.
Did a Hebrew speaker need to speak Aramaic to listen to Daniel or Ezra
read? What about a Hebrew speaker today?

When someone proposes bilingualism, they normally need some evidence for it.


Cheers,


Ian