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  • From: "Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[2]: Perspective on Phoenician and Hebrew
  • Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 19:14:47 -0500


This is an interesting question, but one which I think can be dealt
with in a slightly different way.

The implicit point which I see behind Garbini's claim and Ian's
posting of it is that there is some tension between the fact that the
Israelites spoke (or at least wrote) a southern Amorite dialect and
the biblical historical account. But is there actually anything
strange here?

Let us suppose for the moment that the biblical account is at least in
its broad details correct: the Israelites were Semites who moved from
Canaan into Egypt, spent several hundred years (perhaps) there, and
then moved back to Canaan and (in part) supplanted the existing
Semitic population. Is this picture incompatible with the linguistic
picture? I think not.

I think we can reasonably assume that the Israelites who lived in
Canaan before moving to Egypt were speakers of southern Amorite, as
spoken by their neighbours. According to the biblical account,
although their origin was in Mesopotamia they lived in Canaan for
several generations, long enough for their dialect to converge with
that of their neighbours.

So a group of southern Amorite speakers moved to Egypt. No doubt their
language picked up some Egyptian features while they were there. But
there was a lot of coming and going between Egypt and Canaan, during
the Hyksos period and before and after it. The Israelites would
probably have come to speak an Egyptian dialect of Amorite which would
have remained quite close to the Amorite of southern Canaan.
Incidentally, are there Semitic texts from Egypt to confirm or deny
this supposition?

Then when the Israelites moved back to Canaan and started living
amongst the local population (as the biblical account states and
condemns), their dialects would quickly have converged - soon there
would have been no significant difference between proto-Hebrew and
proto-southern Phoenician or whatever one might call it.

For a similar situation, consider British and American English, or the
similar situation with Spanish, Portuguese and French (in Canada).
(The last three may be better examples because there is less
complication caused by continuing migration, but I am of course less
familiar with the details.) The Americans have lived for several
centuries separated from Europe by a wide ocean, which during the
first part of that period was far more of a barrier than the overland
distance from Canaan to Egypt ever was. But the divergence between the
European and American language varieties was small, in part because of
continuing though limited transatlantic contact and migration. The
divergence even went into reverse in the 20th century as the
populations were brought into closer contact because of modern
technology and travel. One would hardly expect an American community
returning to Europe to maintain a significantly distinctive dialect
for more than one or two generations.

So I don't think that this language issue helps in any way to
discredit, or confirm, the biblical picture of the migrations of the
Israelites. So let's not try to get into a historical debate on this
issue.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Perspective on Phoenician and Hebrew
Author: <mc2499 AT mclink.it> at Internet
Date: 16/02/2000 01:40


At 08.51 14/02/00 +0100, Niels Peter Lemche wrote:
>Only one problem: Why archaizing? Why not (and maybe Garbini also think
>so--it seems so) simply say that the West-Semitic dialect of this
>inscription is showing an archaic form of Hebrew/Amorite...

I have just browsed another Garbini book which was a diachronic survey on
the Semitic languages written in 1972 ("Le lingue semitiche", Napoli), in
which he said the following about the relationship between Phoenician and
Hebrew.

"It isn't easy to establish the historical origin of Hebrew, which, while
it fits comfortably within the Amorite dialects of the southern sedentary
dwellers, nevertheless remains the linguistic expression of a semi-nomadic
population located in the region relatively late. Even without adding that
the Israelites abandoned their languages to adopt that of Canaan, it seems
obvious to admit that they modelled on the latter their own literary
language, which is that which we know."

<snip>





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