Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Charles David Isbell" <cisbell AT home.com>]

I should define the term "dialect" in the way in which I understand and use
it.  I assume that there was a regional "language" known and used among the
people who lived in "Canaan."  I assume that this language was not the
Hebrew that we now see in the Bible.  I assume  that from this root language
there developed several dialects or variations, what might be called
provincial forms that differed from the standard [and this is usually
literary] language.  These assumptions are necessary because we do not have
adequate literary witnesses to what I am calling "Canaanite."  But I do not
think that designating BH as a "dialect" limits its range of expression or
vocabulary.  My original posting may have indicated that I considered a
"dialect" to be vocabulary limited, but I do not think that the case.
Remember that one of the major weapons used by Saadia Gaon against the
Karaites was his compendium of scriptural hapax legomena and derivative
forms that he insisted could be explained only with reference to the more
complete vocabulary of Mishnah.  So it has long been recognized that in BH
we do not possess a complete corpus of literature necessary for the
reconstruction of an entire language [or "dialect" as I use the term].

I speak a "dialect" of French, learned from my parents, that has a full
range of expression and a rich vocabulary.  It is not the French of Paris.
It is not based on a literary standard, but upon the experiences of a people
who were thrown together 200 years ago and needed to develop a culture and
an educational system, etc.  I can converse well enough in Paris or
Montreal, but my accent gives me away, as do many of the verb forms and some
18th century vocabulary.  But I cannot argue that my French is the standard
language and Parisian French the dialect that has developed from it.  The
development was clearly the other way around.  I might argue that French
itself is one of several dialects [along with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese?]
that developed from the root language of Latin.  This argument too would be
based upon a chronological reconstruction of what was spoken and written
first, and what later, etc.

"Dialect" is not thus a pejorative term, but merely a descriptive attempt to
correlate one of the chronological steps by which BH came into being.  As
for the question of Niels, I think it quite possible that BH was
specifically used for the editing and production of Scripture. Is it too far
afield to note the standardization of English that followed the publication
of the KJV in 1611?  Or the standardization of German that followed Luther's
translation the preceding century?  If we recall that the alphabet of Hebrew
was lost, to be replaced by the Aramaic alphabet in Babylonia, does it not
follow that regardless of the antiquity of materials at hand for the editors
in exile, they were forced to make a conscious decision about which
materials to retranscribe into the square letters and which not to
transcribe.  Does this not help to account for works cited as if they were
well known to the reader [Yashar, Chronicles of Kings of Israel and Judah,
etc.], but which were apparently not considered essential enough for
re-transcription and transmission?  And would this not also account for the
fact that the distinctions between Northern Israelite Hebrew and Southern
Judahite Hebrew [though not to be discounted as the work of Gary Rendsburg
inter alia has shown] are not as stark as one might imagine?  The Book of
Job, of course, presents an exception to which I have no clue of an answer.

There is a great deal of difficulty in distinguishing the material cultural
remains of a "Hebrew" family from a "Canaanite" family [or city, etc.].
Should it be surprising that the only literary texts we have [like Moabite,
e.g.] are clearly linguistic relatives of the largest corpus at our
disposal, the HB?  Since it is impossible to show that BH preceded all of
these other dialects, I consider it difficult to maintain that BH is a
"language" as opposed to a "dialect" that developed from a root language in
Canaan.

I am interested in the opinions of fellow posters.  What I have stated above
is difficult either to prove or to disprove, I believe.  So I remain open to
corrections.

Kol Tuv,
Charles David Isbell

To Charles, who wrote:

In my view, Ullendorf is almost certainly correct.  In fact, it may be more
appropriate to speak of biblical Hebrew as a dialect of Canaanite than as a
language proper.

maybe a dialect for writing biblical literature?

NP