Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

There might be some on the list who could help with the following
pedagogical, historical question.

When did students start learning Hebrew from "grammar books"?

To the best of my knowledge, people only started  learning a language from
a grammar book in the 16th century. Does anyone have more information? 

NB: I'm not asking when the first Hebrew (or Arabic grammars) were written.
It is possible to write a grammar book for people who already know a
language. For example, the Greeks wrote grammatica and rhetorica. These
were to cultivate a 'high' style or to investigate and put order on
curiousities, but they were not intended to teach elementary stages of the
language to non-speakers.

shavu`a tov,

Randall Buth