Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Charles David Isbell" <cisbell AT cox.net>]

Dear Peter and List,
Peter, I have great respect for your work.  I do find it a bit strained that
you accuse Clay of giving an emotional response just before you close with
the following rhetorical question: "Could it be that the Semitic language
specialists have a vested interest in keeping Hebrew and other Semitic
languages hard to learn so that they can perpetuate their intellectual
elitism?"
Now, Peter, I am currently in my 36th year of trying my best to make Hebrew
learn-able, and over the years more than 90% of my University students have
been Christians whose goals are very much like what you described ["to learn
because knowing Hebrew is a useful tool for their work or study, as Bible
students, exegetes, pastors, Bible translators etc."]. But let me make two
simple points which I hope you can accept as something more than the mere
emotionalism of a Hebraiophile.
First, while I am leading university classes through Hebrew each year, I
always have two or three bar mitzvah students whom I tutor privately.  Some
of them are familiar with the Hebrew [Aramaic] alphabet, many are not.  All
are between 10 and 12 years old.  And I think it might be helpful for you
and others on the list to know that Reform Jewish kids don't grow up
speaking or thinking in Hebrew.  Many don't even have a bar mitzvah any
more.  But those who decide to do so are expected to read a short Torah
portion from an unpointed text, to read a Haftarah with points, and to read
or sing several passages from the prayer book in Hebrew. I have never had a
kid, and remember we are talking about pre-teens here, take more than about
two weeks to grasp the 22 letters of the alphabet.  Similarly, if you use
the book I have written to teach Biblical Hebrew, I spend only one chapter
on the alphabet, and again find semester after semester that Louisiana
undergraduates have very little trouble learning to use the alphabet.  These
are not private school elitist kids, Peter, but public university students
in a state that ranks below everyone except Mississippi and Washington D.C.
in educational rigor.  But they are also kids whose motivation is high, many
of whom talk in terms very similar to you about their reason for taking
Hebrew.
Second, I wonder how people learning only a transliteration system fare when
approaching the complicated massoretic methods of indicating compensatory
lengthening, assimilation of weak letters, etc.  I know how I do it by
highlighting dots inside letters and assuring my students that certain dots
are really small nuns, others merely start a syllable, etc.  I know how to
put a dot in a laryngeal and act surprised when my students tell me such
letters cannot be doubled/dotted, and I know how this leads me to explain
the lengthening that has taken place in front of a laryngeal that rejects
doubling.  And I teach students to look for roots as one of the basic tools
of learning new vocabulary.  How would I do this with a series of
apostrophes and English vowels that IN ENGLISH have equal weight as letters
with consonants?  In Hebrew, I can put two words on the board with no
vowels, and show quickly whether they derive from the same root or not.
Now I may be thought of as an elitist, but I find it passing strange that on
a list dedicated to a discussion of Biblical Hebrew anyone should be
criticized in this way for assuming that college and seminary students might
do what 10 year old Jewish kids around the world have been doing for 2000
years.  And this is not a slap at Christians, Peter, just the opposite.  My
point is that if 10-12 year old children can do it, surely adult students
who are motivated by the elegant [but not elitist! -- <G>] purpose Peter
delineated for Christian seminarians can also do it.
We are talking about 22 letters here, folks, not 650 Akkadian signs, not
even 102 basic element symbols in Chemistry, or 24 Greek letters.  I have
never met anyone who came in with the kind of motivation to learn Hebrew
Peter describes, who quit when asked to learn 22 symbols.  Maybe my
Louisiana college students are just smarter than I realized.
Please do not attack me for being an elitist or for dissing Christians or
for trying to drive potential Hebraists away.  I am quite a common person, I
love Christians [and think everybody should know at least one!], and I have
spent a lifetime trying my best to attract new recruits to the field I love.
Charles