Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>]

Karl Randolph wrote:

> Thanks for the many responses. It has been a learning experience for me.
>
> In general, the picture I get is that Aramaic was the main language spoken in 
> the market, on the street, in the homes. Because it uses the same alphabet as 
> does Hebrew, those who knew the phonetic value of Hebrew writing could also 
> write in Aramaic. However, because Aramaic was considered a lowly language 
> not fit for official documents (which included religious documents) people 
> would try to use Hebrew whenever possible for these uses and when trying to 
> show how erudite they were.
<snip>

This is interesting, Karl, because my conclusions are almost precisely 
the opposite. In the above paragraph, swap Hebrew and Aramaic. With one 
exception; Hebrew was almost always used for religious documents, but 
Aramaic for anything else official. And perhaps Aramaic was spoken in 
the markets because these would have been for all nations, not just for 
Jews. Of course the details depend a lot on where we are talking about: 
Judea or Galilee - or Aswan!

--
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/