Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Liz Fried wrote:

> Peter Kirk wrote
>  
>
> > >      
> > The Jews living at Elephantine i.e. Aswan may well have lost their 
> > Hebrew language just like many migrant communities lose theirs in a 
> > melting pot. That doesn't mean that the people back home lost their 
> > language. Italian Americans may have to write letters in English, even 
> > to relatives in Italy; in America they have lost their language, but 
> > that doesn't mean it is no longer spoken in Italy.
> >    
>
> Dear Peter,
> This can't be the answer. Otherwise the letters would be in demotic,
> the language of the larger community. The letters attest to intermarriage
> with Egyptians. Marriage contracts, dowry lists between Jews and
> Egyptians are in Aramaic (the ones we have). Furthermore, letters
> between the official satrapal court and the priests of the temple of
> Khnum on the island are in demotic, whereas it is in Aramaic for the
> priests of YHW. Why didn't the Jews speak Demotic then?
> As for the Jews back home, the letter to the governor and to the priests
> of the temple of YHWH in Jersualem was in Aramaic.
> (Sorry for replying so late to this.)
>
> This is a fascinating thread.
> Liz Fried
>  
>
> > --
> > Peter Kirk
> > peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
> > http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >    
>
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>  
OK, Liz, I will give a better example, a closer parallel, though from a 
situation I guess you are less familiar with. In Azerbaijan, where I 
used to live, the majority population speaks Azerbaijani, but there is a 
significant minority of Russian speakers, some ethnic Azerbaijanis and 
many from a variety of other ethnic groups of the former Soviet empire. 
For example, there are a lot of Tatars in Baku, for most of whom Russian 
is their first language and certainly their language of education and 
literacy. Almost certainly when they write to their relatives in 
Tatarstan (a de facto independent republic in the Russian Federation, of 
which Kazan is the capital) they do so in Russian. Does this imply that 
the Tatars in Tatarstan mostly speak Russian as their first language? 
No, it certainly does not imply that. In fact most Tatars in Tatarstan 
speak Tatar as their first language, though there are also a lot of 
Russian speakers.

To translate this to the situation in question, replace the former 
Soviet empire by the Persian empire in which Aramaic was the lingua 
franca, replace Baku by ancient Aswan, Russian by Aramaic, Tatar by 
Hebrew, and Azerbaijani by Egyptian. Do you get the point? Immigrants to 
Aswan would have spoken not the local language but the lingua franca. In 
fact my example is even stronger than the situation in question as Tatar 
is quite closely related to Azerbaijani but not at all to Russian.

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