Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Aramaic to them?

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Aramaic to them?
  • Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 14:03:59 -0500

Dear Peter:

On second thought, maybe Judah haNasi’s maid is a good story for evidence in this question after all: Judah haNasi himself did not expect that a common person had fluent knowledge of Hebrew. If there were a community of Jews for whom Hebrew was their mother tongue, Judah should have known about it and it would not have been a surprise that a maid from that community would know Hebrew. That Judah was surprised indicates that either Judah was ignorant of Jewish society (which I think is highly improbable) or that this is evidence that such a community did not exist. (If the maid knew Hebrew better than Judah haNasi, the question remains, where did she learn her Hebrew? But there are answers that do not require a living community of Hebrew speakers, such as being herself from an educated home.)

In Europe in 1300, virtually all legal documents, trade agreements, business contracts, church documents, high literature and so forth were written in Latin: is this evidence that there was a community of fullers, blacksmiths, fishmongers, weavers, farmers and others for whom Latin was their mother tongue? We know from history that that was not the case.

The same case existed in 1910 in China concerning an official Chinese language that no one outside of an educated elite spoke fluently.

Similarly, the existence of the DSS, legal and religious documents do not in themselves indicate that there was at that time a community of Jews—bakers, farmers, fishers, potters, etc.—for whom Hebrew was their mother tongue. But we do have evidence from a variety of sources (you know them better than I) that indicate common people spoke Aramaic with a smaller group speaking Greek and apparently a very small group speaking Latin.

I leave the door open that Hebrew could have been the mother tongue of at least one group within Judea and Samaria in the first century, but I have yet to see such a group identified. All I have seen so far is evidence of an educated elite and those living and working with them.

Karl W. Randolph.


----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>

On 02/03/2004 19:50, Karl Randolph wrote:

>Peter:
>
>Judah haNasi’s maid is not a good example to >this discussion—she worked in an environment >where Hebrew was spoken, namely Judah haNasi’s >house and school: if she had a head on her >shoulders and any amount of linguistic >ability, she could have picked up Hebrew from >her surroundings. Just because she was a maid >does not mean that she wasn’t smart nor able >to learn Hebrew.
> >

True - but if I remember correctly the point was that she knew Hebrew BETTER than Judah haNasi, at least that she had a wider vocabulary. She could hardly have learned that from Judah haNasi and his circle.

>... The evidence I have >seen indicates that a fluent knowledge of >Hebrew was pretty much the realm of the elites >by the first century, and for the common >people, Aramaic was their primary language.
> >

What evidence? There is evidence pointing the other way as well. The most probable situation, it seems to me, is that Aramaic was primary in some areas and social circles, and Hebrew in others (and perhaps Greek in yet others, though rarely among Jews in Palestine).

>Notice, nowhere do I claim that Hebrew was not >spoken fluently by at least a minority elite, >just that the evidence pointing to a possible >majority of the people speaking Hebrew as >their primary language is weak at best.
>
> >
The important question here is one you have left open. Do you accept that there was a continuing community for which Hebrew was the mother tongue? That is what the DSS evidence strongly suggests, at least for the period before the destruction of the Temple. And if this did exist, it is what makes the significant difference from Latin in the modern period.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/


--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page