Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Wednesday 03 March 2004 15:51, Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 03/03/2004 14:37, Dave Washburn wrote:
> > ...
> >
> >
> >I've read most of them, but I suspect that most of the conclusions are
> > flawed because they are treating documents that are inherently religious,
> > as though they were more or less common speech.  There is no reason not
> > to expect exclusively (or primarily) religious language to undergo change
> > of the type that is purportedly observed; I also suspect that at least
> > some of the changes spotted have been somewhat exaggerated.  But that's a
> > matter for a different list.
>
> I haven't read most of the articles. But your hypothesis can be tested,
> as there are many languages in the world which have survived for many
> centuries as exclusively or primarily religious language, with no mother
> tongue communities - or in forms which have gradually diverged from
> those used by mother tongue communities, as with Greek. (Hebrew was
> probably in that category for more than 1500 years.) Can you point to
> cases where such languages have undergone the same types of change that
> Hebrew was undergoing during the DSS period? If not, there is good
> reason to conclude that these changes occur only in languages with
> mother tongue communities.

I haven't done any study in the diachronics of other languages; the only one 
I 
know of that fits your description offhand is Latin.  What others did you 
have in mind?

> What other list should this be discussed on? Despite the subject line,
> we are talking about Hebrew, although not strictly biblical.

The discussion seems to be moving more into a DSS-specific direction, so it 
might be more appropriate for a list like Megillot.  But I'm game if you and 
the moderators are...

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Learning about Christianity from a non-Christian
is like getting a kiss over the telephone.