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

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  • From: Trevor Peterson <06peterson AT cua.edu>
  • To: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • Cc: 'Hebrew' <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Aramaic to them?
  • Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 09:02:33 -0500

Peter Kirk wrote:

I would be very interested in any counter-arguments, from those who are actually aware of the differences between dead and living languages. I presume that the changes between BH and Mishnaic Hebrew are not in dispute (although their dating may be in dispute cf. your pilot project). Has anyone given evidence of analogous changes happening in dead languages?

As I recall (and I have no doubt that Ken is more familiar with this issue than I am), Qimron argues that in BH, QH, and RH, we are not dealing with three chronological stages of a single linguistic stream; rather, the evidence is best explained in terms of three different Hebrew dialects, each with its own history. I don't recall whether the idea is that they represent the dialects of three different regions, or literary vs. spoken, or exactly what picture he envisions. Perhaps it is not a settled issue, even for him. Nevertheless, I agree with Ken that it doesn't seem like there is consensus in the field on how the three dialects relate to one another.

At the same time, I don't know that this in any way weakens the argument for Hebrew as a living language around the turn of the era. Indeed, it may strengthen it. If QH and RH cannot be derived directly from BH, then it seems like we should be even more inclined to posit a living language community (or communities) that produced these other conventions. (The alternative would be to suppose that there were multiple literary traditions established at some point, say, more contemporaneous with BH, and we simply don't see them used extensively until later on. But why would any of them supersede BH, if they were all archaic conventions? Rendsburg, BTW, has tried to show in various studies, that much of this dialectal variation does go back to pre-exilic times, where he distinguishes "Israelian" from the Judahite standard.)

Anyway, that's my muddled two cents on the issue. I do tend to think that Hebrew was a living language for at least some segment of the population, but as far as trying to lay out the relationship between BH, QH, and RH, the best I can do so far is get a reasonable handle on the different arguments. Fortunately for me, that's enough for what I need to do right now. Ken's not quite so lucky, so when he gets it all sorted out, he can enlighten us :-)

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics




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