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b-hebrew - RE: [b-hebrew] Ps. 104:12 - (P)YM

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  • From: Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Ps. 104:12 - (P)YM
  • Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 07:06:44 -0400

>===== Original Message From "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
=====
>HH: It could suggest that the psalm is late, but
>I don't know that it has to do so. If it was a
>loanword from Aramaic, Aramaic still goes pretty
>far back:
>http://members.aol.com/assyrianme/aramaic/history.html

How far back Aramaic goes is not so much the issue. (Although it is fairly
obvious that you can't have a loanword from a language that doesn't yet
exist!) As I mentioned in my earlier post, there is a distinction that needs
to be made between a true loanword and a word that happens to be shared
between two related languages. In the latter case, it often happens that the
word is more common in one language than the other, so that, as in our
example, there may be a good deal more evidence from Aramaic than from
Hebrew.
But if we're talking about a true loanword, there are other distinctions to
be
made. An isolated loan can occur at almost any time that both languages
exist,
as long as it is plausible that they had some contact. This sort of thing is
even more acceptable if the word is a technical term related to a unique
invention. In such cases, the language is imported with the object. But when
languages experience a period of close contact, the proportion of loanwords
tends to increase dramatically. So looking at one loanword in isolation may
not say a great deal, but looking at the cummulative flavor of a text is
somewhat more enlightening.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics





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