Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
> Having dealt extensively with immigrants, I now suspect that the returnees
from the Babylonian Captivity as a group probably spoke Aramaic better than
Hebrew, and probably spoke it on the street and in the home while Hebrew
continued to be the language of learning, high literature, religion and
official records. After all, it was after at least two generations of daily
contact with Aramaic for most Jews. Even though Ezra made an effort to make
Hebrew the daily language, even he wrote half his book in Aramaic fully
expecting his readers to understand it.
>

Karl, you may be right in principle, but please note that the Aramaic parts
of the book of Ezra are all in chapters 1-6, which, while they tell of the
time prior to Ezra himself, were probably added to the book after Ezra. The
only Aramaic in the Ezra part is the letter from Artaxerxes in ch. 7, which
is an "official" document.

Yigal