Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 04/02/2006 20:01, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:

> ... That the
> spelling may have been updated (a suggestion with which you "have no
> problem") suggests two things: 1) that Hebrew was spoken or used after
> the exile in the form to which the spelling was updated -- it makes little
> sense that they updated the spelling to reflect some never existing form,
> if so, why update? 2) there may have been developments in Hebrew from
> the stage present in the inscriptional pre-exilic material, and the stage
> represented in the Torah -- such as sound changes, as well as other
> types.
>   

The kinds of spelling change I have in mind are use of more matres 
lectionis. A trend towards full rather than defective holam and hiriq is 
clearly visible from inscriptional Hebrew to late biblical Hebrew, with 
the Torah somewhere in between. This change probably does not reflect an 
actual change in the language, but only a desire to clarify and 
disambiguate the pronunciation. There may have been sound changes as 
well, but there is no evidence that there was. These are just spelling 
conventions, not indications of language change. So I repeat that there 
is no evidence that the language of the Torah is different from 
pre-exilic Hebrew.

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