Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Herman:

Depends on how you define "dead language".

If your definition is that people use it for 
official records, literature, religious treatises 
and other such, then Hebrew never died, just as in 
the West Latin is still being used and developed.

But if your definition refers to the language that 
people learn at their mothers' knees, then I think 
the evidence indicates that Hebrew died during the 
Babylonian Captivity and that it was on artificial 
support (used as a scholarly language that people 
learn in school other than the language used on the 
street and in the home) from then until the modern 
version was developed.

One of the evidences that I consider is that I 
think Daniel wrote his book after retirement. Even 
though he himself was a native Hebrew speaker from 
before the Babylonian Captivity, by the time he put 
pen to parchment, he expected his audience to be 
fluent in Aramaic, hence wrote half his book in Aramaic.

Another evidence is that pre-Exile works, like 
Qohelet, Isaiah and others show complexity in 
vocabulary and literary style, but post-Exile 
writings tend to be simpler in both, as is typical 
of authors writing in a language that they do not 
speak at home nor on the street.

But this is indirect evidence, which leads to 
disagreements as to the conclusions. It suffices to 
say that Hebrew continued to be used and developed, 
and let's not argue over whether or not it was a 
dead language, at least not before we have a 
consensus as to what is a "dead language".

Karl W. Randolph.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Herman Meester" <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>
> 
> Whence this sweeping supposition? If Hebrew had been "dying" as early as 450
> BCE, or even only 70 CE, why did it continue to develop into the Hebrew we
> have in a.o. the Mishna, midrash collections, etc.? The latter form of
> Hebrew is clearly a language that has developed as a result of being spoken
> (even if it had not been, languages mainly used for writing aren't dead
> languages at all).
> The fact that some late-biblical texts such as Daniel or Ezra are (partly)
> in Aramaic, only points to the bilingual nature of those editing it. Qohelet
> is a late work too, judging language and content, and it's Hebrew. Ben Sira
> wrote in Hebrew in Hellenistic times, centuries after 450 BCE; and so on.
> The fact that Hebrew continued to develop syntactically, semantically, and
> phonologically all this time up to late Antiquity has been well documented
> by modern linguists. It has to be pointed out that Modern Hebrew is,
> syntactically, a continuation of the form of Hebrew found in Mishna,Tosefta,
> midrashim etc., not of B-Hebrew.
> 
> Herman,
> Rotterdam

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