Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Herman Meester" <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

Dear Karl,

Your suppositions on the one hand, and mine on the other, differ to such an
extent that reaching agreement on these issues will be very hard.
There are, however, some fundamental problems to your approach, and I wonder
what you would do with them.
One of them is the syntax, morphology and vocabulary of the Mishnah's
Hebrew. The three of them point to Hebrew being a spoken language for
centuries after the Babylonian Exile. At the very least,
rabbinic/mishnaic/tannaic Hebrew or whatever name we give it, must be taken
into account when we address this "spoken/dead language"-issue.
My question to you would be, how do you explain misnaic Hebrew syntax,
morphology and vocabulary?
* How do you explain a word like le-hitqalles להתקלס, derived of καλος?
* How the new "hybrid" verb form nitpael נתפעל?
* How can we explain the use of the word Adan אדן (=BH Adam אדם)?
* How the pseudo-hif`il verb le-hatchil להתחיל, denominative of techilla
תחלה?
None of this could have happened if Hebrew is not one's mother tongue, and
all of it happened way after the Babylonian Exile.

best regards,
Herman
Rotterdan


2006/5/22, 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
�&����^���ǧ~�g��'1���^v�n6�N�z۫��6��'�z�"z���%�Uή("��S��^n���+-�&�nX���zX�z��N��y���X��ț��b���E���~�&�����Z�M��W(�yfj)kzV��k(��'�]�ێw�]<o)b��"n&劊+��,���+a#>'tOz�-4�+n���%��l����*(�(�m�k-�ӭyۭzӍ44�yǢ��_����n;��8��h