Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

Karl Randolph wrote:
   
   
  "Yitzhak:

What I know of Moabite is what I read on the Mesha 
stone. Unless Hebrew from that time had a different 
pronunciation for the letters than did Moab, which 
I find highly unlikely, the differences between 
Moabite and Hebrew were less than those between a 
Hoosier twang and a deep southern drawl, both U.S. 
English, or about the same as between Norwegian and 
Swedish.

In comparison, the differences between Hebrew and 
Aramaic remind me of the differences between German 
and Dutch, recognizably close cognate languages, 
but not readily understood when spoken.

Karl W. Randolph."
   
     Correct. To which one may add some other examples::similarity exists 
  also between various dialects of the same Semitic language, such as, say, 
Pelestinian colloquial Arabic and the one in Morocco, for instance. Speakers
   from such diferent areas need  time to undestand each other fully.
   Another example may be given from England..
     An Englishman told me that when he was placed in a Scottish 
  regiment in the army - that was may deccades ago - it took him  three weeks
   to understand them. Andt hey spoke their version of English, not Celtic.
   
    From the evidence we have about Moabite , mainly Mesha, this appears
   to have been the situation with regard to the spoken Hebrew at the time. 
  The same occurs with regard to Ugaritic and biblical Hebrew, though
   the variation between them is greater. Anyone well versed in BH, or the
   average speaker and reader of modern Hebrew would undrstand, from their 
built in knowledge of BH, quite a few lines from the easiest epic from 
Ugarit, Keret, in latin letters transliteration. Not to mention dozens and 
dozens of idioms that both 
  languages share.
   
    In this case, because of the temporal and georaphical distance, the
   pronounciation difference could well be greater than between BH and 
Moabite, Ammonite or Phoenician.
   
  Uri



                
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>From peter AT qaya.org  Wed Jun 28 18:45:37 2006
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From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Canaanite - response to certain folks.
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On 28/06/2006 22:55, Chris and Nel wrote:
> ...
> PETER KIRK said
>   
>> An alternative scenario, which may appeal more to conservatives like
>> Karl, is as follows: When Abraham and his family came to Canaan, they
>> initially spoke a form of Aramaic, similar to what their relatives who
>> remained in the north, like Laban, continued to speak. But when they
>> moved to Canaan, they picked up the local Canaanite language.
>>     
>
> I agree Peter but surely it is pushing things a bit to say that as a family 
> moves from one land to the next they instinctively start to change their 
> native tongue? Chris.
>
>   
I didn't say "instinctively". But it is easily demonstrated from small 
immigrant communities worldwide today that within two or three 
generations most immigrants have picked up the language of their new 
neighbours and have largely if not completely lost their original 
language. The exceptions would be where there is a large enough 
community to be self-sustaining without much contact with neighbours, or 
where there are very particular reasons for retaining one's original 
language. We know of no such reasons for Abraham's family, and their 
community was not large enough to be self-supporting. So even without 
the evidence from Genesis 31:47 we would expect Abraham's family to pick 
up Canaanite and gradually abandon Aramaic.

-- 
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/