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  • From: Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] intelligibility : Heb. -Moabite etc
  • Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:42:56 -0700 (PDT)

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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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/





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