Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>]

BIBLICAL Hebrew came first

Shoshanna


>
He ist absolutely right. We are to perceive Ancient Hebrew as a 
historical language - avtually there is no contemporary speaker of 
that language anymore. And as far as BIBLICAL Hebrew is concerned it 
is important to keep in mind that it is an artificial language, 
mixing up several synchronic and diachronic different layers 
(registers, dialects and so on). So, what is BIBLICAL Hebrew to 
speak? See, for instance, Edward Ullendorf's important studies "Is 
Biblical Hebrew a language?" and other papers in his: Is Biblical 
Hebrew a language?, Wiesbaden 1977, and, more recently, E.A.Knauf, 
War "Biblisch-hebräisch" eine Sprache? Empirische Gesichtspunkte zur 
linguistischen Annäherung an die Sprache der althebräischen 
Literatur: ZAH 3 (1990) 11-23.
Because there is no one to speak to who has a native speaker's 
competence in Biblical Hebrew, there is neither a sound reason to 
translate a paragraph of any language into Biblical Hebrew nor a 
chance to learn anything from that lest that we are ignorant.

Reinhard G. Lehmann
Academical Director
Forschungsstelle für althebräische Sprache
Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz

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