Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear James:

On 8/21/07, JAMES CHRISTIAN READ <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> IF: The idea that ancient Hebrews started their language with meaningless
> syllables that somehow got combined into meaningful words is anathema to me.
> How, and by what system, pray, did these meaningless sound bits combine into
> meaningful words, again, by a "hardwired algorithm?" I am really astounded
> that there are people on the face of this earth who accept such nonsense.
>
> JCR: For people who believe that Yhwh created Adam and
> Eve, along with their language, and that Yhwh created
> a whole series of new languages at Babel such a theory
> presents no problem.
>
Even for those who believe that YHWH created Adam and Eve, along with
the language, and that YHWH created (actually mixed up) a whole series
of new languages at Babel, this still creates a problem. 1) There was
not enough time recorded for the language to evolve from grunts to a
fully constructed language and 2) if YHWH created all in the first
place and expected to communicate with his creation, it does not make
sense that he would not give man a "mature" language from the outset,
a language able to communicate complex ideas. 3) There is no record of
such an evolution to observe, all we have in Hebrew is from its
earliest record it was already a mature language with tri-literal
roots.

>
> IF: Moreover, Hebrew is a root based language not a word based language.
>
> JCR: I appreciate that.
>
But the roots themselves are words, therefore subject themselves to
the same linguistic rules as all other words.

>
> James Christian Read
> BSc Computer Science
> thesis1: concept driven machine translation using the Aleppo codex
> thesis2: language acquisition simulation
> http://www.lamie.org/hebrew
>
>
Karl W. Randolph.