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  • From: Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Survey Question about use of Biblical Hebrew in class
  • Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:01:52 -0400

At 08:29 PM 6/14/2009, you wrote:
There is a sense in which Biblical Hebrew is dead, just as Middle English or
Old French or Koiné Greek are dead. In that sense, pronunciation is not as
significant a factor as it is for a living language. It would not worry me
whether a class in spoken BH followed the Massoretic pronunciation, or
modern Israeli Hebrew, or one of the traditional schemes. Given the
closeness of modern Hebrew to BH, I can see arguments for following modern
Hebrew phonology - more the eastern mizrahi variety than the popular as that
would maintain more of the 'guttural' sounds. As the development of the
bgdkpt letters seems to be post-BH, whether they are distinguished or not is
not essential.

I am not sure why you say that modern Hebrew is closer then Rabbinic Hebrew, which is still a living language in the sense that it is still used for the writing of books etc.

As to the pronunciation I agree that it would be difficult to say one is better then the other. (I don't know if you are aware of just how many different ways of pronouncing Hebrew there are. It is a language that has had continual use for liturgical purposes going back to at least second temple times.) My pronunciation follows that used in certain areas of Eastern Europe and differs vastly from that of modern Israeli Hebrew.




I believe one practical problem is that for those of us not actually
involved in teaching Hebrew or studying it formally, time and money become a
big issue. Once you finish your undergraduate course, there is never enough
time to do even the things you really want to do.

Kevin Riley

-------Original Message-------

From: Randall Buth
Date: 14/06/2009 10:26:48 PM


A survey question.

How many on this list are learning Biblical Hebrew in a spoken BH classroom?


If not, is this because

1. A belief that non-spoken methods are more efficient.

2. For practical reasons, a spoken BH class is not available for you.

3. A belief that BH is special/dead and shouldn't be spoken as a class
language.

Thank you for your responses.
Randall

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Moshe Shulman outreach AT judaismsanswer.com 718-436-7705
Judaism's Answer: http://www.judaismsanswer.com/





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