Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

   Karl,


    Let us imagine an expert in Chuacer who does not know English.
    How much modern English would such an imaginary scholar
    understand?

    Everyone can develop his own defintion of 'Dead Language'.
    A simple derfintion would be 'a lnanguage  which is not in use'

    I enjoyed the ditty about Latin!

    Uri Hurwitz



Hebrew has changed more than Latin in its history. However, I agree with you
that it has been continuously used since ancient times. But at the same time
it has changed so much that I cannot understand modern Israeli Hebrew even
while I prefer to read Tanakh without points.

So what’s the definition of “dead language”?

Karl W. Randolph.