Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

For Karl:

You already have a good asnwer on the calandar and English questions,
which call into question whether you should be making grand statements
about the development of English. I'll deal with your grand statements about
Hebrew and Aramaic:

>That both Daniel and Ezra wrote in Aramaic shows that both expected that
even in remote villages in the Judean hills, they expected the people to
know Aramaic.>

No. In bilingual communities it is not expected that 100% of the people knew
both or all languages. When an Israeli comedian tells a joke on television
with an English punchline or wordplay, they do not assume 100% of the
audience 'gets it', but enough get it to make it funny, and others can find 
out
if they are really interested. (PS: Both Daniel and Ezra switched into Aramaic
at culturally appropriate junctures dealing with the foreign court. But they
returned to Hebrew and wrote in Hebrew. This is a well-noted phenomenon
in sociolinguistic studies on bilingualism.)

>Add to that that history records that two generations grew up
in Babylon; >

wow, two whole generations! in one of the most insular cultures and
scripture-based cultures in the world! (there are Aramaic communities
today that have survived two whole millenia. And this ignores what the Bible
ignores but that is read between the lines in the realworld. Not 100% of the
people left Judah. A dominating army does not need to get every last person
out. Some are left behind, devasted of course.

>that the stylistic differences between pre- and post-Exile
writings indicating that those who wrote post-Exile wrote in a simplified
style >

just how simplified are we talking? There is nothing that demands a non-mother
tongue. See below a discussion about some scholars who are even trying to
deny a discernable divide between First and Second Temple Hebrew.

>of those who were not themselves native speakers of Hebrew, >

like I've been saying, presupposition, not evidence. You presume
'facts', then cite
them for supporting your view.

>rather spoke Hebrew as a second language; that several Hebrew terms were
forgotten by the time the LXX was written: >

Now you are arguing that language change means language death! This is 
bizarre.
Does the fact that English people today have forgotten words from Chaucer or
Shakespeare prove that English is not a mothertongue?!
More importantly for this discussion, one must be aware of all the data. 
During
the Second Temple there were two, ever diverging layers of Hebrew. There
was a high, written Hebrew, used for official communication and modeled after
First Temple Hebrew, but different. It is almost funny to hear your
arguments and
think about what some scholars have been saying on the other end. At SBL
some scholars were arguing that there is no discernable difference
between First
Temple and Second Temple Hebrew! The Israeli scholars found it hard to take
those views seriously. But they did. The other side didn't understand
how they were
undermined. There is not one Qumran document that does not betray its Second
Temple origin, even when attempting to be 'like Moses'. These other scholars
couldn't point to one example of the alleged ability to write pure
classical Hebrew
at Qumran. But it takes sophisticated tools to detect this, and those scholars
become examples themselves that the styles are close enough to pass as
'classical Hebrew' since they are willing to believe that there is 'no
discernable
difference'.
All of this, of course, is predicted by language change over time and
by cultures
who develop two 'registers' of their language. The Second Temple
period did produce a classical Hebrew that shows influence from Aramaic and
differences from First Temple. BUT it also shows a 'low Hebrew' under
the surface
of high Hebrew, and that low Hebrew itself surfaces from time to time
in documents
and then in recorded oral discussions. A language with a LOW dialect and a 
HIGH
dialect are formed by the continued development of a spoken speech while a
conservative, HIGH language is preserved for official and written
purposes. This is
what happened to Latin in the middle first millenium, and this is what
happened to
Hebrew in the Second Temple. Scholarship is only slowly coming to grips with
the full set of data that is available through Mishnaic Hebrew and through
archaeological discoveries. That is why the "Latin" model is humorous when 
used
by someone who would deny the living status of Hebrew. Latin developed  a
diglossia and so did Hebrew. Sociolinguistically, a stark diglossia
(like spoken
and written Arabic today) points to a spoken language and a prestige,
conservative
language. Cultures do not purposefully develop two high languages! If and when
the low language of a diglossic situation dies out, then there will be
a re-adjustment
everywhere. With Latin, the low dialects separated into languages. With 
Hebrew,
the high language was dropped from creative prosaic use, and the low language
took over the role of the high language (3-8c CE) . But finally a new,
synthetic high
language was developed (post-1000 CE), a mixture of the two, since the old
language had continued to be studied.

>all the clues taken together point to that
those who returned from Babylon were native speakers of Aramaic, not Hebrew.>

Your linguistic clues prove that Aramaic acquired a new prestigious
role and that
the 'movers and shakers' of society had added Aramaic to their
communication skills,
with the resulting influence on lower society to one degree or
another. In multilingual
societies it is assumed that everyone will learn something of the
language of the rulers.
In fact, the evidence shows high bilingualism, not language death.
This is what I mean
by "presupposition". You read your data within a framework of assuming
that Hebrew
was not a mother-tongue of anyone. Your data don't prove it.
Sociolinguistics would not
assume it. The Bible more naturally suggests the opposite. The Second
Temple writings
and prophetic appeals to the people were assumed to reach all the
people and Hebrew
was the chosen language. Hebrew was the language of choice for a
Jewish audience in the hamlets and byways as well as the big city, not 
Aramaic.

Sorry for the length. Maybe the other thread on morphology will be
more successful.

blessings
Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
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