Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Anna <anna_berringer AT yahoo.com>]

Randall Buth: For example, the three vowel system of early-Semitic languages 
is confirmed by Arabic, Ugaritic, Akkadian, and even Hebrew itself when its 
morphology is carefully studied. (the Masoretes did not invent a language but 
preserved a non-Aramaic language that preserved ancient, pre-Masoretic 
features.) And Arabic with its attested CVC patterns broke off from the 
NorthWest Semitic languages before Hebrew and Aramaic separated, and long 
before Aramaic was able to influence Hebrew during the Second Temple. And 
certainly long before Aramaic was allegedly able to reconstruct the whole 
morphology of Hebrew (something that just doesn't happen in language 
contact). 

 
Anna Berringer: I fully agree with the views in regard to the three vowel 
system of early-Semitic languages.  However, the exact manner in which 
Semitic languages are classified into various branches and groups is still 
being debated among Semitists.
 
For some, Arabic (with North Arabian which is considered essentially the same 
language) belongs to Central Semitic rather than the Northwestern Semitic 
group, while Ugaritic may well be an independent branch. 
 
Anna Berringer
Cambridge, Massachusetts. 




>From kwrandolph AT gmail.com  Tue Jan 19 22:31:45 2010
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Randall:

I am going to hang you with rope that you gave me.

Previously I commented that there were only two reasons that I knew of where
people changed the names of their months: a) because they adopted a new
calendar, and adopted the names that came with that calendar, or b) language
change. Stoney added a c) royal fiat, of which only one was known.

Even the ancient Greek system to which you allude in your latest effort fits
the example of a) above, as you intimated. It turns out that each city-state
had its own calendar that was different from the next city-state. When
Greeks immigrated to different places, they adopted the local calendars.
When Greece and Greek speaking areas became part of the Roman Empire, they
adopted the Roman calendar with its Roman/Latin names. A perfect example of
a) above. (source: http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=calhistory/earlier/greek )

So far I’ve heard of only one claimed exception to the above rule, and it is
central to this group, namely Hebrew. Supposedly people continued speaking
Hebrew as a native tongue, using the same calendar as far as the dates are
concerned, yet used different names for those dates. It doesn’t make sense.

It appears that you are the one casting about for evidence to support a
presupposition. This latest effort did not give the evidence you were
looking for.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:

> >are there any
> >examples of replacement names to go onto an unchanged calendar within an
> > unchanged language? I don’t know of any.
>
> Changing the names would seem to be changing the calendar. To go from
> numbers to names and
> from names to numbers can be called a calendar change. We have
> examples of both directions within and outside the Hebrew canon. The
> interpretation of a calendar, the extra months, and the comparison
> with a full solar calendar where all unresolved and flucuating issues
> in antiquity. One of the benefits of the Persian/Babylonian system was
> its widespread stability in comparison to the parallel Greek/Athenian
> systems.
>
> For an example of name changing, look at Greek:
> Greek used a different policy in different areas, they adopted
> Egyptian names in Egypt.
>
> But when the Romans were ruling, in other areas like
> Judea
> we have Greeks using names like IANOYARIOS, MARTIOS, APRILIOS, MAIOS,
> IOYLIOS, AYGOYSTOS, SEPTEMBRIOS, OKTWBRIOS, DEKEMBRIOS. (See the Greek
> documents among the Judean Desert discoveries. Even if you don't know
> Greek, you should recognize these names.) Greek was still a living
> language, but the Romans were ruling and the Greeks changed their
> month names.
>
> The principle appears to be that the ruling authorities and courts
> decided the names. For the Persian empire, that was the Babylonian
> naming system.  Ezra, Nehemiah, and others were all good citizens of
> the 'great king'.
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth AT gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life