Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 3:16 AM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> >
>
> Also, the flow of the logic of the rest of your argument makes perfect
> sense. Month names alone are not a basis for saying the Hebrews stopped
> speaking Hebrew.


If this were my only clue, I would not have noticed it. But as part of a
pattern of clues …


> Even if they did speak Aramaic in public they most likely
> spoke the holy language at home.


This is a speculation that has no evidence to back it up. In fact, it is
contradicted by experience.

Your story from Italy was interesting, but what it also showed is that to
maintain the local dialects, a whole multigenerational community is needed.

I think a more accurate picture of the linguistic experience of the Jews in
Babylon would be Chinatown. In San Francisco, the only thing keeping
Chinatown alive as Chinatown is a constant stream of new immigrants. And
with a change of immigrants, the language is changing.

Originally, the language of Chinatown was a dialect of Cantonese called “Toi
San Wa”. But after Toi San was largely depopulated (by emmigrating) the
majority of the immigrants come from elsewhere in Canton province, speaking
Cantonese (which the younger Toi San people also know). The
multi-generational community has been broken for Toi San Wa, and as the
older people die off, the dialect is being forgotten. Most recently, while
still uncommon, the tones of Mandarin are starting to be heard in the
streets.

But within the families, by the second generation, usually even among the
first generation of Americans born to immigrant families, English
predominates. Even in Chinatown. Children need to be able to expect that
when they go to the store, play with their friends, visit relatives, etc.
that they will use the same language as spoken at home to keep the home
language alive, and for the most part they don’t have that. Hence they turn
to the most common language, which is English.

Or another example, when I lived in Germany, I noticed that urban Germans
mostly speak good High German. Because of population upheavals first caused
by Hitler before the war, exacerbated by the massive refugee population
caused by the war, the most common urban language is High German and has
been for generations. If one wants to hear the old dialects, one needs to go
to small villages where the population remained stable and the most common
language in the village remains the local dialect.

Now look at the example of Jews in Babylon: because Judea was completely
depopulated, there was no constant stream of immigrants to keep the language
alive. Unless they lived in isolated villages in Babylon (similar to the
Eastern European Shtetl experience), and the picture is that they did not,
then the most common language in their environment was Aramaic. Unless Jews
are different from all other people, and there is no reason to make that
assessment, then within a couple of generations, the majority of Jews were
more at home in Aramaic than Hebrew, with Hebrew largely learned as a second
language.

James Christian


The first clue that I noticed that started me questioning if Hebrew as a
native tongue (not to be confused with “living language”) survived the
Exile, is that post-Exile Hebrew usage, as reflected in the post-Exile books
of the Bible, when compared to pre-Exile books, gives the impression of
learned as a second language Hebrew. At least to me, as one who has worked
with immigrant populations. While the above paragraph is speculative, i.e.
there is no documentation that proves it, it is consistent with immigrant
experiences, hence possible. Gradually, as I continued to read Tanakh, I
noticed more clues, one of which was the loss of the Hebrew month names, to
be replace by Aramaic names. But for me, the strongest clue remains the
literary one.

Karl W. Randolph.