Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

Ishinan
Your general motivations seem in the right direction but they don't
explain an 1100-year gap. Why did it take from 400 BCE to 700 CE
for the vowels and tunes to be recorded?

There is a related question that should be included. Why was the oral,
unwritten law, written down? One reason is the natural capacity of a
community to preserve an oral literature was reached.
The Mishnah appears to be written down at a time when the tannaim
were being stretched to the limit of their abilities to memorize vast
amounts of text. It is also the time (after 2 century CE) when Mishnaic
Hebrew was no longer being spoken as a first language
(according to most mishnaic Hebrew scholarship). After that date,
though, we still have anecdotal evidence of both the broad community
and the leaders using and being able to follow the literary (biblical)
readings in synagogue and 'lower register' things, e.g. parables, in mishnaic
Hebrew. What changed in the 7th century? Arabic spread throughout the
MiddleEast in a rather dominating and demanding culture. (Note that Punic
[a distant dialect of Hebrew-Canaanite-Phoenician] disappeared in West
Africa, Coptic retreated but with a written literature did not disappear like
Punic. Aramaic became a dhimmi-oppressed minority language
everywhere else.) The equilbirium that had been maintained
from 3-6 c CE with second-language high-Hebrew and low-Hebrew
and first language Aramaic was upset. The biblical texts were further
recorded with vowels and the mishnaic language started to
metamorphicise into a mixed-lanuage with 'classical'. That mixed
language became the single Hebrew language used by medieval writers like
Rashi and Ibn Ezra. Anyway, these changes within the Aramaic-Hebrew
community coincide with the spread of Arabic. Whether Arabic was causal
or circumstantial is a question that is difficult to resolve in all of
its points.
I'm suggesting that it had both a causal and a culturally catalytical role to
play.

Randall Buth
-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life