Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

Several of the comments on Ruth and 'first year lies' deal with how
to learn Hebrew. I found several of the comments 'on target' and
several that may assume too much or be impractical for real
language learning.

In general, James' comments about grammar-based instruction vs.
functional-use instruction are 'on target' and line up with what I've
learned about languages in the last 40 years, learning many as
an adult and to a point of real communication, fluency, warts and
mistakes and all.
I enjoyed Karl's comment about the Hebrew verb being
neither a 'tense', nor an 'aspect'. If he would add, 'not a mood',
and I suspect he would, then a person has a place to start
'correctly'. It's best to hear structures correctly used and maybe
after a couple of hundred hours they can hear a 'synthesis' of
what's going on, for what it's worth.

Hebrew is a LANGUAGE. That means that Hebrew is
best learned in communication with people who know the language.
Hebrew is not a 'writing system', theorectically it would be possible to
learn Hebrew without a writing system, or with a different writing
system. Nor is it an undeciphered language for puzzle solvers. It's
been used continuously for 3000+ years.

Of course,
Learning a language from people means learning the functions,
not the explanations. E.g., learning English from English speakers
means saying, "It's him!", not "it's he!". Even if the english speaker
says that "it's he" is correct. I remember something similar sitting
in an courtyard in a Middle East capital in the 70s. The person
was trying to teach my wife to say sa-yaktub for he will write. I
suggested that they might say byiktub or Hayiktib (depending on
dialect) but that "sa" was not really the form people use. The
Arab speaker insisted that 'sa' was correct and what people say.
Fortunately, someone walked in and in the conversation the 'teacher'
had used 'bi' forms. When these were pointed out, he said 'well,
we may say that, but 'sa' is correct.

Teachers and students need to interact with each other in the
language. They will find that language in use is even 'self-
correcting'. If forms/structures are generated that never show
up in the Hebrew Bible, then the structures/forms are gradually
changed, just like when little kids produce 'we singed a new song'
at age 3-4 but by 5-6 they 'sang'.

Anyway, in two weeks several teachers will meet to discuss
'classroom BHebrew', primarily in BHebrew. It will be interesting to
see how things develop. I don't expect to hear too many pausal
forms in pausal contexts, but it will be interesting. Naturally,
they will need to use a vocoid system (vowel sounds were not a
'western invention') and most will be using a 'simplified MT',
that is, the five vowel system, less length.

Incidentlally, we've had students in BH immersion contexts who
produce amusing syntheses. After hearing classroom vocabulary
talk about qirot 'walls', shulHanot 'tables', Halonot 'windows',
gagot 'roofs', kisseot 'chairs', meqomot 'places', luHot 'boards/
tablettes', often in the first two or three days of class, some
have suggested during 'break times' that -ot is the form for
masculine plural. We smile and suggest they keep listening.
They soon hear about avanim gedolot 'big stones' and
tsiporim qetannot 'little birds', but ha-ish Hazaq and ha-isha
Hazaqah eventually win the day. the central core of a language
must be learned 'as is', since the common words often defy
the systems. Might as well learn it right at the beginning.

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