Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>Cool exercise.
...
>At a quick glance (I haven't read them in detail) they mostly look pretty
>much Hebrewish to me.
>
>James Christian

>2010/5/26 Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir at gmail.com>
>. . .
>> inscription, for one reason or another.
>>
>> 1 -
>> אמר. למלך. אמר. לבלבל
> השלם. את. והברכתך<
ha-shalom atta? uveraxtixa . . .

Yes, it's a 'cool' exercise.
It also illustrates the need for 'analogical' analysis vs. 'digital' when
dealing with very very very small corpora of language data.

without spoiling the fun for those who want to read these, I will
point out the kind of game to play. In example one, notice
the blessing 'and I will bless you [by the name of ...]'
In classical Hebrew this is avarexexa אברכך. If using 'w-'
syntax, then one could say uveraxtixa ...
But here we have a hif`il, made clear by the 'h':
vehivraxtixa . . .  'and I will bless you . . .'
In classical Hebrew l-hbryk is how one drops an animal/camel at
a well. One makes it kneel. However, in this dialect it has become
'bless' and in an equivalent context where one expects a pi`el.
So one may call it one distinctive feature of this dialect. Naturally,
with so little, it is impossible to know the extent and exclusions
or inclusions of this dialect. More can be said, though, even on
this text, but I will stop here. The rules of the game should be
clear.

So my take? I view it as within the Canaanite language and a
distinctive dialect. Folks would have understood BH and vice
versa. (Since I know where the text is from, I won't
say more.)

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