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  • From: Vadim Cherny <vadimcherny AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Fact of language?
  • Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2010 20:35:05 +0300

There are distinct issues here. Learning, no doubt, is easier in the context. But when you know the language, understanding the context is best - sometimes only - possible through etymology. Reading Tanakh without realizing intricate connections between same roots in different binyanim, ignoring the clear - if statistical - sense of binyanim is just unreasonable.

It is not a bit presumptuous, IMO, to set up oneself against such giants like Rashi who accepted the etymological sense as a viable instrument of understanding Tanakh.

Vadim Cherny


---

Randall Buth wrote:

Anyway, the etymological fallacy is something that is ingrained into many
beginning Hebrew students by the way in which the language is often
taught, contrary to the way in which anyone ever learned through direct
usage, and some common HB pedagogical grammars even list things like
tsawah צוה 'he commanded' and I've had students try to say 'shalak' for
throw and tsava for command, and claim that it was good BH, just like
they had learned.


  • [b-hebrew] Fact of language?, Vadim Cherny, 06/05/2010

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