Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ed Walkwitz <edwalkwitz AT yahoo.com>]

Jacob and Laban spoke, respectively, Hebrew and Aramaic, as shown by their 
naming of the witness heap in Gen. 31:47 in those two languages. However just 
two generations earlier their Grandfathers, Abraham and Nahor, had presumably 
spoken the same language, since they were brothers.
 
I'm guessing Abraham and Nahor spoke Aramaic, and when Abraham came to 
Caanan, 
his family ended up switching to the language of Caanan, as happened in 
reverse 
to the Jewish exiles after the Babylonian exile. This phenomonen is common; 
for 
example Hispanic immigrants to the USA often switch to English in a 
generation 
or two. This would also explain why Hebrew, if I have read correctly, is 
closer 
to Ugaritic than Aramaic, which otherwise would not make sense.
 
I'm not highly educated in semitic languages like some of ya'll are. Does 
this 
make sense? Any other theories?
 
Along with this, is there any theory of why the Caananites, who are not 
ethnically semitic according to Gen. 10, nevertheless spoke a semitic 
language? 
Did they switch over to someone else's language at some point along the way? 
Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Ed Walkwitz, Des Moines, Iowa
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From: Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>
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Ed Walkwitz katav
>Jacob and Laban spoke, respectively, Hebrew and Aramaic,

So far so good. You could even say Canaanite and Aramaic,
since Abraham had learned the language of Canaan (cf.
Isaiah 19.18, too.)

...
> I'm guessing Abraham and Nahor spoke Aramaic, and when Abraham came
> to Caanan, his family ended up switching to the language of Caanan,

yes, Hebrew = Canaanite, or at least a dialect of it.

> as happened in reverse to the Jewish exiles after the Babylonian exile.

If you argue this you will need to have the post-exilic prophets speak to the
people in a language not theirs.
And Nehemiah complaining (13:25) that
half of the children with foreign mothers didn't speak Hebrew.

Strange, that reference, only half. Apparently the other half managed OK,
and those with Jewish mothers presumably spoke Hebrew.
Apparently, there were quite a few non-Jews and non-observant people
around in Jerusalem and the Persian province of Yehud in those days.
(The stability of the language should not be so surprising. The Middle
East has some remarkable histories, with groups of Aramaic speakers
stranded in an Arabic "sea" even to this day. Some of my neighbors
even speak one of these neo-Aramaic dialects.)

...

> Along with this, is there any theory of why the Caananites, who are not
> ethnically semitic according to Gen. 10, nevertheless spoke a semitic
> language?
...

See Wiseman, Peoples of the Old Testament Times. It appears that Gen
10 was organized on political relationships. Canaan at the time was
subservient to Mitsrayim, son of Ham. Likewise, Hittites in the Land were
called Semitic but in language were Indo-European, that is, children of
Yefet. The phrase 'according to their tribe, according to their language'
needs to be understood as a political metaphor showing solidarity not
necessarily linguistic/genetic connection.
If that is not the case, this would raise the question from whom did
the Canaanites learn Canaanite? And how did Abraham learn
a Semitic Hebrew/Canaanite from non-Semites?

On the other hand, the "Phoenicians" called themselves Canaanites and
their language Canaanite. You might want to remember Matthew 15
where Mark's Syro-Phoenician is named 'Canaanite'.
The name "Phoenician" is from Greek. From inscriptions we can see
that Phoenician/Canaanite was probably mutally intelligible with
Hebrew back in the First Temple. These are the same Ba`al
worshippers that Elijah disputed with on Mt. Carmel, and the whole
northwest seacoast of the Land of Israel was a strip of "Phoenician"
enclaves. Even 900 years later, the West Mediterranean Phoenician
dialect (Punic, as in Hanni-Ba`al "Ba`al is gracious") wrote the direct
object marker as a prefix 't' on the noun just like we find in the Bar
Koseva Hebrew letters.
So everything points to Canaanites as being Semites and speaking a
Semitic language. In fact, one could also say a dialect of Hebrew.

The Philistines, on the other hand, did enter the
land from outside and did adopt the 'Phoenician' (i.e. Canaanite)
language and apparently Canaanite god Dagon.

You could do worse that to start with Wiseman's collection of
articles mentioned at the beginning.

blessings on your studies,

Randall Buth

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