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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod

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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
  • Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 10:00:38 -0400

1. Moses was a כבד פה וכבד לשון (stutterer?), but he wrote superb Hebrew that survived to this day.

2. Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose. Of course Hebrew "changed", yet it is still, methinks (Gilad Zuckerman notwithstanding), the same Hebrew. To wit:
בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ
is still "modern" Hebrew, except that the modern speaker would have used the less lofty BA-HATXALAH for בראשית and ASAH for ברא (I am not sure how it is stated in the recently published "translation" of the Hebrew bible into mundane Hebrew.) Yet, we still don't understand what really took place at the first nanosecond of "creation".

2. "problems that speakers of modern Hebrew have understanding the biblical text" is because the text is occasionally ambiguous or the context not clear. We all have problems with some biblical passages. Speakers of "modern" Hebrew have the same (or maybe even greater) understanding problems with present-day secular Hebrew poetry.

Isaac Fried, Boston University


On Oct 31, 2010, at 2:40 AM, Yigal Levin wrote:

Really? Did Moses use Ashkenazic or Sephardic pronunciation?

Come on, surely you realize that today's Hebrew is the end product (so far)
of several thousand years of change, due to both internal factors and
external influences. One of the problems that speakers of modern Hebrew have
understanding the biblical text is when they assume that phrases have the
same meaning there as they do today (although I don't think that this
permanently handicaps them, like some folks on this list do).


Yigal Levin

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Isaac Fried
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 6:00 AM
To: Uri Hurwitz
Cc: Hebrew List
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod

There is no "modern" Hebrew. We still speak the same biblical Hebrew,
only slightly adapted for everyday use.

Isaac Fried, Boston University


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