Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Dear Fred,

 

First of all, Fred Putnam has already posted several relevant answers to
your questions. I'll add briefly:

 

Part of the theoretical basis behind comparative linguistics is that all
humans are ultimately descended from one original group of humans (this is
consistent with both what the Bible says and with present anthropological
and genetic theory). As these humans multiplied and spread over the earth,
they split into different groups. Since, in the ancient world, geographic
separation also means linguistic separation, as the different groups
diverged, so did their languages, both by internal development and by being
influenced by their different neighbors. This means, in theory, that the
more similar languages are, the more recently their speakers diverged. Most
of this process, of course, occurred over tens of thousands of years before
we have written documents, but it can also be seen in recorded history, for
example, in the development of Romance Languages from Latin. 

 

By "similar", linguists look for similarity in grammar, in basic lexemes
(taking into account that words are borrowed across languages) and in
phonology. In the Middle Ages, people were already making comparisons
between Hebrew and Arabic and Aramaic. As the languages of the Ancient Near
East were deciphered,  it became clear that many of them share the same
traits, and that even within the Semitic languages there are sub-groups,
often classified as Eastern, Western (or Northwestern) and Southern. The
Wiki article seems like a fairly good summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages. 

 

When "doing" comparative linguistics, one should always look for comparisons
in languages that are as close as possible both geographically and
chronologically. Thus, for example, the closest thing to Biblical Hebrew
would be Moabite and Ammonite, but since we have so few inscriptions in
those languages, they are of little use. So we go farther afield, to
Aramaic, then Ugaritic, which is close geographically but less so
chronologically, to Akkadian which is in a different branch of Semitic
languages, to Arabic which is not only in a different branch, but is also
only known in writing from much later.

 

Greek, as a non-Semitic language, does not even come close. As I wrote
before, the Septuagint can be used as a witness to the text and its
interpretation, but not as a "cognate".

 

Yigal Levin

 

 

 

From: fred burlingame [mailto:tensorpath AT gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:10 AM
To: Yigal Levin
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] cognate alphabet

 

Hello Yigal:

 

Thanks for your explanatory and clear comments.

 

I am happy to accept the differences that you identify between ancient greek
and biblical hebrew. But ..... then what confers on ugarit, arabic, hurrian,
etc., the "blood relation" with biblical hebrew (missing from the greek)?

 

And if the septuagint does form a basis for interpreting biblical hebrew
language, why does academia today generally reject in english translations,
all renderings of the greek septuagint that differ from the hebrew masoretic
text? That's a fairly profound, implicit and unanimous pronouncement by the
publishers and their academic consultants; to wit: the greek septuagint old
testament inaccurate and the greek septuagint new testament accurate.

I have no problem with the relevancy or irrelevancy of other languages to
biblical hebrew. But it would be nice to know what other languages are
generally accepted as relevant and as irrelevant to the interpretation of
biblical hebrew.

 

regards,

 

fred burlingame