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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] one-to-one rendering of olam (was: Song of Songs1:12)

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
  • To: "Isaac Fried" <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org, Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] one-to-one rendering of olam (was: Song of Songs1:12)
  • Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:21:06 +0100


From: Isaac Fried

Be specific, please, if you think that "proto-Semitic" is more than a convenient myth.


***

The reasons to accept Proto-Semitic are * exactly * the same reasons that enables you to talk about Hebrew in the first place.

In spite of more or less obvious differences, all the varieties of Hebrew are Hebrew because they share a huge amount of features, phonetic, morphological, lexical, syntactical, etc.

It happens that most of the features are also shared by a set of languages that have come to be called Semitic.

Proto-Semitic is a synthetic way of describing these features.

There is no descriptive, qualitative nor epistemological discontinuity between any linguistic variety, characterized as being Hebrew, and Proto-Semitic.

If you think these features are a myth, then what are the reasons to accept that Hebrew exists?


Arnaud Fournet






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