Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Donald R. Vance, Ph.D." <donaldrvance AT mac.com>]

George,
You trim your emails too much. The last email SHOULD be included so we  
the readers, who are jumping into a conversation midstream, at least  
know the question(s) being addressed. Not to hard to trim appropriately.


Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance AT oru.edu
donaldrvance AT mac.com


On Dec 23, 2010, at 6:39 PM, George Athas wrote:

> Firstly some correctives:
>
> Aramaic was not the native language of the Babylonians. Akkadian was.
>
> Aramaic was a widely spoken language throughout the fertile  
> crescent. It was something of an international 'koine'.
>
> The reason many Judeans adopted Aramaic was because they were  
> forcibly migrated away from their homeland (Judah), and in order to  
> communicate with the people around them, had to adopt a common  
> language medium. That was Aramaic. This is not dissimilar to people  
> of Japanese descent today migrating to the USA and speaking English  
> (the language of England) there. My own family did the same when  
> they migrated from Greece to Australia. I still speak to my parents  
> in Greek, but English is my first language, and my parents can also  
> speak English too.
>
> It's really no big deal.
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
> www.moore.edu.au
>
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