Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

fred,

i must admit wikipedia's answer is "few", claiming that no rabbinical schools
operated after 420 ad. see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi 

(hisorical overview).

nir cohen

On Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:21:15 -0600, fred burlingame wrote
> the key to this post is the phrase "quite a large group."
>  
> Does that mean 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 ?
>  
> regards,
>  
> fred burlingame
> 
> On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> 
> wrote:
> karl,
> 
> i agree that the thread on the use of hebrew in the first millenium was 
> getting along without the proper definitions. but this was not my fault.
> 
> > I think we need to define terms before confidently announcing the “death” 
> > of Hebrew.
> 
> ...nor this! my email did, in fact, make a clear distinction between the 
> biblical and non-biblical language (pls read again!), and in fact was 
> concerned more in defining the "possible clients of massoretic products", 
> as they were coined earlier. the allusion to the death of hebrew in my 
> title was just to register my uneasiness with some previous allusions to 
> this end.
> 
> my main point, in simple words, was that the existence of a quite large 
> group of
> rabbinic school students, throughout these two millenia, whose knowledge in 
> BIBLICAL (!) hebrew was considerable, in spite of the anachrony, and who 
> were craving for reliable sources of text and interpretation, is all which 
> is necessary to create a market for these "products". in this respect, it 
> is completely irrelevant what was the language jews were using at home and 
> in the street, contrary to the direction the thread was taking.
> 
> the second objective of my email was to reinforced the opinion that the 
> "use" of hebrew in these circles (the rabbinical schools) was completely 
> different than that of reciting a text to the whole congregation, as is the 
> custom, say, in the catholic church with latin.
> 
> nir cohen
> 
> On Tue, 28 Dec 2010 12:23:30 -0800, K Randolph wrote
> > Nir:
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. 
> > <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:
> > dear colleagues,
> >
> > i avoided anexing the extensive debate over the burial of the
> > hebrew language during the last few days, due to its length.
> > …
> > best
> > nir cohen
> >
> >
> > Much of this depends on how one defines a “dead language”.
> >
> > If a living language is one that is spoken and written, where there 
> > develop dialectal differences, in which there is continuous change and 
> > development, then Hebrew never ceased to be a living language.
> >
> > In that same way, Latin is still a living language.
> >
> > If the definition is of a language where there are no native speakers of 
> > the language, rather it is a second language of all who use it, then 
> > Latin is a dead language, and Hebrew died and was resurrected. And in its 
> > resurrection, it is not the same language as what the prophets spoke.
> >
> > Other living/dead languages include Esperanto and Klingon (a language 
> > made up for a dumb TV show).
> >
> > If we are talking about a specific dialect of Hebrew, namely that found 
> > in Tanakh, then that dialect “died” during and shortly after the 
> > Babylonian Exile. The language that developed from it has a different 
> > grammar, different spelling, and many words have different meanings as 
> > well as many neologisms not found in Tanakh. There are more differences 
> > between Biblical and modern Hebrews than between Norwegian and Swedish, 
> > which are recognized as separate languages.
> >
> >
> > Karl W. Randolph.
> 
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