Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul Zellmer" <pzellmer AT sc.rr.com>]

Fred,

 

Have you tried pronouncing the verse in the two languages?  You’ll find they 
*sound* very similar, so similar that the Hebrew original would have made 
basic sense to the Aramaic speaker, even if he had no training in Hebrew.  
And finding someone who had never had formal training in Hebrew would be very 
difficult to find in a culture where every village was supposed to have a 
synagogue, and every male was supposed to be under the tutelage of a rabbi.  
If memory serves me right, the first lesson would have started with the 
beginning of Leviticus, and it was in Hebrew.  In fact, the only exception to 
the ban on copying portions from Tanach was given to the rabbis, who were 
allowed to prepare training materials for their students.

 

Have you even tried to read the Aramaic portions of the Tanach?  In most 
seminaries, they do not even require students to study Aramaic in addition to 
Hebrew, because the two are so similar that the Aramaic portions are 
basically understandable.  It’s not English-French.  It’s not even 
Italian-French.  The two are much closer than that.  They are far enough 
apart to be distinct languages, but they are close enough that the vast 
majority of the roots are the same.  

 

Aramaic is not the language of the “enemy,” that (at least formally) would 
have been Akkadian.  Rather, Aramaic was the lingua franca during the time of 
the Babylonian captivity.  So it was adopted by the Jews in captivity in 
order for them to survive.  And, with each generation, the need to 
communicate with their neighbors had more importance than the preservation of 
the daily use of their fathers’ tongue.  But that did not mean that their 
fathers’ tongue died—it simply meant that it was no longer the lingua franca 
in the streets.

 

I believe that Jack cleared up that your apparently did not correctly 
understand what he said took place in synagogues.

 

Paul Zellmer

 

From: fred burlingame [mailto:tensorpath AT gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 9:58 AM
To: Paul Zellmer
Cc: Hebrew
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] FYI: Aramaic study

 

Hello Paul;

 

If you compare numbers 36:1 here, in biblical hebrew; and in aramaic ....; 
the two languages enjoy the same alphabet and appearance, but very different 
vocabulary.

 

http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/searching/targumsearch.html

 

The person fluent in aramaic will not capture meaning of the biblical hebrew 
read to him, unless fluent in the latter different language. Just as an 
english speaker cannot understand french.

 

I find it a little difficult to believe that the congregation oppressed by an 
occupying alien army in 10 a.d., galilee .... would have embraced the 
language of their enemy for relief; and correspondingly, lost their own 
language.

 

And that's my understanding of what Jack wrote. That the synagogue leader 
read in hebrew first and aramaic second. It's not my conclusion.

 

regards,

 

fred burlingame