Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

Yigal katav:
> As interesting as this discussion has been, its focus seems to have
> shifted from Hebrew to Aramaic.

shalom Yigal
Thank you for mentioning focus. There were two points being discussed,
a. whether or not  a High and a Low Hebrew could exist if a Low Aramaic
also existed.
and b. details on Aramaic itself.

Anyway, it is pretty clear to 20th century mishnaic Hebrew scholarship
that a Low Hebrew existed. This is not a debate within the field and among
those with good control of the data. (Klaus Beyer is not included, of
course. He has argued [1984 and later], rather illogically for those aware
of multilingual environments, that if Aramaic can be shown in various
parts of the Land, that there was no room for a Low Hebrew.)

The alternative starts to look kind of funny: that two noticeably different
High Hebrews were developed and used. It goes completely against
the grain of what we know about diglossic situations with distinct dual
registers.

The 'b' question above is irrelevant to the discussion of High and Low
Hebrew.

Randall

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
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