Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

1. You are right, the Hebrew pronunciation of the Yemenite Jews was  
probably influenced by the Arabic of their neighbors.

2. It is conceivable that no one ever spoke biblical Hebrew –––  
biblical Hebrew may have never been a spoken language. King David  
spoke biblical Hebrew to his God, but to Mikal to Abigail, to  
Axinoam, to Maakah, to Xagit, to Abital, to Eglah, to Bat Sheva, to  
Abishag, and to their children he spoke, I imagine, a lighter, less  
inflected version of Hebrew, known today as MI (Modern Israeli).

3. Hebrew was apparently not spoken (or only sporadically spoken) for  
long periods of time, but at any given moment of time, tens of  
thousands of Jews (men mostly) have prayed in Hebrew, have read the  
prophets, listened to the Torah being read aloud in their houses of  
worship, and eagerly studied the Mishnah and the Talmud, and their  
interpreters. Also, remarkable Hebrew poetry and prose never ceased  
to be produced, even by people who never spoke everyday Hebrew.

4. I would trust the NAQDANIYM that they new what they were doing.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 18, 2011, at 8:14 PM, K Randolph wrote:

> Isaac:
>
> On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:
> This is a modern song written in biblical Hebrew, and performed by  
> a superb singer of Yemenite origin. The isolated Jews of Yemen are  
> believed to have kept a very ancient pronunciation of Hebrew.
>
> The operative term is “believed to have”, and what if their  
> pronunciation was influenced by Yemini Arabic, which has the  
> greatest set of phonemes among Arabic speaking peoples (that is  
> what I have read and was told, I don’t know Arabic so I can’t  
> verify it) thanks to the extensive fertilization of linguistic  
> contacts from their trading connections?
>
> There is no evidence that anyone ever spoke (spoke!) Biblical Hebrew.
> I believe that the NAQDANIYM had a well established tradition, or  
> MASORAH, of how to read the Hebrew bible in general, and the TORAH  
> in particular.
>
> Your reference is to a tradition from a millennium after Biblical  
> Hebrew ceased to be a natively spoken language. As such, it does  
> not support your contention.
>
> You are probably correct, most likely correct, that no one ever  
> spoke Masoretic Hebrew as a native tongue, though people most  
> likely spoke it as a second, scholarly language (I believe it was  
> not just a few who could do so). But Biblical Hebrew, whose  
> pronunciation we today do not know, was spoken as a natively  
> learned language, used on the farm, market, at the hearth and in  
> the temple by people who spoke no other language.
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>
>
> Karl W. Randolph.