Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

I wonder if such a situation might have obtained among speakers of Hebrew
> during the period of transition into Aramaic, i.e., even though looking
> from
> the outside Hebrew and Aramaic may seem distinctly related but separate
> languages, from one on the inside, Hebrew and Aramaic may have seemed to be
> dialects of the same language.
> Will Parsons


I appreciate your points about communication across closely related
languages/dialects, but this may obscure several points in the morphology
discussion of the CVC thread.

First of all, and least relevant, the 'transition into Aramaic' that you
mention is dated by knowledgable scholars to around 200 CE/AD.
Secondly, presuppositions can lead people to misread and overlook plain
contrary evidence. A classic example are the (Strack)Billerbeck commentary
and Matthew Black when quoting the Aristeas Letter sec. 11: "they need to be
translated," answered Demetrius, "for in the country of the Jews they use a
peculiar alphabet ... and speak a peculiar dialect. They are supposed to use
the Syriac [i.e. Aramaic] tongue, but this is not the case, their language
is quite different." Matthew Black, Aramaic Approach Gospels Acts, 3rd,
claimed that this referred to a different dialect of Aramaic used by Jews,
which was silly, because Demetrius was talking about the Torah and its
language [Hebrew] and why it needed special translators to come to
Alexandria. Now from the DSS we happen to be aware of two registers of
Hebrew at that time, a literary Hebrew as a continuation of Biblical Hebrew,
and a colloquial Hebrew, 'soon' to be used in the writing down of the Oral
Torah. both were Hebrew, and neither was Aramaic.

More importantly, the MT Hebrew morphology is different from the Aramaic
morphology. The MT text itself declares that the Jews did NOT use Aramaic
vowel patternss for Hebrew words. kitbet/katbe/ketbett is not katabti, and
Arm keta'bu is not Hb  katebu'. Speculating that they used Aramaic vowel
patterns for Heb is simply without foundation. It is just one reason for
Karl's views being untenable for people with a fuller picture. They are not
worth discussing in an academic forum, but he keeps referring to them here
as is if they were tenable.

Finally, when Karl points to uncertainty in historical linguistic
reconstruction, he fails to appreciate the degrees of certainty. E.g., CVC
patterns for BH are certain. He refuses to evaluate the massive and
consistent evidence for this and chooses something contrary. The time when
particular vowels in particular environments (unrelated to CVC) may have
lengthened or dropped out is uncertain. He mentions items like this to mask
the former certainty. Such treatment is dismissed as untenable in an
academic forum.
Maybe James will provide a list of some confirmation forms from
Ugaritic-Akkadian, or even closer, some Amarna Canaanite. (I am currently
travelling for a few more weeks.) These do confirm the language patterns,
but the comparative evidence from Arabic--Aramaic/Syriac--Hebrew/Phoenician
is actually sufficient for establishing the facts and more stable in its
alphabet.

blessings le-tsom qal la-kol


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