Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

  .....< If they wrote at all, the Patriarchs would have
written in Canaanite and the Israelite slaves in Egyptian. 

 
Yigal Levin >
  


  Agree.

   But let's keep in mind that Hebrew is Canaanite dialect,
as are all NW Semitic languages.

  Slaves who had some connection with scribes could
 imitate either them, or the very act of writing. It is
 always possible the W Semitic slaves in Egypt
 remembered some of their ancestral language. 

   As far as I know - and this is subject to
 confirmation - the vocabulary of Egyptian in 
the New Kingdom consisted of about a third of
Semitic words.

  I wonder if an Egyptologist looks at this list,
 and could comment.

   Yom 'Atzma'ut Sameach  (Happy Independence Day)

   Uri Hurwitz






.....< If they wrote at all, the Patriarchs would have
written in Canaanite and the Israelite slaves in Egyptian. 

 

 

Yigal Levin >