Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Uri:

On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com> wrote:

   Hi Karl,

  Do you think the use of the English word "uncontaminated" in this context is a fortunate one?

Actually, yes. My answer is based to a large extent on my personal experiences.

We have to admit that not one of us is a native speaker of Biblical Hebrew. In fact, there’s evidence that there has been not one native speaker of Biblical Hebrew for around 2500 years. As a result, we are all still making educated guesses as to how the ancients used the language for their communication.

My personal experience is that the closer a cognate language is to another, the more likely that linguistic elements tend to bleed from one language to another. For example, German “warten auf” and Norwegian “vente på” can bleed into English as “wait on” when the proper term is “wait for”. After living overseas where I didn’t use English at all for a few years, I found even my mother tongue “contaminated” by such phrases.

Where native understanding comes into play is when upon hearing something someone else says, one is able to recognize by feel, as it were, that something is not right. The listener may not be conscious of what exactly is wrong, at least not at first, but it just feels wrong. The best way to accomplish that level of feeling when learning a foreign language, is not to study close cognate languages so that one does not mix the feelings connected with one language with those of a cognate.

  In fact an argument can be made of the very opposite of your position, namely that at least some knowledge of cognate languages is essential for BH study.

I’ve heard that argument, and my answer is, it depends on what you study. What’s your purpose for studying Biblical Hebrew?

If your purpose is an academic linguistic comparison, then a study of the cognate languages is essential for your study. That way, you don’t know any of the languages really well, but are able to see patterns useful for comparative linguistics.

If your purpose is merely to read Tanakh with understanding, then it hurts. It will be harder to recognize patterns unique to Hebrew and at the same time to reject patterns imported from other languages.

To give a practical example—when the Jehoash forgery was announced, my first reaction was excitement—I wanted to see other examples of Biblical Hebrew. But that initial excitement quickly turned to puzzlement, then disappointment. Puzzlement, because the language on the stone just didn’t feel right. It’s off. But only with deeper study was I able to identify particular areas where I could identify things that were wrong, but the bottom line is correct in that “to repair” is found in 2 Chronicles 29:10. Disappointment in that it became clear just from the language that I dealt with a forgery, which I now avoid even looking at.

Another example—in a discussion on spoken, present tense, indicative sentences the claim was made that the sentence structure “default pattern” is subject, usually pronoun, verb as a participle, then object if necessary. My understanding of Waltke and O’Conner says that that’s the pattern as early as Mishnaic Hebrew. My response is that’s not what’s found in Tanakh. Rather, in Tanakh, the pattern I find is subject, usually pronoun, followed by verb in Qatal, then possible object. As I read this time through Tanakh, with my mind ready to recognize and analyze such sentences, the more I find sentences that match this pattern. But again, my first reaction was based on feeling, not at first being able to point to specific verses to back up my claims.

 

On modern Heb. the argument is different.

I don’t think so. 

  Uri Hurwitz

In closing, what do you want to do with your study of Biblical Hebrew? If you want to make it part of a broader study of linguistics, then a study of cognate languages is not only preferable, but needed. But if you merely want to maximize your understanding of Hebrew itself and of the Tanakh, then a study of cognate languages will actually hurt.

Karl W. Randolph.