> > > HH: My first guess would be that there were three languages in use. A
>>
>> good number of scholars say that.
>
>Definitely they were. The question is, which was used for what purposes?
>That's where we differ.
HH: Here's an interesting quote from apparent experts in the Hebrew
language and linguistics, Bernard Spolsky and Elana Shohamy:
http://www.biu.ac.il/hu/lprc/Hebrew_after_a_century_of_RLS_efforts.htm
The process of shifting from the use of Hebrew as a spoken
vernacular may have started as early as the sixth century BCE, and
certainly was well along for many living in ancient Israel by the
beginning of the common era (Chomsky 1957; Rabin 1973). How long
Hebrew continued to be spoken among Jews is a matter of some debate
but it is now generally believed that there were still monolingual
speakers of Hebrew in villages of Judaea at the time of the Bar
Kochba Revolt, in the second century of the Common Era, and native
speakers even later.
It's a tantalizing quote, to be sure, but upon reading the article I don't see
any evidence given, and statements like "it is now generally believed" really
don't do anything for me. What does "generally" mean? "Believed" by whom?
They don't say, and give no backing for such a statement. Simply citing
"apparent experts" isn't going to get us very far.
From kwrandolph AT email.com Mon Oct 11 11:33:55 2004Return-Path: <kwrandolph AT email.com>
Dear Karl,--
> In other words, at a time when the people on the street spoke
>Aramaic and only the scholars spoke Hebrew more or less fluently
>(much like the medieval monks spoke Latin). Thus it is very likely
>that GDD in the Damascus Document is either an Aramaic loan word or
>a late development of GDWD into a verb.
HH> These ideas that GDD in the Damascus Document is an Aramaic
loanword or a back development from a noun are arbitrary assumptions.
The Damascus Document is a Hebrew document, and GDD is a biblical
word. We don't know that the authors didn't know Hebrew. Quite a lot
of the Dead Sea Scrolls, even the non-biblical material such as
letters, are in Hebrew. Here is a quote about the Dead Sea Scroll
period from _Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation_, by Michael Wise,
Martin Abegg, and Edward Cook:
Hebrew was manifestly the principal literary language for the Jews of
this period. The new discoveries underlined the still living,
breathing, even supple character of that language. A few texts
pointed to the use of Hebrew for speech as well as writing. . . .
Rabbinic Hebrew was shown to be no invention, but simply a
development from the ordinary spoken Hebrew of biblical times.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
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