Karl Randolph wrote:
What I know of Moabite is what I read on the Mesha
stone. Unless Hebrew from that time had a different
pronunciation for the letters than did Moab, which
I find highly unlikely, the differences between
Moabite and Hebrew were less than those between a
Hoosier twang and a deep southern drawl, both U.S.
English, or about the same as between Norwegian and
Swedish.
In comparison, the differences between Hebrew and
Aramaic remind me of the differences between German
and Dutch, recognizably close cognate languages,
but not readily understood when spoken.
From the evidence we have about Moabite , mainly Mesha,
this appears to have been the situation with regard to the
spoken Hebrew at the time. The same occurs with regard to
Ugaritic and biblical Hebrew, though the variation between
them is greater. Anyone well versed in BH, or the average
speaker and reader of modern Hebrew would undrstand,
from their built in knowledge of BH, quite a few lines from
the easiest epic from Ugarit, Keret, in latin letters
transliteration. Not to mention dozens and dozens of
idioms that both languages share.
In this case, because of the temporal and georaphical
distance, the pronounciation difference could well be
greater than between BH and Moabite, Ammonite or
Phoenician.
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