>More practically, in real Biblical Hebrew, how could a student say
'The dog ate my homework' or the teacher, 'I left my notes for the
lecture on the bus.' >
alot of simple things can be said, actually.
you could try the following on a gullible teacher:
ha-kelev axal et asher katavti ba-bayit.
> The vocabulary is quite limited. Also the
limited tenses, might make conversation a bit difficult.>
Yes, biblical vocabulary is quite limited. While a class might
be controlled and led into subject matters that BH covers (we
do that at BLC), Ullendorf has elegantly shown that the vocab is
only a piece of the real language. ("Is biblical Hebrew a Language?")
However, your point on the tenses would not have been accepted
by the ancients. They certainly carried on lively conversations and
found the verb system communicative.
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