Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:03:21 -0000
Of course languages change, yet they my still remain the same. A
definite statement about what is "the same" and what is "different"
requires a norm, or a measure, which is elusive for such a
complicated thing as language. Yet I believe that were Moses to
reappeared today in a coffee house in Tel Aviv he would understand
most of the talk. He would certainly recognize the words מים
חמים, כוס, צלחת, עוגה, לחם, חמאה, ירקות
טריים, מרק בשר, as well as the exclamation איזה ערב
נעים but he would not recognize סוכר, קפה, עגבניה,
מלפפון. He would certainly understand the people asking him
מה הענינים מושיקו, הכול בסדר אצלכם Yet I
suspect he would not recognize the people he took out of Egypt, but
it should not take him more than a couple of days to adapt and become
fluent in "modern" Hebrew.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On Oct 31, 2010, at 1:49 PM, Jack Kilmon wrote:
I cannot get a handle on the proposition that modern Hebrew is
virtually unchanged since the Bronze Age. Languages are cultural
and cultures are never static.
Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
, (continued)