Since you refer to my "worldview", permit me to briefly reiterate, at
the end of this discussion, what I said earlier: I tend to think that
biblical Hebrew was never a spoken language. I imagine that people
who spoke Hebrew at home spoke a simplified version thereof. At the
wane of the era of the prophets the written language started to come
down towards this vernacular. Then, the rabbis, HA-PRU$IYM, who were
not part of the temple milieu, and who spoke directly to the people
about urgent practical matters, reverted entirely to the speech of
the land, culminating in the terse Mishnah. Namely, I tend to think
that, essentially, "Mishnaic" Hebrew was there all along.
There is no denying that "Mishnaic" Hebrew absorbed words and turns
of speech from both Aramaic and Greek. This light version of biblical
Hebrew is essentially what some call now "Modern" Hebrew.
So, what Abba Bendavid calls L$ON XAXAMIYM, the language of the wise
and the learned, I would call L$ON AM HA-AREC, the language of the
people of the land.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On May 19, 2011, at 11:41 PM, Randall Buth wrote:
The point is that there was a stage of the language called
Mishnaic that your worldview doesn't seem to have much
room for. Abba Bendavid's leshon miqra ulshon Haxamim
2vol 1967, is a good place to start.