Some relevant mathematics.
Assume that at the end of the exodus out of Egypt some 50,000
Israelites entered their promised land. Assume, conservatively, that
they had a rate of growth of 1/2% per annum. They lived upon their
land for some 800 years until the destruction of the first temple,
and the ensuing deportation into exile. At that time there should
have been in the land of Israel some 50,000(1.005)^800= 2,700,000
Hebrew speakers, or am I wrong.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On Nov 25, 2010, at 3:29 AM, Yigal Levin wrote:
Since, in the ancient world, geographic
separation also means linguistic separation, as the different groups
diverged, so did their languages, both by internal development and
by being
influenced by their different neighbors. This means, in theory,
that the
more similar languages are, the more recently their speakers diverged.
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
