Kimmo katav > I hope this is not too off-topic for the list. > > One of the most interesting (to me) threads over the last year has been Randall Buth and Jack Kilmon's debate on the status of Hebrew and Aramaic around 1st and 2nd centuries CE. At the time I was unable to participate, but if I may reopen (and somewhat broaden) the question, I would be very interested in how they see the sociolinguistic situation and its development in the second temple period and some time beyond (say 5th century BCE to 3rd century CE) in Israel. Who and in what situations would use the following languages: >- High Hebrew >- Low Hebrew >- Aramaic >- Greek >- Latin >(I am not sure if Jack Kilmon makes a distinction between high Hebrew and low Hebrew as Randall Buth does). > > Contributions also from other list members is, of course, welcome. > > Kimmo Huovila >
well, "High Hebrew" is BH, since BH includes Second Temple BH. So as long as High Hebrew is included in the discussion I would include it on the list. Its relation to Low Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek are part of its sociolinguistics. The question is interesting when one starts to ask who would use what, where. Our evidence has grown considerably over the last 100 years, though the holes in our hard data remain 'huge'. for example, in the Galilee, of the hundreds of inscriptions, ostraca, etc., for the first-second century, we have virtually nothing that distinguishes Aramaic and Hebrew in the Galilee. (There is 1 [one] Aramaic text, and there are several other texts with persons named in Hebrew, [like ha-betshani 'from Skythopolis']. In fact, we only have origin names in Hebrew for the 'north', nothing in Aramaic. ) One known genre was 'Jewish story parable'. All our records of the several thousand of these are in LOW Hebrew. However, one may ask the question, how would a LOW Hebrew parable be written up in a first century document? We have texts like 1Mac, Qumran, and the presumed background to Josephus War to consider. Qumran regularly and apparantly 1Mac use High Hebrew. So would a LH parable in a High Hebrew document be adapted into the higher register? We have a very little bit of evidence in the gospels that suggests, Yes. -- Randall Buth, PhD www.biblicallanguagecenter.com Biblical Language Center Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
