-----Original Message----- From: Kimmo Huovila Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 2:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [b-hebrew] 5th century BCE to 3rd century CE sociolinguistics (Buth,Kilmon)
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 Hi Kimmo: I think most languages have written and vernacular forms and I just assume that Randall was referring to EBH as "High Hebrew" but will wait for him to respond. Although Aramaic was the spoken vernacular of the 95% of the people who were illiterate in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, I too am interested in the social "pockets" where Hebrew was still "living" (other than the priestly communities) and the failed attempts under the Maccabees and Bar Kochba to revive it. I will give you my "off the cuff" response for now (I have to get to some classwork) and will look forward to Randall's response. Hebrew - At the temple and synagogues for the reading of scripture where a lector simultaneously translated into Aramaic for the supplicants from the public. That portion of the DSS "Yahad" that spoke Hebrew where it developed as a spoken dialect. I don't know what other "pockets" used Hebrew, certainly scribal schools and the Samarians perhaps. Aramaic - the general public or am ha-aretz, most of whom did not read or write but a portion of whom could be classified as "semi-literate" being able to read or recognize certain phrases and words. Greek - The primary medium of exchange in commerce and with the Romans and their auxiliaries. There may have been certain words or phrases in monumental inscriptions recognized by the general Aramaic speaking public where Greek loan words suggest the recognition of some Greek, a relic, perhaps of the Hellenistic and Seleucid Periods. Latin - Roman legionnairies, Roman administrative and monumental usage. Hebrew was indeed a living and dialect-developing language in several social pockets in and outside of Judea. If it were not so, we would not have so much fun with the DSS of several centuries. For a long time, Aramaic-invested scholars eschewed the suggestion of Hebrew use at all in the 2nd temple period. Ditto for Hebrew-invested scholars or nationalists for Aramaic. This is well demonstrated when Yigael Yadin showed Ben Gurion the Aramaic letters of Shimeon bar Kochba and Ben Gurion flew off the handle because they were not in Hebrew (They were mainly in Aramaic). Some New Testament scholars totally invested in NT Greek get red in the face and apoplectic when I discuss the Aramaisms of the NT and the benefit retroversion can play in resolving variations in the Greek texts for a pericope whose oral or written source was Aramaic. Then there are the religious biases among "Messianic Christians" who claim the New Testament was originally authored in Hebrew or Aramaic (Even the Pauline Corpus). My point is that there is a great deal of tendentiousness to this issue, even among scholars where you would not expect agenda-driven paradigms. As a scientist, I try to look only at the evidence. Tomb and amulet, graffiti and some ossuarial inscriptions are more than just place or personal names and have been found in the Galilee, Carmel and Northern Judea. Aramaic ostraca and jar inscriptions from Arad, tel Jemmeh and Tel Beersheba. One strong indicator, IMO, for the "language of the street" is the writing OF the "people of the street," the larger group between literate and illiterate that statistics overlook...the quasiliterate. This takes its form most noticeably on ossuaria where the family members of the deceased scrawled the names on the box in what is normally a graffito style. No better example is the extremely awkward scratches of the High Priest Caiaphas' name and, perhaps, on the James Ossuary. ALL of the Semitic inscriptions on all of the catalogued ossuaria are in Aramaic. The language commonly spoken will be the language commonly misspelled or grammatically incorrect on ossuaria, ostraca, graffiti, and that is nearly exclusively Aramaic. I also think that loan words will drift from the common tongue to the language of literati and liturgy as demonstrated in the peppering of 2nd temple Hebrew with Aramaic loan words and the relative few Hebrew loan words in Aramaic up to the 1st half of the 1st century. In short, besides an overwhelming amount of other indicators for Aramaic as the commonly spoken language, graffiti is the strongest and graffiti (like Hamath) was in Aramaic. Regards, Jack Jack Kilmon San Antonio, TX _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
