-----Original Message----- From: Randall Buth Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2011 10:05 AM To: Hebrew Subject: [b-hebrew] 5th century BCE to 3rd century CE sociolinguistics (Buth,Kilmon)
jack katav >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. > Jack, this raises a question of how close you are to the raw data. There is/was a noticeable difference between low Hebrew and high Hebrew in the Second Temple. That is what I was referring to. Without understanding this, all sorts of false things may be said about Hebrew. For example, many have said that 'Hebrew was a high language like Latin in medieval Europe', without realizing that Mishaic Hebrew was also a low language --like Vulgar Latin in early medieval Europe. ****Randall, there is nothing wrong with how "close I am" to the "raw data" but I am just not "close" to your interpretation of some of the "raw data." "High" and "Low Hebrew" appears to be a construction of your own. Lets say we get to the issue. Aramaic was the spoken language of the non-literate population, which was MOST of the population of the 2nd Temple period. Where Hebrew was spoken among the literate, I said previously that I have no doubt there was a literate and vernacular form. Please explain how that is different than your "low" and "high" Hebrew and how are you dating your Mishnaic Hebrew as a vulgar "low" form? ... >ALL of the Semitic inscriptions on all of the catalogued ossuaria are in Aramaic. > People would pay a lot of money for whatever you're smoking! **** I don't smoke anything and your starting to tick me off. One recent grave inscription discovered last year at Qiryat Shemuel, Hadashot Arkheologiyot / ESI 122 (2010), is published online at http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail.asp?id=1497&mag_id=117 http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/images//5621-7.jpg The report presents an inscription in mishnaic Hebrew, though mentioning a name with an Aramaic patronym: אלכסא בר שלום ברת אלכסא ארור שיטלני ממקומי (“Alexa bar Shalom berat Alexa // Cursed is the one who casts me from my place”) The clear part for potential grave robbers is in mishnaic Hebrew. *****That is speculation. You will find similar inscriptions in LATIN on Medieval tombs that the general population could not read. Do you think grave robbers were literate? The name is in Aramaic. Someone who call himself BAR Shalom rather than BEN Shalom spoke Aramaic. This also is NOT an ossuary. Another ostracon of interest is a bilingual Hebrew--Aramaic one where the Aramaic side is written with a non-Aramaic form: CIIP 368a/CIJ 1352a: מרים יועזר שמעון בני יחזק בן קלון מן בני ישבאב CIIP 368b/CIJ 1352b: מרים יועזר ושמעון בני יחזק בר קלון מן ברי ישבאב (note: ברי instead of בני!). Why they bothered to do both languages remains a question when it is inconceivable that people couldn't read both/either-- ****Like the grave robbers above? but then the Aramaic part is 'artificial Aramaic' and incorrect. ****You asked the right question. Why is it bilingual? It is also NOT an ossuary. anyway, in Greek-Semitic ostraca where the Semitic language is unambiguous, there are 9 Gk-Aram and 13 Gk-Heb. In Semitic-only ostraca where the language is unambiguous, there are 25 Aramaic and 16 Hebrew. ****Which tells you what? The largest number of Elephantine letters, written from literates in Egypt to literates in Jerusalem, were in WHAT language? They were a stream of correspondence. 100 ostraca from Tel Arad were not monumental, on a tomb or Biblical but requests for barley, in Aramaic. So also 60 odd from Beer Seba about wheat and barley and Tell Jemma, about barley and wine....ostraca written in the common tongue about staples, what I call "grocery list" epigraphy. About 300 or so of these Aramaic ostraca also appeared on the antiquities market. Again, these were not the ossuaries I mentioned because I am smoking something but they are a good example. ****The inscriptions on many ossuaries are oft times clumsily scrawled and misspelled in poor grammar in ARAMAIC as the Semitic choice and was apparently by family members so they could record at least the primary deposit of bones and subsequent family members. These people SPOKE Aramaic and attempted to write it either using an exemplar ostracon or just winging it phonetically in a quasi-literate fashion. When an inscription was carved in Aramaic by a scribal hand, probably prior to its interment, it was in Aramaic. Guido Baltes in a forthcoming article concluded in general, "These conclusions drawn from the epigraphic material of the land of Israel might appear disappointing at first glance, since they are predominantly negative in essence: the language distribution within the inscriptions and documents is too evenly divided and too diverse to make any certain claims on geographical, functional or sociological language peculiarities. However, it might be just this non-existence of clear results that is the most important result of this study: Too easily New Testament scholars have looked for simple patterns and ready answers to explain the complexity of a reality two thousand years separated from ours. ... Too negligently, we have separated ourselves from the fruitful studies of our colleagues in the fields of archeology, linguistics, and history." (the article will be in the second volume of the Brill series Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels, possibly available in SF SBL.) Any discussion of the sociolinguistics requires an accurate control of the development of and relationship of "biblical Hebrew" and "mishanic Hebrew". Too many, scholars and students both, write on this subject without controlling the linguistic data. ****Mishnaic Hebrew developed greatly influenced by spoken Aramaic. The commentaries of the Mishnah are in Aramaic (the Gemara). I have no doubt that the sages of the Beyt Hillel and Shammai and the Sadducees and priests spoke a dialect of Hebrew among themselves but when they went home after the business of the day they talked to the wife and kids in Aramaic. Jack Kilmon San Antonio, TX blessings Randall Buth -- 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 _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
