HEBREW: THE ETERNAL LANGUAGE WILLIAM CHOMSKY HEBREW : THE ETERNAL LANGUAGE Varda Books 5761 / 2001 skokie, illinois, usa Copyright © 2001 by Varda Books Unique copyright © 1957 by THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA All Rights Reserved Second Printing, 1958 New ISBN 1-59045-441-Three Library PDF
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Residence | TOC | Index PREFACE There has lengthy been want for a e-book on the origin of the Hebrew language, its battle for survival within the face of virtually insurmountable obstacles, and its survival as a spoken vernacular in our personal day. I confess to having for a few years cherished the hope that it will some day be given me to jot down this story. On the similar time, I shrank from endeavor a process so huge and necessary, so fundamental to the Jewish cultural heritage, and involving so many features of Jewish life and historical past.
When, due to this fact, the Zionist Group of America approached me a number of years in the past with the request that I put together a pamphlet on the topic, Hebrew, The Story of a Residing Language, I allowed myself to be persuaded for the very cause that the dialogue could be transient and tentative. But a few of my associates without delay started urging me to develop that pamphlet right into a full-sized e-book, and that is the consequence. The account is much from exhaustive. It’s designed primarily for the clever reader fairly than for the scholar. Within the means of popularization a lot needed to be diluted, omitted or condensed.
In lots of areas the presentation could be very sketchy, although, I hope, genuine and correct. A extra complete account must await extra auspicious circumstances. Within the writing of this e-book I needed to resort to numerous sources of data and to the Helpance of people who’re knowledgeable in sure particular areas, and I herewith want to pay grateful acknowledgment. I’m, after all, primarily indebted to Dr. Solomon Grayzel for his stimulation and encouragement, criticism and recommendation, within the preparation of this e-book.
My thanks are as a result of following people for useful counsel and knowledge: Judah Lapson, Chairman of Hebrew Tradition Service Committee for American Excessive Faculties and Faculties; A. Leo Oppenheim, Oriental Institute, College of Chicago; Cecil Roth, Oxford vii > Residence | TOC | Index viii Preface College, England; E. A. Speiser, Chairman, Division of Oriental Research, College of Pennsylvania. I additionally want to make appreciative acknowledgment of the next publications from which illustrative supplies had been taken: The Hebrew Scripts, S. A.
Birnbaum; Millon ha-Lashon ha-Ibrit, Eliezer Ben Yehudah; The Discipline of Yiddish, edited by Uriel Weinreich, Linguistic Circle of New York; Semitic Writing, G. R. Driver, Oxford College Press; A Research of Writing, I. J. Gelb, College of Chicago Press. Recognition can be as a result of Historische Grammatik der Hebraischen Sprache, Hans Bauer and Pontus Leander, Verlag von Max Niemeyer, which offered a mannequin for the illustration of Branches of the Semitic Languages, on web page 22. It’s my hope that this quantity will stimulate new curiosity within the Hebrew language amongst those that realize it in addition to those that don’t.
Might the story of the traditional tongue show as fascinating to my readers because it has all the time been to me. W. C . March 1, 1957 > Residence | TOC | Index CONTENTS INTRODUCTION—The Function of Hebrew in Jewish Life, 1 PART I—How the Language Started to Be Spoken CHAPTER 1—Hebrew and the Languages of Mankind, 17 CHAPTER 2—How the Hebrew Language Started, 32 CHAPTER Three—The Early Non-Biblical Sources of Hebrew, 50 PART II—How the Written Language Took Type CHAPTER four—How the Hebrew Alphabet Originated, 73 CHAPTER 5—How Did the Vowel-System Evolve? Three CHAPTER 6—How the Research of Hebrew Grammar Started and Developed, 117 CHAPTER 7—How Was the Textual content of the Hebrew Bible Preserved? 139 PART III—How the Language Was Preserved CHAPTER eight—How Did the Hebrew Language Develop? 157 CHAPTER 9—How the Hebrew Language Has Stored Abreast of Altering Wants, 172 CHAPTER 10—How Hebrew Developed as a Trendy Vernacular, 184 CHAPTER 11—Did Hebrew Ever Die? 206 PART IV—How the Language Meets Trendy Wants CHAPTER 12—The Battle for Revival, 231 CHAPTER 13—Hebrew in America, 245 EPILOGUE—Hebrew for American Jews, 270 Notes and Bibliography, 281 Index, 313 ix gt; Residence | TOC | Index > Residence | TOC | Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Web page 1. Hittite Hieroglyphic Writing. Courtesy of I. J. Gelb, A Research of Writing (College of Chicago Press), 1952, web page 83 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Branches of the Semitic Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geographical Distribution of the Semitic Languages . . 21 22 23 2. Three. four. Transcription of the Mesha Stone. Courtesy of I. J. Gelb, A Research of Writing (College of Chicago Press), 1952, web page 134 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Hieroglyphic Inscriptions present in Sinai. Courtesy of G. R. Driver, Semitic Writing (British Academy, London), 1954, web page 94 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hittite Hieroglyphic Writing. Courtesy of I. J. Gelb, A Research of Writing (College of Chicago Press), 1952, web page 82 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 75 6. 77 81 7. The Contents of a Mezuzah. An instance of hand-written Hebrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . eight. Inscriptions from the Sinaitic Peninsula.
Courtesy of G. R. Driver, Semitic Writing (British Academy, London), 1954, web page 94 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From Hebrew to the Latin Alphabets . . . . . . . . . . 83 87 9. 10. Three Vowel Programs: 1. Babylonian; 2. Palestinian; Three. Tiberian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 11. The Masoretic Textual content as ready by the Ben Asher College. Courtesy of S. A. Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts, Fasc. 2, web page 92 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 12. A Web page from the Rabbinic Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 xi > Residence | TOC | Index xii Record of Illustrations Between pp. 242 and 243 13. Hebrew Calendar from Gezer. Courtesy of S. A. Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts, no. 2 14. Sinaitic Writing. Courtesy of G. R. Driver, Semitic Writing (British Academy, London), 1954, pl. 38 15. The Siloam Inscription. Courtesy of S. A. Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts, no. 14 16. The Mesha Stone. Courtesy of The Louvre, Paris 17. Lachish Ostraca. Courtesy of S. A. Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts, nos. 23, 24 18. Cash of the Second Commonwealth.
Courtesy of S. A. Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts, nos. 56, 58, 61 19. Stamps of Trendy Israel 20. The Nash Papyrus. Courtesy of Cambridge College Library 21. An Aramaic and Yiddish Model of Had Gadya. Courtesy of The Discipline of Yiddish: Research in Yiddish Language, Folklore and Literature Printed on the Event of the Bicentennial of Columbia College, ed. by Uriel Weinreich, Linguistic Circle of New York, 1954 22. Eliezer Ben Yehudah. Courtesy of Millon ha-Lashon ha-lbrit > Residence | TOC | Index HEBREW: THE ETERNAL LANGUAGE >
Residence | TOC | Index > Residence | TOC | Index INTRODUCTION THE ROLE OF HEBREW IN JEWISH LIFE Hebrew as a Trendy Vernacular Barely a decade or two in the past there have been individuals who maintained that Hebrew was not a dwelling language. Now, the “sacred language” of the previous is the day by day vernacular of tons of of 1000’s of Jews in Israel. There the language lives within the mouths of faculty youngsters, bootblacks, busmen, cab drivers, cabaret singers, attorneys, docs and officers, of the spiritual, irreligious and anti-religious—certainly, of everybody.
The thick horizontal strokes and skinny verticals of the Hebrew alphabet are blazoned everywhere in the nation on posters, promoting indicators, stamps and cash; on highways, retailers, shops and lodges. Hebrew slang, colloquialisms and even curses are freely coined; whereas the Hebrew Language Academy (previously, Vaad haLashon), composed of excellent students and writers and sponsored by the Israel authorities, is vigilantly on guard in opposition to the intrusion of any solecisms or barbarisms that may impair the purity of the language.
Once in a while, furthermore, this Academy publishes lists of technical phrases masking each department and facet of science, trade, know-how and the like: some ten thousand new phrases have gained forex because the institution of the State of Israel. At the very least 4 theatrical corporations provide common performances—all, after all, in Hebrew. Thou1 > Residence | TOC | Index 2 Hebrew: The Eternal Language sands of books, magazines, newspapers and brochures on each conceivable subject are in day by day circulation.
Near 200 periodicals are printed there in Hebrew, together with fifteen dailies and the remaining weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies and annuals. Hebrew books are printed in Israel on the price of greater than three a day. The air waves of Israel vibrate to the rhythm of the classical tongue. Exterior of Israel, probably the most important middle of Hebrew tradition is America. The language is learn, understood and spoken by 1000’s of American Jews. There are Hebrew periodicals of well-liked in addition to scholarly character; Hebrew books, fictional and scientific; Hebrew language instruction on elementary and faculty stage.
Faculties, camps and golf equipment encourage the talking of Hebrew. Can there be any Question Assignment as to the vitality of the Hebrew language? Not one of the trendy makes an attempt to revive outdated languages, akin to Gaelic, Welsh and Indi, can boast of something approximating the progress made by Hebrew. But the Irish, Welsh and Indians have been rooted on their very own soil and are free from political, bodily and financial difficulties with which the younger struggling Jewish neighborhood in Israel has needed to cope.
Sources of Vitality of the Hebrew Language How was the Hebrew language capable of exist and performance as an efficient instrument of artistic self-expression and intercommunication for about two thousand years, with out such a necessary ingredient for survival as a state or territory? How might Hebrew retain its vitality and elasticity over such a protracted time period within the face of such opposed circumstances? The reply to those questions could also be found by contemplating the distinctive character of Judaism and its relation to the Hebrew language.
Hebrew has not been a denationalized common tongue, the medium of a selected faith, within the sense that Latin has been the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Nor has it been merely a folks tongue like different dwelling languages. As a matter of reality, it has persevered as a dwelling lan- > Residence | TOC | Index The Function of Hebrew in Jewish Life Three guage for a lot of centuries after it had ceased to be a spoken vernacular within the accepted sense of the time period, as shall be demonstrated in a later chapter on this quantity.
Hebrew has been the sacred language of the Jewish individuals—the language of its faith, tradition and civilization. It has been, in sum, the language of Judaism and intimately recognized with the nationwide and spiritual experiences of the Jewish individuals all through the generations. The Jewish individuals can no extra be dissociated from Hebrew than they are often dissociated from their very own religious identification—Judaism. Relationship between Language and Tradition An Assessment of the character of language and of Judaism might Help to make clear this level.
Language shouldn’t be merely a method of expression and communication; it’s an instrument of experiencing, considering and feeling, in addition to a method of self-expression and private progress. In investigating the origin of language and “after tracing again its historical past so far as we will, we see that the earliest language was something however mental, that it was certainly a type of half-way home between singing and speech with lengthy nearly conglomerations of sounds, which served fairly as an outlet for intense emotions than for an intelligible expression of them . . ”1 Certainly, even in trendy days language is employed “by youngsters (and sometimes by grown individuals), not a lot to formulate and categorical ideas as to present vent to emotions . . . ”2 Our concepts and experiences usually are not unbiased of language; they’re all integral components of the identical sample, the warp and woof of the identical texture. We don’t first have ideas, concepts, emotions after which put them right into a verbal framework. We predict in phrases, by the use of phrases. Language and expertise are inextricably interwoven, and the notice of 1 awakens the opposite.
Phrases and idioms are as indispensable to our ideas and experiences as are colours and tints to a portray. Our character matures and develops by way of language and by our use of it. Faulty linguistic progress is understood to go hand in > Residence | TOC | Index four Hebrew: The Eternal Language hand with stunted mental and emotional improvement. Deaf and dumb individuals are, as a rule, intellectually retarded and, in a point, even callous, except given technique of ample communication.
What’s true of language in relation to particular person progress is equally true within the case of the cultural progress and improvement of a individuals. Certainly, college students of language have come to acknowledge that the experiences of a gaggle, its psychological and emotional habits, its modes of ideas and attitudes are registered and mirrored within the phrases and idioms of the group’s language. Thus, for instance, the phrase shalom, normally rendered by “peace,” has in impact little in frequent with its English equal. Shalom doesn’t have the passive, even detrimental, connotation of the phrase “peace. It doesn’t imply merely the absence of strife. It’s pregnant with optimistic, lively and energetic which means and affiliation. It connotes totality, well being, wholesomeness, concord, success, the completeness and richness of dwelling in an built-in social milieu. When individuals meet or half they need one another shalom, or they inquire about one another’s shalom. Equally, the Hebrew phrases ruah (spirit) and nefesh (soul) shouldn’t have the implications of a disembodiment, akin to are indicated by their English equivalents. There isn’t any dichotomy within the Hebrew thoughts between physique and spirit or soul.
One shouldn’t be the antithesis of the opposite. These Hebrew phrases have dynamic, life-giving and motor-urgent connotations. Each dwelling being has a ruah, even the beast possesses a ruah (Ecclesiastes Three. 21). The identical is true of the synonym nefesh, which is mostly rendered by “soul. ” However nefesh, too, is the property of all dwelling beings (Job 12. 10), together with the beast (Proverbs 12. 10). Even the netherworld has a nefesh (Isaiah 5. 14). Moreover, each dwelling creature, man in addition to animal, is designated as nefesh (Genesis 1. zero, 21, 24, 12. 5, 14. 21, and so on. ). Each nefesh and ruah typically signify energy and vigor, each in a fabric and a religious sense. Voracious canine are mentioned to own a robust nefesh (Isaiah 56. 11); and the horses of Egypt, the prophet warns, are weak: they’re “flesh and no ruah” (ibid. , 31. Three). > Residence | TOC | Index The Function of Hebrew in Jewish Life 5 There’s likewise a far cry between the Hebrew phrase tzedakah (from the stem tzadak, to be simply or righteous), with its implications of social justice, and the English phrase “charity. Within the case of “charity” the recipient sees himself beholden to the donor, whose motion is voluntary. Tzedakah, then again, must be carried out as a matter of obligation and the recipient is under no circumstances indebted to the donor. The needy have a proper to tzedakah, whereas these possessing means have an obligation to present it. Certainly, even a poor one that receives tzedakah should in flip give tzedakah (Gittin 7b). There’s, likewise, a large semantic gulf between the Hebrew rahamim or rahmanut and the English equal “pity” or “mercy. The Hebrew phrase connotes love, household feeling (see Genesis 43. 30, and so on. ), even motherliness, since it’s associated to rehem (mom’s womb) of the identical stem. None of those connotations is implied within the English equivalents. Equally, the richly significant and traditionally hallowed implications of the Hebrew torah are completely absent within the English equal “legislation. ” The Hebrew time period torah embraces the totality of Jewish artistic labor all through the ages. Simply as insufficient is the English translation “commandment” for the Hebrew mitzvah.
In one among his hasidic3 tales, the Hebrew author Yehudah Steinberg depicts a hasid expressing astonishment on the ignorance and stupidity of the resha‘im (the depraved or the disbelievers ). The primary motive for committing depraved deeds, causes the hasid, is the search and pursuit of enjoyment and pleasure. However is any higher pleasure or pleasure conceivable than that of performing a mitzvah? Therefore, he continues, if the resha‘im had been sufficiently smart to appreciate this, they’d abandon their wickedness and would all grow to be tzaddikim (righteous or strictly observant Jews), only for their pleasure’s sake.
One of these reasoning was not distinctive amongst conventional Jews. Simhah shel mitzvah, the enjoyment of performing a mitzvah, constituted an integral component within the sample of the Jewish lifestyle. To make certain, the phrase mitzvah initially meant not more than a command within the accepted sense. However the particular reli- > Residence | TOC | Index 6 Hebrew: The Eternal Language gious experiences of the Jewish individuals, their feeling of exultation within the efficiency of spiritual tasks, invested this phrase with a cluster of associations and connotations not initially inherent in it.
Is it conceivable that one might get a thrill out of performing a mitzvah if it had been merely a “commandment”? Each language, together with English, has a inventory of phrases that are charged with the emotional and mental experiences of the individuals using it. As an example, inside our personal experiences, the English phrase “hearth” got here to imagine a brand new connotation on account of listening to the hearth chats inaugurated by the late president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Equally, the phrase “filibuster,” initially signifying a freebooter or pirate, is now employed in the US within the sense of hindering laws by the use of lengthy speeches or different parliamentary methods. One may add, as examples, such expressions as “go to bat,” “strike out” and the like. The richer and the extra intense the historic experiences of a individuals, the higher is the variety of such phrases in its language and the extra emotionally charged they’re. When translated into one other language, they grow to be devitalized and nearly meaningless.
Such phrases usually are not mere linguistic models; they’re cultural deposits. However they can’t be transmitted in isolation. They tackle their which means and acquire in richness of affiliation and connotation solely by way of the context of expertise. Previously some Hebrew phrases and expressions survived within the vernacular of the individuals lengthy after the Hebrew language had ceased to be popularly spoken. They had been stored alive by the intimate contact which the vast majority of the individuals continued to keep up with the Hebrew literary sources and by the persistence of Jewish types of dwelling and habits of considering.
Moreover, one can readily quote a bunch of expressions and idioms which, although composed of phrases within the vernacular, encase, in impact, Hebraic thought-patterns. It might appear that so long as the Jews had been rooted of their conventional patterns of life, they had been delicate to the inadequacy of the vernacular in expressing and conveying the emotionally charged which means > Residence | TOC | Index The Function of Hebrew in Jewish Life 7 of sure Hebrew phrases. They due to this fact persevered both in retaining the unique phrases and expressions, or in investing the Hebraic psychological sample or idiom with the garb of the vernacular.
On this method an ideal many phrases and expressions, in addition to idioms, discovered their method into the varied vernaculars employed by the Jews all through the historical past of their dispersion. Such dialects arose as Judaeo-Greek, Judaeo-Arabic, JudaeoPersian and the like. The very best recognized of those dialects, surviving to today and incorporating a substantial proportion of those Hebraic parts, are Ladino, a Judaeo-Spanish dialect employed by the Jews within the Balkan States and Morocco, and, particularly, Yiddish.
At current, nevertheless, particularly on this nation, Jewish patterns of life not present an acceptable useful context for these phrases and expressions. The distinctive options of the Jewish local weather attribute of conventional Jewish ghettos, particularly these of Jap Europe, have nearly fully disappeared. The particular vocabularies and idioms of Jewish life not operate; they’ve been translated into English equivalents. Yamim nora’im are Excessive Holy Days, a siddur is a prayerbook, a mahzor is a Excessive Holy day or Pageant prayerbook.
Yom tov has been changed by vacation. Such conventional Hebrew phrases as hazzan (cantor), shammash (sexton),’aron kodesh (holy ark), menorah (candelabrum), sefer torah (scroll of the Torah), gabbai (an elder within the synagogue), and so on. , as soon as generally employed, have fallen into desuetude. An excellent Jew is not mekayyem a mitzvah, or is a shomer shabbat. As a substitute, he’s performing a command or good deed and is a Sabbath observer. He doesn’t drink le-hayyim (to life or well being); he drinks to completely satisfied days, and so forth.
The contact with the literary Hebraic sources stays, due to this fact, the one avenue to those cultural deposits. The Which means of Judaism The which means of the phrases “Jews” and “Judaism” has, likewise, been a supply of confused considering. Are the Jews a race, > Residence | TOC | Index eight Hebrew: The Eternal Language a nation, a spiritual group, or what? Is Judaism solely a physique of beliefs and practices, or of nationalistic symbols and slogans, or of cultural concepts and literary compilations, akin to may very well be conveyed by one linguistic automobile or one other?
A lot futile argumentation relative to those issues could also be present in our latest literature. The disputants appear to disregard the truth that a sense of kinship exists amongst Jews of all “races” and colours, of all components of the world, no matter whether or not they’re orthodox, reform and even atheistic. To make certain, some or all the parts talked about above could also be discovered within the Jewish group or in Judaism, because the case could also be, not in an additive sense, however fairly in an integrative or chemical sense.
Therefore, the entire shouldn’t be like several of the components, simply as frequent salt shouldn’t be within the least just like the sodium and chlorine of which it’s compounded; or simply as water is nothing like its parts, oxygen and hydrogen, of which it’s a compound. The compound ABC is bigger than the sum of the components and totally different in character from every of them on account of their integration and reciprocal affect. In such a compound the person part parts are modified and modified. Eradicating one among these parts or substituting one for an additional will destroy or change the entire compound.
All that is equally true of the cultural, nationwide and spiritual parts that make up Judaism. Jewish faith is, in impact, a particular, dynamic life-pattern, consistently and progressively adapting itself to altering wants and circumstances; it’s accordingly intimately sure up with the Jewish individuals, their historical past, tradition and civilization. It’s on this vein that Judah Halevi interprets the very first Commandment, the place the Lord is known as “thy God, who introduced thee out of the land of Egypt,” and never because the God who created the universe and humanity.
This purports to emphasise, Halevi asserts, the shut identification of the Torah with the Jewish individuals and their historic experiences. four It’s important that neither biblical nor mishnaic Hebrew possesses a time period for both “faith” or “Judaism. ” To today > Residence | TOC | Index The Function of Hebrew in Jewish Life 9 no particular time period for “faith” is to be present in Hebrew, whereas the idea “Judaism” (Greek Judaismos) stems from alien soil. It was invented by the Jews of the Hellenistic Diaspora to point the distinction between their religion, or lifestyle, and “Hellenism” (Hellenismos). The Hebrew time period for this idea (yahadut) was most likely coined by Rashi (1040–1105). The normal time period for this idea, employed within the Bible and within the Talmud, is “Torah. ” Now this time period, as has been mentioned, embraces the totality of Jewish beliefs and practices, beliefs and concepts, in actual fact, all of the merchandise of the Jewish artistic genius by way of the centuries. “The Commandments,” based on one supply, “indicate all that’s included within the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, whether or not authorized or homiletic in character.
In reality, any interpretation which at any time a devoted scholar is prone to provide earlier than his instructor was already offered to Moses on Mount Sinai. ”6 When the rabbis had been unsure in regards to the legality of sure rituals and practices, they’d say: “Go and see how the individuals conduct themselves. ”7 The conduct of the individuals in a standard conventional surroundings served as a information for establishing and codifying sure legal guidelines and rituals; certainly “a customized might nullify a legislation. ”eight No faith within the accepted sense of this time period would allow such latitude.
Considerably, the Hebrew time period for legislation, whether or not ritual, moral, legal, or civil, is halakhah, a phrase which signifies “conduct. ” Peculiar historic circumstances, the Assessment of which is exterior our province, have operated within the case of the Jewish individuals in such a way as to merge race, nationality, tradition and faith right into a composite unit, which is articulated in a particular language, with the results of modifying the person traits of every of the elements. Therefore, the legal guidelines making use of to every of them in isolation is not going to apply to all or any of them in integration.
Thus, though Christianity might proceed to operate with no distinctive language, the Jewish faith can’t accomplish that, as a result of it’s too intimately fused with parts of race, nationality and tradition, all of that are in flip rooted within the Hebrew language. It’s inconceivable that any of the > Residence | TOC | Index 10 Hebrew: The Eternal Language conventional Jewish prayers, in translation, might evoke the identical historic associations, cultural allusions and nationwide recollections, as they do within the unique Hebrew. As a result of Jews of outdated wished these associations they continued to wish in Hebrew and research their literary sources in Hebrew.
They preserved the language and the language preserved them. Hebrew because the Language of Judaism In sum, Judaism could also be outlined as the continuing historic expertise of the Jewish individuals, by which are compounded spiritual, nationwide and cultural parts. This distinctive historic expertise has been articulated in distinctive phrases and idioms of the Hebrew language, with which it has grow to be inextricably blended. Disassociate this historic expertise from the Hebrew language, and the result’s a pale, anemic reflection, a dilution and generally even an adulteration of the unique expertise.
Certainly, some Jewish students maintained that the deviations of Christianity from Judaism could also be straight traceable to the translations of the Bible into Greek. The unique Hebrew phrases took on, within the Greek translation, connotations which weren’t meant by the Hebrew authors, with the consequence that they instructed views and concepts totally alien to the Jewish spirit. One of many many obtrusive examples is the origin of the virgin-birth dogma in Christianity, an idea which was related to the mistranslation of the phrase ‘almah (Isaiah 7. 14).
In Hebrew the phrase merely means “younger girl”; within the Greek translation it was rendered by parthenos which implies “virgin. ” One other instance is the phrase ruah, which within the Greek translation connoted the un-Jewish idea of spirit-versus-body. In the midst of their lengthy and wealthy historical past, the Jewish individuals have gone by way of intensive mental and emotional experiences. They’ve experimented with life and its issues; issues of the connection of man to man, of man to God, issues of human future and of the impression of cosmic forces upon mankind. They’ve recognized joys and struggling, hope and despair.
They’ve given voice to all these experi- > Residence | TOC | Index The Function of Hebrew in Jewish Life 11 ences in their very own distinctive Hebrew idiom. Language and expertise have grow to be intertwined in order that one can’t be absolutely mastered with out the opposite. Who can render in appropriate translation the overtones, the cluster of associations and allusions hooked up to such expressions as shema‘ yisrael, kiddush ha-shem, hillul ha-shem, mesirut nefesh, and a bunch of others? It can’t be finished. But such expressions symbolize the warp and woof of our historic spiritual and nationwide experiences.
These expressions stir in each acutely aware Jew emotions and pictures akin to might by no means be evoked in some other language. Within the phrases of Shema‘ Yisrael, for instance, we hear echoes and reverberations of the agonized cries of our martyrs from the times of Akiba right down to the “rebels” of the Warsaw Ghetto. As compared the English equal, “Hear, O Israel,” sounds flat and insipid. Equally, the phrases kiddush ha-Shem (sanctification of the Identify) and hillul ha-Shem (profanation of the Identify) are the obverse and reverse of an idea which epitomizes Jewish martyrology all through the ages.
This idea has been a mainspring of conventional Jewish conduct, by phrase or act, with the view of hallowing God’s identify, even on the danger of dying, by way of correct conduct and avoiding deeds which could profane the identify of God. The time period mesirut nefesh, likewise, connotes the concept of self-sacrifice and readiness to dedicate one’s life to a really perfect. The English equivalents of those phrases fail fully to convey even a shade of the which means of those repositories of Jewish experiences. Language is, after all, the image of which means, or the expression of concepts by the use of articulate sounds or graphic representations of those sounds.
But, which means shouldn’t be inherent within the sounds or the phrases, however fairly in our private and group experiences that are fused with the actual phrases. In themselves phrases don’t have any meanings; it’s our reactions to them or our experiences with them that lend them their which means. What the phrases “imply” or convey to us depends upon the character, extent and depth of our experiences, direct or vicarious, with > Residence | TOC | Index 12 Hebrew: The Eternal Language them. The phrase “democracy,” for instance, means one factor to an American, and one thing totally totally different to a Russian communist.
The time period “campaign” awakens within the minds of Jews clusters of historic recollections and associations completely at variance with these within the minds of Christian peoples. Phrases are set within the orbit of the expertise of the individuals using them. When transposed from one experiential orbit into one other by the use of translation or borrowing, the phrases change their “which means. ” Generally our experiences are blended and related to particular types of the phrase, with its explicit pronunciation or configuration, and solely these types will convey to us which means to its fullest extent.
A radical change within the kind, even of the identical phrase, akin to a distinction of pronunciation or spelling, might on the outset fail to evoke our experiences related to the actual phrase. Therefore there’s typically resistance to spelling reforms or to adjustments in pronunciation, as for instance, within the case of Hebrew, from Ashkenazic to Sephardic, and vice versa. An try by Itamar Ben Avi and others, a number of years in the past, to vary the Hebrew to Latin script proved abortive within the face of great opposition. It ought to due to this fact be clear that language can’t be taken as a type of forex or medium of change.
Phrases in a single language can’t be rendered by their equivalents in one other language with out dropping one thing vitally and basically peculiar to the mentality and genius of the individuals using the tongue. It’s a delusion to imagine that one can absolutely perceive the essence of Judaism in any language however Hebrew. As indicated beforehand, one can’t get the pristine and real message of the Bible in a translation, nevertheless successfully executed. Our Sages likened the day on which the Bible was translated into Greek to the day when the Golden Calf was made, “for the Torah doesn’t lend itself to an ample translation. Dr. Max L. Margolis, editor of the Jewish Publication Society Bible translation, asserted: “It steadily occurs that the translator, vainly in search of an equal for a Hebrew phrase or phrase, > Residence | TOC | Index The Function of Hebrew in Jewish Life 13 realizes that translation offers not a lot with phrases as with civilizations. ” Consequently, among the most important and indispensable sources of Judaism should stay in a sure sense “sealed books” to those that have no idea Hebrew.
The knowledge of the Sages, the poetry of Ibn Gabirol, Judah Halevi, Bialik and Chernichovski; or the prose of Mendele, Peretz and Agnon can by no means be rendered adequately in English or some other language. Practically each phrase, each flip of expression or locution employed by these masters of Hebrew literature, springs from the bed-rock of Jewish experiences, literary sources and Jewish folklore, and stirs inside us recollections, associations and pictures, akin to no translations, nevertheless artistically finished, can duplicate. > Residence | TOC | Index > Residence | TOC | Index
ART PART ONE How the Language Started to Be Spoken > Residence | TOC | Index > Residence | TOC | Index CHAPTER ONE HEBREW AND THE LANGUAGES OF MANKIND Historical Makes an attempt to Establish the Unique Language What number of languages are there on this planet? How did these languages come up? Did they evolve from one primeval language, or are they to be traced to a number of fundamental languages? What was this primeval language, or which had been the essential languages? These questions have attracted extensive consideration among the many inquisitive minds of the ancients in addition to of recent students.
The Greek historian Herodotus experiences an experiment performed by Psammetichus, king of Egypt (sixth century B. C. E. ), with the thing of discovering what race of males was first created or advanced. He took two new child babes, haphazardly chosen, and positioned them within the cost of a goatherd with strict directions to deliver them up on goat’s milk and to isolate them from any human contacts, in order that no phrase of human speech would possibly attain their ears. On this method, the king hoped, the youngsters would finally yield to the promptings of nature and get away into human speech representing the primeval language of the unique human race.
The experiment succeeded, based on Herodotus. In the future, after two years had handed, because the 17 > Residence | TOC | Index 18 Hebrew: The Eternal Language goatherd opened the door of the lonely hut to serve the youngsters their day by day portion of milk, they cried out “Bekos! ” and held out their palms. The goatherd reported this to the king, and upon investigation the king found that bekos was the Phrygian phrase for bread. He thereupon concluded that the Phrygians had been the primary race of males.
The story bears, after all, the earmarks of pure racial propaganda. It’s calculated to reveal the prevalence of the Grecian race, the kinsmen of the Phrygians based on Greek custom, by attributing to them the next rank in antiquity than that of the Egyptians. However this experiment was not distinctive. Related experiments are mentioned to have been performed in later ages: by the Mongol emperor Akbar Khan (sixteenth century), the German emperor Frederick the Second (thirteenth century), and King James IV of Scotland (fifteenth century).
The last-named is reported to have shut two infants up with a dumb girl on the island of Inchkeith and ordered them stored there till they had been sufficiently old to talk completely. These youngsters are mentioned by some to have spoken a pure Hebrew, though the chronicler himself entertained some doubts on the topic. Hebrew—the Mom of Languages There was, certainly, a time when Jews in addition to Christians believed that every one the languages of mankind derived from Hebrew, the language spoken by Adam and Eve within the Backyard of Eden. That is, after all, to be inferred from the biblical accounts.
Thus Eve was referred to as Hawwah “as a result of she was the mom of all dwelling” (hai, Genesis Three. 20). Equally, the girl was referred to as ishshah “as a result of she was taken out of man” (ish, ibid. , 2. 23). 1 In no different language moreover Hebrew, the rabbis argued, do we discover the phrases for man and girl derived from the identical root. The Hebrew language, it’s due to this fact to be assumed based on them, was created concurrently with the world and was the language employed by God in his conversations with Adam and Eve. 2 When Abraham was born, all > Residence | TOC | Index Hebrew and the Languages of Mankind 19 he dignitaries of Nimrod’s court docket wished to destroy him, says an outdated midrashic account, and he was hidden in a cave for 13 years. When he got here out of the cave he spoke Hebrew. Three “It (Hebrew) is, based on custom, the language by which God spoke to Adam and Eve and by which they spoke between themselves” (Judah Halevi). This conventional view is reiterated again and again throughout the Center Ages and later by each Jews and non-Jews. Among the many theses supplied by the primary class of Harvard graduates in 1642 was one entitled Hebrea est Linguarum Mater (Hebrew is the mom of the languages).
Non-Jewish sources resorted to all types of whimsical etymologies to show that the origin of European languages is to be present in Hebrew. four In his introduction to the Pentateuch, Moses Mendelssohn restates the view of the primacy of Hebrew and makes an attempt to adduce further proof in its corroboration. It was solely after the fiasco of the Tower of Babel, based on the biblical custom, that “the Lord did there confound the languages of the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them overseas upon the face of all of the earth” (Genesis 11. ). Thus, says rabbinic custom, advanced the languages of mankind, numbering seventy-two (or seventy), twentytwo of which had been spoken by the descendants of Japheth, twenty-four by the youngsters of Ham, and twenty-six by the youngsters of Shem. 5 Trendy Research of Indo-European Languages Towards the top of the eighteenth century the research of linguistic science was given sturdy impetus by the invention of Sanskrit and the popularity of the connection of this language to Greek and Latin. It was then and throughout the main a part of the ineteenth century that the Aryan or Indo-European languages had been recognized and subjected to cautious research and scrutiny. Nobody is aware of what number of languages there are on this planet. They definitely may be counted within the 1000’s. A lot of them > Residence | TOC | Index 20 Hebrew: The Eternal Language are unrecorded in writing and should disappear with out leaving a hint, as many unrecorded languages have undoubtedly disappeared already, whereas others are recognized from very scanty information. The vast majority of the languages of the world are most likely these which have by no means been dedicated to writing by any of their native audio system.
Probably the most totally investigated language household is the IndoEuropean. This household contains such languages, and language teams, as Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Armenian, Albanese, Celtic, Slavic, Baltic and Germanic. The Germanic group, to which English belongs, might be probably the most extensively employed, and English is now probably the most widespread of all languages on this planet. Nonetheless, the language which is understood to have retained the best variety of unique types of the Germanic dialect is Icelandic, a language spoken at present by about 100,000 individuals.
Equally, Lithuanian, one of many two surviving languages of the Baltic department, spoken by a number of million individuals who dwell on the borders of Prussia and Russia, is claimed to have “preserved most of the types of Indo-European speech in a much less corrupted situation than any of its European cogeners, aye, than any dialect of the whole household which isn’t no less than two thousand years older”6 All these language teams have been recognized as divergent types of a single prehistoric language, hypothetically named Primitive Indo-European.
No information of this primitive language can be found, however this can be a mere historic accident. The oldest recognized member, or close to relation, of this household is an extinct language, spoken by the Hittites, a individuals extensively talked about within the Bible and even regarded by the prophet Ezekiel as among the many ancestors of the Hebrew individuals (Ezekiel 16. Three, 45). The accessible paperwork in that language already deciphered are written in a type of the cuneiform syllabary—a wedge-like type of characters having syllabic fairly than alphabetic worth. These paperwork date again to in regards to the fifteenth century B.
C. E. Different Hittite paperwork, written in hieroglyphic script, have already been nearly deciphered. > Residence | TOC | Index Hebrew and the Languages of Mankind 21 Hittite Hieroglyphic Writing From I. J. Gelb, A Research of Writing (College of Chicago Press), 1952, web page 83. Semitic Languages The language household which issues us most at the moment is that designated since 1781 as Semitic. The origin of this designation is the genealogical file of Genesis 10. 21–31, based on which the peoples using these languages had been descendants of Shem, son of Noah.
These peoples occupied a territory extending from the Mediterranean to the opposite aspect of the Euphrates as much as the Tigris, or Mesopotamia, and from the mountains of Armenia to the southern coast of Arabia. By means of conquests and migrations these languages unfold additionally to components of Africa and Europe. The Canaanites (Phoenicians, and so on. , Genesis 10. 15–20) are traced within the Bible again to Ham, most likely on account of their being a combined race and in addition as a result of, owing to their paganism, they had been regarded with contempt by the biblical writers. Nonetheless, their language is clearly a department of the Semitic household, and the prophet Isaiah (19. eight) refers to > Residence | TOC | Index 22 Hebrew: The Eternal Language Branches of the Semitic Language > Residence | TOC | Index Hebrew and the Languages of Mankind 23 Geographical Distribution of the Semitic Languages > Residence | TOC | Index 24 Hebrew: The Eternal Language Hebrew because the language of Canaan (sefat Canaan). Most of those languages are actually useless, some having left necessary literary legacies. The one languages of this household nonetheless spoken, moreover Hebrew, are: Arabic, Ethiopic, and, to a restricted extent, Syriac or Aramaic.
The Semitic languages are typically divided into the next branches: A. East Semitic: Assyrian-Babylonian or Akkadian. This language is understood now from inscriptions on stone and clay, in cuneiform writing, relationship again to about 2500 B. C. E. On this language had been written the Code of Hammurabi (round 1800 B. C. E. ), the Amarna letters (1400 B. C. E. ) and different necessary paperwork. It was at one time extensively in vogue within the Orient in official circles. It was there a type of lingua franca, a global language. Later, across the center of the primary half within the final millennium B.
C. E. , it was outmoded by Aramaic. B. Northwest Semitic 1. Aramaic Department. a. Jap Aramaic or Syriac, of which the language of the Babylonian Talmud is a Jewish modification. b. Palestinian or Western Aramaic, which is represented by parts of the Palestinian Gemara and the Targumim (Bible translations typically included within the conventional Jewish editions of the Bible). The Aramaic parts of the Bible may belong on this class, though some trendy students problem the potential of establishing the native identification of those parts.
At that early interval, when these paperwork had been written, no distinction between Jap and Western Aramaic existed, based on these students. The oldest paperwork within the Aramaic language date from the eighth century B. C. E. A couple of centuries later, particularly round > Residence | TOC | Index Hebrew and the Languages of Mankind 25 the start of the Christian Period, Aramaic gained extensive forex over giant tracts of Western Asia, superseding a number of languages, amongst them Assyrian, and to a substantial extent additionally Hebrew.
The idea held by some Jewish and non-Jewish students that Aramaic had fully displaced Hebrew is with none basis and has been successfully disproved. However Aramaic undoubtedly exercised an amazing affect on the evolution of the Hebrew language, and left its impress upon it. For a few millennium (from about 700 B. C. E. to round 650 C. E. ) Aramaic was employed because the official language of the Close to East, till it was changed by Arabic as one results of the Mohammedan conquests (of the seventh century C. E. ). When Assyria conquered the Aramean states and included them into its empire, it adopted the language of the anquished. The unfold of this language was facilitated particularly by the Persian Empire which flourished throughout the fifth to 3rd centuries B. C. E. The imperial coverage of Persia was typically favorable to the preservation of the nationwide mores and tradition of its topic peoples. The Persian chancery accordingly selected to correspond with the provinces of Western Asia in their very own peculiar dialect, Aramaic. Aramaic continues to be spoken by a couple of thousand Syrian Christians and Jews in Kurdistan, and varied different remoted localities within the Orient on the borders of Persia, Iraq, Turkey and in Syria close to Damascus.
A substantial variety of the Aramaic-speaking Kurdish Jews have just lately immigrated into Israel. 2. Center Semitic or Canaanite Department. a. Moabitic, recognized particularly from the well-known inscription of King Mesha, ninth century B. C. E. The character and significance of this inscription shall be mentioned in a subsequent chapter. b. Phoenician, the language spoken in Phoenicia, in addition to within the Phoenician colony of Carthage in North Africa, shut to the current website of Tunis. The Phoenicians continued to establish themselves as Canaanites right down to the Roman interval.
Its oldest recognized inscriptions are of the > Residence | TOC | Index 26 Hebrew: The Eternal Language twelfth or fourteenth century earlier than the Christian Period. Across the early a part of the primary millennium B. C. E. , Phoenician loved the standing of a global language in Syria and close by coastal Asia Minor, till it was changed by Aramaic by the top of the eighth century. It continued to flourish in Carthage till a number of centuries into the Christian Period, and was nonetheless spoken within the time of Augustine within the fifth century C. E. c.
Hebrew. The oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible most likely date again to about 1300 B. C. E. , and the language has by no means ceased to be employed in most Jewish localities as a literary medium, in addition to for functions of written (if not spoken) intercommunication. In oral use it has been restricted largely to homes of worship and research, though there’s ample proof to show that even for conversational functions oral Hebrew has been employed, in a restricted diploma and in sure localities, all through the historical past of the Jewish individuals.
Moreover, many phrases and expressions coping with intimate private and nationwide experiences have been included into the varied languages spoken by the Jewish individuals within the lands of their dispersion. Equally, many Hebrew idioms have infiltrated, in translated types, into the varied Jewish dialects, akin to Yiddish and Ladino (a Judaeo-Spanish dialect), and have persevered there to today. In trendy occasions the vitality and flexibility of the Hebrew language have been demonstrated to a exceptional diploma, as a spoken language in Israel, and in lots of Jewish communities exterior of Israel. . Ugaritic. An enormous and important literature has been > Residence | TOC | Index Hebrew and the Languages of Mankind 27 unearthed since 1930, shedding a lot mild on biblical literature and language, in trendy Ras Shamra, on the coast of Syria, reverse Cyprus. This Canaanitic literature was written in an alphabetic cuneiform script, indicating consonants and even some vowels. It comprises epic poems typical of historic Canaanite faith and civilization throughout the Late Bronze Age, when Ras Shamra was the location of Ugarit, the wealthiest Canaanite metropolis.
In language and magnificence, this literature resembles to a exceptional diploma the poetic parts of the Bible. Biblical literature and language should have been influenced tremendously by the extremely developed tradition and civilization of Ugarit. Three. South Semitic. a. Arabic and its varied dialects. The earliest information of Arabic are of the third century B. C. E. Because the seventh century C. E. the territory of the language has prolonged, on account of the Mohammedan conquests, to embrace giant tracts of Asia and Africa. It’s now in oral and written use by practically forty hundreds of thousands of eople, moreover serving because the sacred and official language of Islam. b. Ethiopic and its dialects. This language is used on the east coast of Africa (Abyssinia). It emerged into the sunshine of historical past in the direction of the start of the fourth century C. E. , instantly after the conversion of the Abyssinian Kingdom to Christianity. The language continues to be utilized in Abyssinia in trendy dialects. Uniformity vs. Variety in Languages Makes an attempt had been made by college students of language to discern relationships between the Indo-European and the Semitic lan- gt; Residence | TOC | Index 28 Hebrew: The Eternal Language guages. These makes an attempt stem from the idea that each these language households advanced from the identical parental inventory. In proof of this assumption students adduce the examples of the Hebrew banah (constructed) and the Latin pono (examine English “exponent,” “expound”); additionally ba‘ar and Greek pyr from which originate the English “pyre,” “pyro-,” and “fireplace”; Hebrew yayin (wine), Greek oinos, Latin vinum, Arabic waynun; Hebrew sheba, Sanskrit saptan, Latin septem, English “seven. A medieval Jewish scholar collected over two thousand Hebrew phrases, which, in his opinion, had been the idea of an analogous variety of phrases in Latin, Greek and Italian. 7 Such makes an attempt are actually largely discredited. If there’s a relationship between the 2 language households, and there could also be, the accessible proof is insufficient and inconclusive. Mutual borrowing and mere accident might account for these relationships. The division of languages is, based on biblical custom, a curse or punishment inflicted upon mankind for the daring try of the individuals of Shinar to erect there “a tower, with its prime in heaven” (Genesis 11).
To today the multiplicity of languages is considered by some individuals as an affliction answerable for misunderstanding and dissension amongst people, teams and nations. If individuals spoke a standard language, it’s held, discords would disappear, wars could be eradicated, peace and good will would reign on this planet. Unsuccessful makes an attempt have accordingly been made to plan a common language, or to induce the adoption of some of the widespread languages as a standard language. That the adoption of a standard language will function an efficient instrumentality of peace is extremely questionable.
Historical past can file many wars amongst peoples using the identical language. However it’s a matter of grave doubt whether or not the adoption of a standard language is possible. Even when the peoples of the world would consent to undertake such a language, it will in the middle of time break up up into varied, mutually alien languages and dialects. We might word, as an illustration, the tendency of American English to deviate in its improvement, each > Residence | TOC | Index Hebrew and the Languages of Mankind 29 in idiom and vocabulary, from British English.
Even in the identical nation the individuals of sure generations discover it troublesome or not possible to know the language of their ancestors a number of generations again. It might, by the way, be critically questioned whether or not the adoption of a standard language could be fascinating from a cultural perspective, even when it had been doable. A standard language would impose, to a substantial diploma, frequent cultural and literary patterns. Witness the affect of English tradition and literature on early American life and literature. Such a language would definitely consequence within the impoverishment of world tradition and civilization.
The Development in Language in the direction of Variety Language (Sprache in German, lashon or safah in Hebrew), as indicated by its etymology, is mainly a speech expertise. It’s transmitted by phrase of mouth from dad and mom to youngsters. We converse and pronounce phrases as we hear them spoken and pronounced by our elders, who in flip realized them from generations previous them. It appears fairly apparent to us that we converse precisely as do our dad and mom and elders, and so they imagine they do the like with regards to the technology which preceded them. But, over a interval of a number of generations there have been evident linguistic adjustments and modifications.
The language of Shakespeare is not the English we converse; whereas the fourteenth century English of Chaucer, and way more so the English of Alfred the Nice of the ninth century, are to us nearly international tongues. When, for instance, was the Latin senior diminished to the French sire and the English “sir”? When did the Anglo-Saxon deofol (Latin diabolus) evolve into the trendy English “satan”? How did these radical adjustments in kind and pronunciation happen? When did they inject themselves into the language? Every technology of audio system would definitely disclaim accountability.
Evidently the method of language transmission is imperfect. Each our listening to and our capability for articulating or imitating > Residence | TOC | Index 30 Hebrew: The Eternal Language the sounds which we hear are imperfect and inexact. Therefore language is topic to modification and alter. Each progress and decay are traits of language improvement, as they’re of organic improvement. Some phonetic parts steadily disintegrate and disappear, whereas new ones sprout and emerge. Often, the variations are so nice as to provide a wholly new offshoot, a brand new dialect or a brand new member of the language household.
Two major components typically function as controls within the means of linguistic change: (1) isolation and (2) possession of written information. A individuals occupying a circumscribed territory and comparatively unexposed to contacts with different races or peoples is extra prone to protect the unique types of its speech than a individuals bent on enlargement, migration or collision with different races and peoples. Equally a standard literature typically workout routines a robust conservative affect on the language and shields it from the intrusion of alien parts and from radical phonetic and dialectical divergencies.
For that reason, the adjustments in English since Shakespeare’s time usually are not as pronounced as these throughout the interval between his interval and that of Chaucer, and they’re particularly much less important than the adjustments throughout the 5 centuries previous Chaucer, when England was assimilating the Normans. eight Motive for Relative Unity within the Hebrew Language The literary management on linguistic change is especially marked when, as within the case of the Hebrew language, the frequent literature is built-in with the spiritual traditions and experiences of the individuals.
The Hebrew individuals had been thrown into contact and collision with different individuals. Its vocabulary was significantly enriched by the admission of quite a few international phrases borrowed from the numerous peoples amongst whom they dwelt. But the unique linguistic sample of Hebrew remained roughly intact. Thus we converse of biblical Hebrew as a unitary part of the language, distinguished by typical traits of grammar and magnificence. But, the interval between the earliest biblical paperwork, such because the Track of Moses or the > Residence | TOC | Index Hebrew and the Languages of Mankind 1 Track of Deborah, on the one hand, and the books of Koheleth and Esther, on the opposite, is so long as the interval separating the interval of Alfred the Nice from our personal day. Moreover, the twenty-two centuries subsequent to the biblical interval didn’t impair the pristine sample of the language. The result’s that trendy Hebrew writers might select to make use of biblical Hebrew because the medium of their literary expression, with out the necessity of apology and with out fearing that their writings shall be incomprehensible and even considered unduly archaic.
What’s the rationalization, within the case of Hebrew, of this distinctive linguistic phenomenon? How did the Hebrew language escape the transmuting results of time that are in proof in different languages? To make certain, the truth that the traditional biblical texts lacked a set system of vocalization and had been very scantily provided with vowel-signs is in giant measure answerable for the seeming phonetic uniformity of the Hebrew language. Nevertheless it can’t be doubted that the Bible and the esteem with which it has been cherished all through the centuries, counteracted and prevented basic adjustments within the construction of the language.
Not like Latin, which has been the language of the Catholic church, that’s, of the clergy, with out changing into the language of the devoted or of the multitude, the research of biblical Hebrew has been pursued all through the generations by younger and outdated with roughly zeal and assiduity. An ideal many new wordcoinages, word-forms and idioms have certainly been added to the language because the days of the Bible. But the unique natural sample of the language stays intact.
To today youngsters in elementary grades are skilled and grounded within the intricacies of biblical Hebrew, whereas within the writings of virtually each Hebrew writer one might discover a goodly variety of word-structures, phrases, and turns of expression typical of the Bible. As a matter of reality, trendy Hebrew generally exhibits desire for biblical usages over mishnaic or medieval usages. The biblical phrases and expressions of thirty-five centuries in the past pulsate with vitality and vigor nearly on a par with the language spoken in Israel at present. >
Residence | TOC | Index CHAPTER TWO HOW THE HEBREW LANGUAGE BEGAN Aramaic Background of Hebrew Some forty centuries in the past, throughout the first half of the second millennium B. C. E. , a household or clan led by a chieftain named Terah, emigrated—so the biblical custom has it—from UrKasdim, a metropolis of immemorial antiquity in Babylonia, to Haran in northwestern Mesopotamia, with the intention of continuing from there “into the land of Canaan” For unspecified causes Terah and his clansmen settled in Haran and apparently deserted the concept of journeying on.
It should have been a very long time after settling in Haran that one of many sons of Terah, named Abram (later renamed Abraham), after his father’s dying, obtained a name from God saying: “Get thee out of thy nation . . . unto the land that I’ll present thee. ” Whereupon Abram, heeding the decision, resumed the journey into Canaan, taking with him “Sarai his spouse, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that that they had gathered, and the souls that that they had gotten in Haran . . . and into the land of Canaan they got here. ” This clan, headed by Abram, was on no account a nomadic or bedouin band.
It was made up of settled or semi-settled herdsmen, who migrated with their wives and kids and with their servants, cattle and different belongings. Abram should, ac32 > Residence | TOC | Index How the Hebrew Language Started 33 cordingly, have achieved in Haran appreciable standing and authority. Jewish custom explains his departure from there by attributing to him a revulsion from the idolatrous practices prevalent in his fatherland and by the “name” to go forth and set up a brand new and “nice nation” within the “land of Canaan. ” It was to be a fairly peaceable enterprise.
But, we discover Abram able to mustering preventing forces amongst his clansmen and allies ample to assault and defeat the armies of 4 victorious kings, and thus retrieve his nephew Lot and all of the booty that had been captured from 5 defeated kings headed by these of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 14). Moreover, Abimelekh, the Philistine king of Gerar, was wanting to conclude with him a treaty of peace; the native Amorites, Mamre, Eshkol and Aner, had been his confederates; whereas the Hittites accorded him honor and referred to him as “a mighty prince” (ibid. 23. 6). Within the traditions of the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and different peoples, Abram would undoubtedly have been described as a mighty chieftain main a victorious invasion. His heroic exploits and superb feats of conquest would have constituted the theme of epic sagas and poems. However the Torah, because the etymology of the time period implies, is primarily designed to show ethical and spiritual classes, to not inform tales or report historic occasions.
Therefore, all these warlike exploits within the lifetime of the “fathers” of the Jewish individuals are glossed over and talked about solely by the way. Throughout a interval of famine, Abram and his clansmen traveled to Egypt, however just for a short sojourn. As quickly as circumstances improved they returned to Canaan, the place they had been to make their everlasting house. They had been a part of a wave of migration that gravitated from the north and the east throughout the first half of the second millennium B. C. E. towards the grasslands of the extra fertile South, with the thing of conquest and occupation.
This want to hunt “contemporary woods and pastures new” was undoubte
