8. The latest Rabbinic Bible, with thirty-two com- mentaries, is the d^fflTTiB n"b D2 mb1™ mxipa, published at Warsaw by Lebenson (1860-68, 12 vols, small fob). It contains, besides the original Hebrew, the Chaldee of Onkelos and Jerushalmi on the Penta- teuch, the Chaldee on the prophets and Hagiographa, aud the second Targum on Esther. Of commentaries, it contains that of Rashi on the whole Bible; Aaron Pesaro's (q. v.) Tolclot Aaron ; Asheri's and Norzi's (q. v.) commentary on the Bible ; Aben-Ezra on the Pentateuch, the Five Megilloth, the Minor Prophets, the Psalms, Job, and Daniel; Moses Kimchi on Prov- erbs ; Nachmanides on the Pentateuch ; Obadiah de Seforno (q. v.) on the Pentateuch, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes; El. Wilna (q. v.) on the Pentateuch, Josh- ua, Isaiah, and Hezekiah ; S. E. Lenczyz and S. Edels on the Pentateuch; J. H. Altschuler on the prophets and Hagiographa ; D. Kimchi on the later prophets ; Ralbag on Joshua, Kings, Proverbs, and Job; Is. di Tram on Judges and Samuel ; S. Oceda (q. v.) on Ruth and Lamentations; Eliezer ben-Elia Harofe on Esther; Saadias on Daniel. It also contains the Masorah Magna and Parva, a treatise on the vowel-points and accents, the various readings between Asher and Naphtali, and the introduction of Jacob ben-Chajim. This edition is recommended by the greatest Jewish authorities in Po- land, as Meisels, of Warsaw ; Muscat, of Prague ; Heil- prin, of Bialystock, etc. (B. P.)
Rabbinical Dialect. By this terra we under- stand that form of the Hebrew language in which the principal Scripture commentators among the rabbins wrote, as Kimchi, Aben-Ezra, Abrabanel, Rashi, together with the Mishna, the Jewish Prayer-books, etc. Books in this dialect are generally printed in a round char- acter, more resembling writing than the ordinary square Hebrew letters; but the power, value, and pro- nunciation of the letters are precisely the same as in Biblical Hebrew. The Rabbinical characters are given below. Although substantially Hebrew, yet this dialect has so many peculiarities as to require a separate study. The scholar who is well versed in the pure or classic Hebrew of the Holy Scriptures would be unable to read the first two lines in the Talmud without an especial in- doctrination in its grammatical forms, aside from the difficulty of explaining words derived from the Greek, Latin, French, Arabic, and the like. The orthography, too, of this dialect has, to the reader of pure Hebrew, often an uncouth, and at first sight unintelligible, ap- pearance. This is caused bj- the habit of inserting the letters X, 1, 1, instead of using the corresponding vowel-
9 RABBINICAL DIALECT
points, and thus X stands for T
or ., as iSKffl for 13B, "WO for P iu nebrew X
■»» ; 1 stands for ^ or T, as nblD 3 3
for 0^3, Pmsi for linsb; i J a
for ■• or ,., as fflll^B for OTS, 7
"ICS^X for ^:2X ; also for : or P n
dagesh.asriri-^bforrir-b, 1
itO-G for HSO. Sometimes a ' T
radical in verbs is dropped either P " n
at the beginning, middle, or end y <> jj
of a word. It drops the first, as ? |( ^
-tn for nnx. tua for w:s, x; for x:x. ■: for ",:x, na for -irx, 1 i?
1
1 :
I -1
P
t a i '
D
'J S| D
y s
p
-i
PD for ?3X. It drops the sec- ond, as ^X for IIS, Qp for Dtp,
MB for nvs, n^n for D^nn,
nir, for flinti ; or it drops the third, as ^N for "pX, *1 for *f 3, ^ "O for mS, 13 for "p=. 3ffl for T D TWO, 213 for 3313, -D for Sin. T - Parts of words are often pro- ? longed, as by doubling letters, "5 or inserting double Yod; and to - this and many other peculiar- ities must be added the use P of numerous abbreviations, re- quiring a study in itself — thus e. g. X X may be "X
-i-six^sx "is-iK, ist^k -i3X,nnx "lax^nx ',318, tcsx in, "-ex y:x, ^nN r"^x; rnax in. -ix D^iaiS; nrxx stands for i^s i:-3x dfiias
We give a list of such works as will help the stu- dent in this branch of literature. (I.) Grammais.—3. H.Mai, Grammatica Rabbinica (Giessen, 1712); Mer- cer, fiX^IX IX InX-iraa ipinpi "imb, Tabula in Gr. I. Chald. qiue et Syr. dicitur : multa interim de Rab- binico et Talmudico Stilo traduntur (Paris, 1560); Ee- land, Analecta Rabbinica (Ultraj. 1723); Millius, Cata- lecta Rabbinica (ibid. 1728) ; Alting, Synopsis Instituiia- ninn Rabbinorum ( Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1701) ; Danz, "|!2*i*l Xrb^D, sire Rabbinismus Enucleatus (Jena. 7th ed. 1735) ; Cellarius, Rabbinismus sive Inst. Gram. Rab- bvnorum Scriptis, Legendis, et hitellig. accommodata (Zeiz, 1684) ; Genebrard, Isagoge ad Lee/enda et luU l/i- genda Rabbinorum Comment. (Paris, 1563); Tychsen, EL m. Dialect. Rabb. (Biitzow, 1753) ; Dukes, Die Sprache der Mischna, lexicogr. und grammat. betrachtet (Essling- en, 1846); Geiger, Lehr- u. Lesebuch zur Sprache der Mischna ( Breslau, 1845) ; Landau, Geist und Sjirache der Hebraer nach demzweiten Tempelbau (Prague, 1822) ; Luzzatto. Element! (irammafica/i del Caldeo Jiiblico edel Dialetto Talmudico Babilonese (transl. into German by Kriiger [Breslau, 1873]); Faber, A nmerkungen zur Er- lernung des Talmudischen und Rabbinischen (Gottingen, 1770); Weiss, Studien fiber die Sprache dee Mischna (Heb. [Vienna. 1807]) ; Nolan, An Introduction to Chal- dee Grammar, etc. (Lond. 1821).