History in use a jussive, the Hebrew using it
of the more frequently than the Aramaic.
Hebrew Some of the original consonants are lost
Language, to the Hebrew, though it had a double
pronunciation for the Ayin. Six other
letters had a double pronunciation, a hard and an
aspirated. The Hebrew did not develop in its
Hebrew Language
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
syntax a complicated period, while the usual connective is the simple " and," which implies various relationships. Historical narrative usually opens with the phrase " and it came to pass," while delineations of the future begin with " and it shall come to pass." The particles are few, little developed, and therefore ambiguous. Before the Hebrews entered either the East-Jordanic or West-Jordanic territory, the Canaanitic tongue, closely related to the Hebrew, was spoken there, as is shown both by the place-names and by interesting glosses to the Amarna Tablets. Whether the Hebrews got their language from the Canaanites when they settled in Canaan, or already possessed it, is a difficult problem; but at any rate it remained their usual speech till the exile, and during the exile and after it was still cultivated. But in postexilic times it was dislodged by the Aramaic.
The cause of this is to be sought in the diffusion of the Aramaic as the official and commercial tongue of the Persian empire. The first witness to this is in the sources of the Book of Ezra, followed by the Aramaic portions of the Book of Daniel. In the time of Christ Aramaic was the common speech, and such it continued till the Arabic conquest; though meanwhile Hebrew had been cultivated as a written language, as is proved by the Hebrew portion of Daniel and by the recovered parts of the original of Ecclesiasticus, as well as by indications in I Maccabees, the Psalms of Solomon, and various pseudepigrapha. It is clear that the supersession of Hebrew was preceded by a period when the land was bilingual, a large part of the people still using Hebrew. But this condition came to an end, and the reading of Hebrew in the synagogue had to be accompanied by translation into the vernacular Aramaic. It was in this way that Hebrew became gradually the speech of the learned only; but it is to be remarked that the Hebrew of the later sort has no more interest for the history of Hebrew than the Latin of the schoolmen for the history of Latin.
Since the Canaanitic existed in different dialects
spoken by peoples living under different conditions,
it might be expected that differences
5. Develop- would appear in the Old Testament.
ment of Moreover, since a period of 1,000 years the is covered by Hebrew literature, a dif-
Hebrew ference would be looked for between the Language, earliest and the latest writings. While this can be shown in only a limited degree, the reason is partly that only consonantal representation of these writings exists, and partly that later recension obliterated differences. The vocalized text represents only the late tradition of a pronunciation which had lost many of the peculiarities of the early speech, as is proved by the Canaanitic glosses to the Amarna Tablets, above referred to. Differences of dialect are proven by such passages as Judges xii. 6, xviii. 3, in the latter of which passages " voice " possibly means method of speech, dialect. When differences caused by time are considered, it is evident that the differences between the language of the Song of Deborah and Daniel are less than those between the " English " of the ninth and of the nineteenth century; yet it
is seen that there was a history of the Hebrew language. This is well illustrated by the language of Ecclesiastes. Further development was checked by the imitation by later writers of the early models, even to the reintroduction of archaic and disused forms. But even between the earlier and the later prophets there appear indications of a development toward a more flexible form of expression. The introduction of Aramaisms, preferences for one or another form of the personal pronouns, and other peculiarities mark periods in the language.
The history of the study of the Hebrew language began really at the time when it ceased to be a vernacular, and naturally with the Jews 6. Early of the dispersion, by whom Hebrew had Study of been forgotten. The Septuagint gives Hebrew, insight into the knowledge of Hebrew and the understanding of the text of those who made it, and the translation differs greatly in the different parts. Even in the case of Ecclesiasticus the grandson misunderstood the writing of the grandfather, a fact due in part to an unpointed text. Further testimony of this character is derived from the explanations of personal and place names as exhibited in the various Onomastica sacra. Meanwhile in Palestine also Hebrew had become a language which had to be learned, as is shown by the Aramaic paraphrases of Scripture in the synagogues, the development of which the Targums were, and these show in general an excellent understanding of the Hebrew. Similar testimony is borne by the Syriac version, by the versions of Aquila and Symmachus, and by the knowledge of Hebrew of Jerome, who was taught by a Jew. For close grammatical study, however, the Masoretic works were the cradle, since they collected and remarked upon word-forms and grammatical constructions. This sprang, not from interest in linguistic study, but from desire for preservation of the true text, and one result of this work was a systematic vocalization of the text. Real grammatical study began with the contact of Jews with Arabic grammarians (eighth century), and issued in Aaron ben Moses ben Asher's Dikduke ha-te'amim of the tenth century, which contains much grammatical material. The first grammarian was Saadia Gaon (d. 942), of whose works on linguistics only a small part is extant. He was under the influence of Arabic linguistics, and laid stress upon comparison of Arabic and Hebrew. Even more strongly was this emphasized by Judah ben Kuraish in North Africa, who used both Arabic and Aramaic in lexical and grammatical comparisons. About the middle of the tenth century the Spanish Jew Menahem ben Saruk compiled a Hebrew lexicon with grammatical introduction, in which he sought to free Hebrew lexicography from its Arabic bonds. His great scholar, Judah Hayyuj ben David, about the year 1000, made special contributions to knowledge of the weak verbs. Beside the Spanish Abraham ibn Ezra (d. 1167) must be named the great David Kimhi (d. 1235), whose grammatical-lexicographic Miklol is still of value. Kimhi's father, Joseph, and his brother Moses were noted grammarians. Worthy of mention also are Profiat Duran (Isaac ben Moses Duran), at the end of the fourteenth