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April 18, 2006
Alloglottography in Anatolia, a Decline in the Hebrew Scribal Tradition and More
The latest on-line issue of the Oriental Institute Seminars Series is now available. It is entitled "Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures." I haven't had a chance to read all of it but many of the sections look interesting. Gonzalo Rubio's piece, "Writing in Another Tongue, Alloglottography in the Ancient Near East" looks abnormally interesting, and his subsection on "Language and Writing in Anatolia" seems to be particularly interesting.
William Schniedewind's article on "Aramaic, the Death of Written Hebrew, and Language Shift in the Persian Period," begins,
One of the most interesting cases of language shift in an ancient linguistic community took place in Southern Palestine during the sixth through second centuries B.C. During this period, I would argue that the Jewish people living in the Persian province of Yehud "lost" - to some extent - their historical language (i.e. Classical Hebrew as reflected in biblical texts and inscriptions from the late eighth through early sixth centuries B.C.) and adopted the Aramaic language of the Persian empire. One might say that the written Hebrew language died, or more precisely that the scribal institutions of Hebrew languished. Despite this decline (and perhaps because of it), the Hebrew language continued to serve an emblematic role for social differentiation, political legitimacy, and social order. The Hebrew scribal tradition was revived in the Hellenistic period - that is, when Aramaic no longer served as the language of the empire and was replaced by Greek.
All of this makes sense to me but I imagine it will be controversial in some circles. If Schniedewind is correct, what does it say about dating Biblical works written in Hebrew (and in Yehud)? Can any work be dated after the process of adopting Aramaic was well underway (it's not clear when that would be but sometime after the sixth century BCE) and the second century?
By the way, I'm adding "Alloglottography" to my vocabulary list. Somehow, I must have overlooked it when I made such lists in the past.
Posted by DuaneSmith at April 18, 2006 12:44 PM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |
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Comments
You'll hear about such open access publications even earlier than on Ancient Near East.net if you subscribe to the feed from either Abzu or What's New in Abzu
Posted by: Chuck Jones at April 18, 2006 11:53 PM
Chuck,
Thanks. I do subscribe to "What's New in Abzu" but I must have missed this.
Posted by: Duane at April 19, 2006 06:59 AM
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