December 22, 2006

Languages and Dialects and Canaanite and Hebrew and Aramaic, Oh My!

Charles at Awilum has posted his threatened promised follow-up to my post "Is the Canaanite of the Amarna Letters a Precursor of Biblical Hebrew?" I think we are largely in agreement on this issue. Biblical Hebrew is not the direct successor of Late Bronze Age Canaanite although the direct successors of Late Bronze Age Canaanite may have contributed to Biblical Hebrew in various ways. Is seems that we are also in agreement on the possibility of there being various contemporaneous dialects within Hebrew. In my view, it would be a surprise if there weren't. I left a comment on his site. In that comment, among other things, I said, "The whole discussion reminds me of the well-worn saying, often attributed to Max Weinreich, 'A language is a dialect with an army and navy.'" If you are interested in these various related subjects, head over to Charles' place for his discussion there. No doubt, I will have more to say on this subject in the future.

Posted by DuaneSmith at December 22, 2006 04:06 PM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |

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