Edition 1.4
5
February 2012
History of the Ancient
and Modern Hebrew Language
By David Steinberg
David.Steinberg@houseofdavid.ca
Home
page http://www.houseofdavid.ca/
http://www.adath-shalom.ca/history_of_hebrew.htm
Companion E-Book - Biblical
Hebrew Poetry and Word Play - Reconstructing the Original Oral, Aural and
Visual Experience
Table of Contents
TERMS, ABBREVIATIONS AND LINGUISTIC SYMBOLS
1. Survey of the Semitic languages
2. History of Hebrew from its pre-history to the
present
2.1 Pre-Exilic
Hebrew (PreExH)
a) Varieties of Pre-exilic
Hebrew
b) Social Base
of Pre-Exilic Hebrew
c) Time, Aspect
and Volition in Biblical Hebrew
Box 2 - Joϋon-Muraoka
on Time, Aspect and Volition in
Biblical Hebrew
Table 1 - What Time does the Biblical Hebrew Participle Refer to when Used
Verbally?
Box 3 - What is the
“waw conversive"?
Box 4 -
The Origin of the “waw conversive"
Table 2 - Time/Tense in Biblical
Poetry
d) Changes Pending
in Biblical Hebrew
2.2
Post-Exilic Hebrew (PostExH) - Written/Oral
Diglossia
Box 5 -
Some Factors in the Rise of Post-Exilic Hebrew
Background
to Dialect, Koine and Diglossia in Ancient Hebrew Clarification
from Colloquial Arabic
a) Development of Proto-Mishnaic
Hebrew (c. 586
BCE-c. 70 BC).
Box 6
- Influence of Aramaic on Post-Exilic Hebrew
c) Mishnaic or Rabbinic Hebrew
Table
3 - Deriving the Construct State from the Absolute State is More Complex in TH
than in EBHP
2.3 Changes in the Pronunciation of Biblical
Hebrew Between the Early 6th Century BCE and that Recorded in the
Tiberian Masoretic Tradition (early 10th century CE)
o
Consonants that Exist in Modern Pronunciation but were absent in Hebrew
of the First Temple Period
o
Dialect, Koine and Diglossia
in Ancient
Hebrew: Clarification from Colloquial Arabic
o
Words Significantly Different in Pronunciation in Pre-Exilic Hebrew
o
Syllables Ending in Doubled Consonants in Pre-Exilic Hebrew
2.4 Between the Mishnah and the Revival of Hebrew
in the Late 19th Century
Box 7 - Koineization, Creole and Decreolization in the Formation of IH
2.6
Major Changes
Between Ancient Hebrew and Israeli Hebrew
2.7 Israeli Hebrew and Modern Arabic – a Few
Differences and Many Parallels
Table 4 - Western-type Compound Nouns and
Adjectives in Israeli Hebrew and MSA
Table 5 - Modern
Hebrew and MSA Common Noun Patterns
4. Excurses
o
Illustration - The Semitic Family of Languages
o
Box 8 - Scripts and Scripture
·
Excursus 1 - Phonemic
Structure of Pre-Exilic, Tiberian and Israeli Hebrew Contrasted
A Note on the
Use of Post-Exilic Evidence Regarding the pronunciation of BH
Box 10 - Nature of Consonant and Vowel Length
Box 11 - Were Vowel Quantity and Consonant Quantity
Phonemic in Biblical Hebrew?
Box 12 - Trade-off Between Vowel and
Consonant Length
Table 6 - Distinctive Vowel Length and Syllable Type in EBHP and their Reflex in
TH
Table - Reflexes of Proto-Semitic sounds
in daughter languages
Table 9 - Consonants in EBHP, TH, [BHIH] and [THCSP IS-ENG]
Table 10 - EBHP Heterogeneous Diphthongs and their
Development in LBHP, TH and BHIH
Box 14 - Consonantal
Polyphony in Biblical Hebrew
Table 11 -
Consonantal Minimal Pairs in Biblical Hebrew No Longer Valid in Later Hebrew
Table 12 - Voiced, Voiceless and Emphatic
Consonants in Biblical Hebrew
d.1 Diachronic Development
of the Biblical Hebrew Vowel System
Box 15 - Distinctive
Features of Hebrew Vowels
Table 15 -
Proto-Semitic to Tiberian Hebrew - Vowel Phonemes
with Possible Allophones
Box 16 - Semitic Vowels and their Actualization
Table 16 - Long Vowels in EBHP by Origin
Table 17 - Shifts in Proto-Semitic Vowels as Hebrew
Developed
Table 18 - Vowel Length Minimal Pairs in Biblical
Hebrew and their Transformation in Later Hebrew
Table 19 - Vowel Phonemes
Minimal Pairs in */EBHP/
Box 17 - Distinctive Features of TH
Vowels
Table
20 – Vowel System Tiberian Hebrew
Table 21 - Tiberian Vowels of the Same Quality
often Have Diverse Origins
Box 18 - Vowel System - Modern Israeli Hebrew (IH)
d.2 Conventional Scholarly Transcription of the TH Vowel
System (THCST)
Table 22 - THSBL Transcription of TH Vowel System
Box 20 - Origin of Matres Lectionis (Vowel Letters)
Box 21 - Matres Lectionis in Hebrew
Box 22 - Matres Lectionis in the Biblical Text
f. Reading Traditions of
Biblical Hebrew
Table 23 - EBHP, TH and the Phonetic Realizations of BH in Key Modern
Pronunciations
Box 23 - The Nature of Stress in Ancient and
Modern Hebrew
Box 24
- The Independent Pronouns in EBHP and Colloquial Arabic Dialects
Box 25 - The Case System of Proto-Hebrew and the
Pronominal Suffixes of the Noun
Box 26 Nouns - Absolute, Construct and Pronominal Forms
Table 24 - History of Stress and Pronunciation of the Independent Pronoun
Table 25 - History of Stress and Pronunciation of the Pronominal Suffixes
of the Noun
Table 26 - Pronominal Object Suffixes of the SC Verb
Table 27 - Pronominal Object Suffixes of the PC Verb
Table 28 - History of the Accusative Particle 'ẹt and its Inflected
Form' ōtō = "him"
Table 29 - Stressed
Noun Suffixes in Biblical Hebrew
A. The Proto-Hebrew
SC and its Carry-Over into BH
Table
31 - Reconstructed
PC Forms in PH and EBHP
B. The Biblical Hebrew
Verbal System
Table 34 - Common
Stative and Similar Qal Verbs
2. Background
on Biblical Hebrew Prefix Conjugation
Time and Modal Implications of PC in Various
Categories of BH Poetry
Table 35 - History of
Stress and Pronunciation of the Hebrew Verb Prefix Conjugation
3. Background on Biblical
Hebrew Suffix Conjugation (traditional
"perfect")
Table 36 - History of
Stress and Pronunciation of the Hebrew Verb - Suffix Conjugation
4. Participles, Imperatives
and Infinitives
Table 38 - Some Key Phonemic
Distinctions in EBHP, TH and IH
Table 39 - Original
Typical Semitic 3 Way Opposition in EBHP and TH Reduced to 2 Way in IH with
Loss of Emphatics
Table 40 - Sound Shifts Between EBHP
and IH
Table 41 - Some Impacts
of Sound Shifts Between EBHP, TH and IH
Table 42 - Verbal Stems
(Binyanim) in EBHP TH, and IH
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