Freethought & Rationalism Archive

vid · 09-11-2009, 06:16 AM

I have just heard from one Israeli person that Hebrew is artificially created "artistic" language, specifically to write Torah & stuff.

That has struck me a lot, since I have heard so many mentions about parallels with other languages in nearby countries (Ugarit), development of Hebrew from original Canaanite language(s), etc...

Have you ever heard such idea? Can you comment about it?

Toto · 09-11-2009, 08:43 AM

Hebrew is not a completely artificial language like Klingon or Esperanto.

Modern Hebrew could be considered an artficial language. There is some discussion here.

But I suspect that your friend is referring to the theory that the Hebrew of the Mishna was artificial, in the sense that the real language at that time was Aramaic. This appears to be an early theory that has been discarded.

See Discovering the Language of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk), available on Google books (p.13-4).

Or here

Quote:

. . . the "artificial Mishnaic Hebrew theory," that is, to allege that Mishnaic Hebrew was an artificial language developed by the rabbis and not related to normal speech or understood by Jews on the street in Jesus' day. That hypothesis was developed and argued by Avraham Geiger in 1845. Geiger was the founder of Reformed Judaism and a very respected scholar of his day. However, his views about Mishnaic Hebrew were mistaken and refuted at length by M. H. Segal in a lengthy article in 1908. During the twentieth century, further research, followed by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bar Kochva letters, has pretty much laid to rest Geiger's theory of an artificial Mishnaic Hebrew. Specialists in Mishnaic Hebrew have long since discarded the theory.

But there is still some debate as to the extent of Hebrew usage vs. Aramaic in the first century.

09-11-2009, 06:16 AM	#1
vid Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Myjava, Slovakia Posts: 384	Hebrew being artificial language? I have just heard from one Israeli person that Hebrew is artificially created "artistic" language, specifically to write Torah & stuff. That has struck me a lot, since I have heard so many mentions about parallels with other languages in nearby countries (Ugarit), development of Hebrew from original Canaanite language(s), etc... Have you ever heard such idea? Can you comment about it?

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