This paper examines a set of linguistic parallels between Judean Hebrew and Aramaic, on the one hand, and Punic and Late Punic, on the other, in order to examine J. T. Milik’s 1957 claim for a Hebrew-Phoenician koine in southern Palestine. The analysis of the evidence indeed indicates language contact (rather than parallel development), but does not support Milik’s notion of a southern koine.
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Eduard Yechezkel Kutscher, “The Hebrew and Aramaic Letters of Bar Koseba and His Contemporaries,” Lešonenu 25 (1961): 117–33; 26 (1962): 7–23 [Hebrew]. For a general recent evaluation of this corpus see Hanan Eshel, “A Survey of the Refuge Caves and Their Legal Documents,” in Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy (ed. Albert I. Baumgarten et al.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 103–53. For a grammatical description see Uri Mor, “The Grammar of the Epigraphic Hebrew Documents from Judaea between the First and the Second Revolts” (Ph.D. diss., Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2009) [Hebrew].
David Talshir, “The Significance of Different Orthography in Personal Names,” Language Studies 5–6 (1992):225–44, 238–39 [Hebrew] (=idem, Living Names: Fauna, Places and Humans [Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2012], 243–44); Mor, “The Grammar of the Epigraphic Hebrew Documents,” §6.2.
Józef Tadeusz Milik, Dix ans de découvertes dans le désert de Juda (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1957), 89 = Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (trans. J. Strugnell; London: scm, 1959), 131. Other scholars have repeated Milik’s proposal (e.g., Ben-Zion Gross, “To the Etymology of אשבורן,” Lešonenu 32 [1968]: 279–97, 288 [Hebrew]) or acknowledged the resemblance independently (e.g., Elisha Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls [hss 29; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986], 117).
Eduard Yechezkel Kutscher, “Canaanite – Hebrew – Phoenician – Aramaic – Mishnaic Hebrew – Punic,” Lešonenu 33 (1969): 83–100, 105–9 [Hebrew].
Kutscher, “Canaanite,” 105–6, 108. For the decision to dismiss the lexical evidence cf. W. Randall Garr, Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000–586 B.C.E. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 6.
Yehudit Henshke, “Gutturals in MS Cambridge of the Mishnah: A Historical-Linguistic Study of Rabbinic Hebrew Traditions,” Hebrew Studies 52 (2011): 171–200, 173, 191–92; Steven E. Fassberg, A Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments from the Cairo Genizah (hss 38; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 27 (§4q) and the notes on pp. 79–80.
Yochanan Breuer, The Hebrew in the Babylonian Talmud according to the Manuscripts of Tractate Pesaḥim (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2002), 106–107 [Hebrew]; Zeev Ben-Ḥayyim, with assistance from Abraham Tal, A Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew, Based on the Recitation of the Law in Comparison with the Tiberian and Other Jewish Traditions (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000), 40–41 (§1.1.8.1).
Józef Tadeusz Milik, “Une lettre de Siméon Bar Kokheba,” Revue Biblique 60 (1953): 276–94, 284.
Thomas Oden Lambdin, “The Junctural Origin of the West Semitic Definite Article,” Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (ed. H. Goedicke, Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1971), 315–33, 327–29 (I am indebted to Professor Steven Fassberg for this reference).
Holger Gzella, “Differentielle Objektmarkierung im Nordwestsemitischen als Konvergenzerscheinung,” in Nicht nur mit Engelszungen—Beiträge zur semitischen Dialektologie: Festschrift für Werner Arnold zum 60. Geburtstag (ed. R. Kuty, U. Seeger, and S. Talay; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 113–24, 117 (I thank Dr. Christian Stadel for this reference).
Gzella, op. cit. See also idem, “Elemente systemischen Sprachkontaktes in den hebräischen Bar-Kosiba-Briefen,” in «. . . der seine Lust hat am Wort des Herrn!» Festschrift für Ernest Jenni zum 80. Geburtstag (ed. J. Luchsinger, H.-P. Mathys, and M. Saur; Münster: Ugarit, 2007), 93–107, 104.
E.g., Morag, “Qumran Hebrew,” 153–54; Kutscher, “North-Western Semitic,” op. cit.
Segert, A Grammar of Phoenician and Punic, p. 148 (§54.446.21).
Zeev Ben-Ḥayyim, “Traditions in the Hebrew Language, with Special Reference to the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. C. Rabin and Y. Yadin; ScrHier 4, Jerusalem: Magnes, 1958), 200–214, 210–11.
Eduard Yechezkel Kutscher, “The Language of the ‘Genesis Apocryphon’: A Preliminary Study,” ibid., 1–34, 23–24. See also Abraham Tal, “Linguistic Strata in Palestinian Aramaic: The nun finale as Criterion,” Lešonenu 43 (1979): 165–84, in particular 171–73, 177–82 [Hebrew].
Kutscher, “Canaanite,” 107, 108–9, following Wolfgang Röllig, “El als Gottesbezeichnung im Phönizischen,” in Festschrift Johannes Friedrich zum 65. Geburtstag am 27. August 1958 gewidmet (ed. R. von Kienle et al.; Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1959), 403–16, 405 (see also kai, 2, 114 [104:1]).
Shlomo Naeh, “Two Much Discussed Matters in Rabbinic Hebrew,” Meḥkerei Talmud, 2: Talmudic Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal (ed. M. Bar-Asher and D. Rosenthal; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993), 364–92, 369–89 [Hebrew]; Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 27–28 (§§200.142–3) and the sources cited there; Ben-Ḥayyim, Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew, 94 (§1.5.3.6).
Elisha Qimron, “Diphthongs and Glides in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Language Studies 2–3 (1987): 259–78, 268 [Hebrew]; Moshe Bar-Asher, Studies in Mishnaic Hebrew (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2009), vol. 1, 250 [Hebrew]; Fassberg, Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments, 69 (§19f).
Israel Yeivin, The Hebrew Language Tradition as Reflected in the Babylonian Vocalization (Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1985), 995 and n. 13 [Hebrew].
Gzella, “Elemente systemischen Sprachkontaktes,” 96, n. 13 ; Yishai Neuman, “The Numeral שְׁתַּיִם in Biblical Hebrew,” in Zaphenath-Paneah: Linguistics Studies Presented to Elisha Qimron on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (ed. D. Sivan, D. Talshir, and C. Cohen; Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2009), 289–318, 299 [Hebrew].
Jean Baptiste Chabot, “Les inscriptions néopuniques de Maktar,” Journal Asiatique, 1916, 1 (11, no. 7):87–103 (=Karel Jongeling, Handbook of Neo-Punic Inscriptions [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008], 110).
Neuman, “The Numeral שְׁתַּיִם in Biblical Hebrew,” 299; Friedrich and Röllig, op. cit. For the same phenomenon in European languages see Haiim B. Rosén, “Palestinian κοινή in Rabbinic Illustration,” jss 8 (1963): 56–72, 68–70; Joüon and Muraoka, Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 67 (§17a).
Mordechay Mishor, “Some Linguistic Peculiarities of First Revolt Period Documents,” Lešonenu 63 (2000–2001): 327–32, 329–32 [Hebrew].
Mor, “The Grammar of the Epigraphic Hebrew Documents,” §4.2.3; Matthew Morgenstern, “The System of Independent Pronouns at Qumran and the History of Hebrew in the Second Temple Period,” in Shaʻarei Lashon: Studies in Hebrew, Aramaic and Jewish Languages Presented to Moshe Bar-Asher (ed. A. Maman, S. E. Fassberg, and Y. Breur; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2007), vol. 1, 44–63, 50–52 [Hebrew].
Takamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Qumran Aramaic (ANESSup 38; Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 37 (§11c); dnwsi, pp. 265–266; Fassberg, Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments, 113 (§34f).
Moshe Azar, The Syntax of Mishnaic Hebrew (Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1995), 192 [Hebrew]; Gustaf Dalman, Grammatik des jüdisch-palästinischen Aramäisch, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1905), 128–29.
Joseph Naveh, “Excavation of the Courthouse Site at ʿAkko: Phoenician Seal Impressions,” ʿAtiqot 31 (1997): 115–19.
Azar, The Syntax of Mishnaic Hebrew, 189–192. On the strong syntactic ties between Judean Hebrew and Rabbinic Hebrew see Mor, “The Grammar of the Epigraphic Hebrew Documents,” §§5.48, 6.2.
For additional examples see Krahmalkov, A Phoenician–Punic Grammar, 222; Friedrich and Röllig, Phönizisch-Punische Grammatik, 220 (§313b).
Esther Eshel, “Inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician Script,” Maresha Excavations Final Reports III: Epigraphic Finds from the 1989–2000 Seasons (ed. A. Kloner et al., Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2010), 76. See also Neh 13:16: והצֹרים ישבו בה מביאים דאג וכל מכר ומֹכרים בשבת לבני יהודה ובירושלם ‘Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of merchandise and sold them on the sabbath to the people of Judah, and in Jerusalem’ (H. Y. Katzenstein, “Phoenicia,” Biblical Encyclopedia 6:469 [Hebrew]).
David Talshir, “The Habitat and History of Hebrew during the Second Temple Period,” in Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (ed. I. Young, London: T & T Clark, 2003), 251–75, 257, n. 24. Steiner, “On the Dating of Hebrew Sound Changes,” 259–60, adds a possible contact between Jews from Judea and Phoenicians in the Galilee.
Harris, Development of the Canaanite Dialects, 99; Garr, Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 234.
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This paper examines a set of linguistic parallels between Judean Hebrew and Aramaic, on the one hand, and Punic and Late Punic, on the other, in order to examine J. T. Milik’s 1957 claim for a Hebrew-Phoenician koine in southern Palestine. The analysis of the evidence indeed indicates language contact (rather than parallel development), but does not support Milik’s notion of a southern koine.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 466 | 74 | 7 |
Full Text Views | 223 | 8 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 110 | 23 | 0 |