5 ms·

>A non-fluent Hebrew speaker would not even be able to tell the difference between the modern and biblical. As a non-fluent Hebrew speaker who took ~10 years o

>A non-fluent Hebrew speaker would not even be able to tell the difference between the modern and biblical. As a non-fluent Hebrew speaker who took ~10 years of Hebrew classes as a kid, this seems totally untrue. Biblical Hebrew is intensely weird. It doesn't use the same word order (VSO vs. modern SVO). There are differences in grammatical system that, if you don't know about them, make it look like past and future tense are reversed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waw-consecutive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waw-consecutive). The vocabulary is more limited but the words get used in a wider range of meanings. Random example, Genesis 2:15: וַיִּקַּח יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-הָאָדָם; וַיַּנִּחֵהוּ בְגַן-עֵדֶן, לְעָבְדָהּ וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ. If you wrote in anything resembling this style it would be only to make allusion to the Bible.

ars 9y ago
If you wrote that in modern Hebrew the only change would be putting וַיִּקַּח after God's name instead of before, and maybe the הּ in the last two words, and in וַיַּנִּחֵהוּ would be replaced with a word instead of a letter. A fluent speaker would know, I'm not arguing that. But a beginner? They'll hardly get it right in the first place - they won't be able to tell which dialect it is. My point is not that there's no difference, it's that the difference is minor in the context of language change.
- iskander 9y ago
  "Hashem vayikach" is gibberish in modern Hebrew though. You'd have to change it to something like "lakach". In modern Hebrew it would be something like "Hashem lakach ha'adam v'sam oto b'gan Eden..." The grammar required for "vayikach" to make sense is missing in modern Hebrew, which I remember being confusing even in elementary school. This isn't a niche case since a huge fraction of the Bible uses verbs like "vayomer". Also, the end of the sentence, while comprehensible, still feels very archaic. I don't think biblical Hebrew qualifies as an entirely separate language but I do think even beginners almost immediately sense the differences. It's like comparing modern English with Shakespearean English. Lastly, a note on pronunciation: the language used to span a huge phonemic range (roughly the same as Arabic), but we ended up dropping like a third of the sounds. So, sure, modern pronunciation of biblical Hebrew sounds like modern Hebrew. But that's kinda tautological.

ars 9y ago

If you wrote that in modern Hebrew the only change would be putting וַיִּקַּח after God's name instead of before, and maybe the הּ in the last two words, and in וַיַּנִּחֵהוּ would be replaced with a word instead of a letter. A fluent speaker would know, I'm not arguing that. But a beginner? They'll hardly get it right in the first place - they won't be able to tell which dialect it is. My point is not that there's no difference, it's that the difference is minor in the context of language change.

iskander 9y ago
"Hashem vayikach" is gibberish in modern Hebrew though. You'd have to change it to something like "lakach". In modern Hebrew it would be something like "Hashem lakach ha'adam v'sam oto b'gan Eden..." The grammar required for "vayikach" to make sense is missing in modern Hebrew, which I remember being confusing even in elementary school. This isn't a niche case since a huge fraction of the Bible uses verbs like "vayomer". Also, the end of the sentence, while comprehensible, still feels very archaic. I don't think biblical Hebrew qualifies as an entirely separate language but I do think even beginners almost immediately sense the differences. It's like comparing modern English with Shakespearean English. Lastly, a note on pronunciation: the language used to span a huge phonemic range (roughly the same as Arabic), but we ended up dropping like a third of the sounds. So, sure, modern pronunciation of biblical Hebrew sounds like modern Hebrew. But that's kinda tautological.