A History of the Hebrew Language

This book is a comprehensive description of Hebrew from its Semitic origins and the earliest settlement of the Israelite tribes in Canaan to the present day.

Angel Sáenz-Badillos (Author), John Elwolde (Translated by), Shelomo Morag (Foreword by)

9780521556347, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 January 1996

384 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 2.2 cm, 0.54 kg

'For students of Hebrew, this is an invaluable book, at once providing a large historical conspectus and a detailed analysis of the evolution of the language.' London Review of Books

A History of the Hebrew language is a comprehensive description of Hebrew from its Semitic origins and the earliest settlement of the Israelite tribes in Canaan to the present day. Although Hebrew is an 'oriental' language, it is nonetheless closely associated with Western culture as the language of the Bible and was used in writing by the Jews of Europe throughout the Middle Ages. It has also been newly revived in modern times as the language of the State of Israel. Professor Angel Saenz-Badillos sets Hebrew in the context of the Northwest Semitic languages and examines the origins of Hebrew and its earliest manifestations in ancient biblical poetry, inscriptions, and prose written before the Babylonian exile. He looks at the different mediaeval traditions of printing classical biblical Hebrew texts and the characteristic features of the post-exilic language, including the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He gives particular attention to Rabbinic and mediaeval Hebrew, especially as evidenced in writings from Spain. His survey concludes with the revival of the language this century in the form of Israeli Hebrew.

Foreword Shelomo Morag
Acknowledgements
Part I. Hebrew in the Context of the Semitic Languages: 1. Hebrew, a Semitic language
2. The Semitic languages
3. Common or Proto-Semitic
4. The Hamito-Semitic or Afro-Asiatic group
5. Hamito-Semitic and Indo-European
Part II. Hebrew, a Northwest Semitic Language: 6. The northwest Semitic languages
7. Dialect development and its consequences
Part III. Pre-exilic Hebrew: 8. The historical unity and development of Hebrew
9. The origins of Hebrew
10. The language of archaic biblical poetry
11. The language of the inscriptions
12. Pre-exilic Hebrew prose
Part IV. Biblical Hebrew in its Various Traditions: 13. The transmission of Biblical Hebrew
14. The testimony of the Greek and Latin inscriptions
15. Biblical Hebrew according to the Palestinian tradition
16. Biblical Hebrew according to the Babylonian tradition
17. Biblical Hebrew according to the Tiberian tradition
Part V. Hebrew in the Period of the Second Temple: 18. Post-exilic Biblical Hebrew
19. The language of the Dead Sea Scrolls
20. Samaritan Hebrew
Part VI. Rabbinic Hebrew: 21. Early studies
22. Origins and classification of Rabbinic Hebrew
23. New approaches to the study of Rabbinic Hebrew
24. Orthography, phonetics, and phonology of Rabbinic Hebrew
25. Morphology of Rabbinic Hebrew
26. Grammar and vocabulary of Rabbinic Hebrew
Part VII. Mediaeval Hebrew
27. Historical and geographical background
28. The language of the paytanim
29. The language of Saadiah Gaon
30. The language of the Hebrew poetry of Spain
31. The language of the Hebrew prose of Spain
32. Mediaeval Hebrew in Italy and central Europe
Part VIII. Modern Hebrew: 33. The period of transition
34. The revival of Hebrew
35. Israeli Hebrew
36. Studies in Israeli Hebrew 37. Phonology, morphology, and syntax of Israeli Hebrew
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF]