Details

Subject(s)

• Hebrew language—History [Browse]

Translator

• Elwolde, J. F. (John F.) [Browse]

Summary note

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.

Notes

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Contents

• Foreword / Shelomo Morag
• 1. Hebrew in the context of the Semitic languages. 1.1. Hebrew, a Semitic language. 1.2. The Semitic languages. 1.3. Common or Proto-Semitic. 1.4. The Hamito-Semitic or Afro-Asiatic group. 1.5. Hamito-Semitic and Indo-European
• 2. Hebrew, a Northwest Semitic language. 2.1. The Northwest Semitic languages. 2.2. Dialect development and its consequences
• 3. Pre-exilic Hebrew. 3.1. The historical unity and development of Hebrew. 3.2. The origins of Hebrew. 3.3. The language of archaic biblical poetry. 3.4. The language of the inscriptions. 3.5. Pre-exilic Hebrew prose
• 4. Biblical Hebrew in its various traditions. 4.1. The transmission of Biblical Hebrew. 4.2. The testimony of the Greek and Latin inscriptions. 4.3. Biblical Hebrew according to the Palestinian tradition. 4.4. Biblical Hebrew according to the Babylonian tradition. 4.5. Biblical Hebrew according to the Tiberian tradition
• 5. Hebrew in the period of the Second Temple.

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Other title(s)

Cambridge University Press. Religion.

ISBN

9781139166553 (ebook)

Statement on language in description

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