[B-Greek] Ancient Greek-Grammar war?

Donald Vance donaldrvance at mac.com
Tue Feb 28 20:56:52 EST 2006


Don Vance
donaldrvance at mac.com
On Feb 28, 2006, at 10:41 AM, R Yochanan Bitan Buth wrote:

snip

> I've tested this over and over with
> visiting PhDs to Israel, where I can speak to them in simple Biblical
> Hebrew. The typical response is, "I don't speak modern Hebrew." To 
> which one
> responds, TOV, RAQ ANI MEDABBER BI-SFAT HA_TORAH UVI-SFAT HA-NEVIIM,
> VE-YAXOL-NU LE-HOSIF ... .  "Fine, I am only speaking the language 
> from the
> tora and prophets. We can continue ... ."
>
> Randall Buth
>
>
>

Of course you have done no such thing, Randall. What you are doing is 
speaking a bastardization of Modern Hebrew pronunciation with a frozen 
spelling of one stage of Classical Hebrew. You are certainly not 
speaking the language as David, Isaiah, or even Ezra spoke it. Take 
those same PhDs and write to them and they will read it quite well. 
Given your definition of acquisition as a technical term, then 
acquisition of Biblical Hebrew is impossible.

Cheers




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