--- In OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com, Joy McCann
<jmmccann_at_...> wrote:
>
> BTW, can't ANYONE tell me what it was like to have Hebrew essentially
> resurrected as a language after it was nearly dead, used only in
> temples/synogogues (DO, pls. fix spelling there; thanks). I mean,
> hadn't Hebrew fallen entirely into rare use--similar to the situation
> with Latin before Vatican II? How do we know how close the
> pronunciations are now to what they were a few thousand years ago?
>
> --J
The fact that Hebrew was used for religious purposes means that it was
never dead. And being so well maintained, the language should be close
to how it sounded two thousand years ago. But bear in mind, at that
early time Hebrew was not the dominant Semetic language of the Middle
East. (Nor was Arabic, for that matter.) Classical Aramaic was the
dominant one. Interesting how this language has all but disappeared!
They say it exists in a few villages in Syria.
An interesting language that has truly died off is Ancient Egyptian.
We have an idea how it sounded, since we have figured out the
consonants and consonantal clusters. But the vowels are unknown. So
our best efforts to reproduce it would have to be off.
John
Received on 2006-04-12 10:58:09
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: 2020-02-04 07:16:24 UTC