Re: Question about ancient and modern hebrew

On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:42:33 -0000, Mitch <maharri@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jun 1, 2:29 am, John Swindle <jcswin...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On 31 May 2007 07:30:36 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"

It was no one's native language until the 1880s.
. . .

Right. But I'm missing something that's so basic that anybody with
any background in Hebrew would already know it. Wasn't Classical
Hebrew already (and more or less forever) widely recited and read
aloud?

Certainly, but in (the only analogy I can think of) medieval Latin was
widely recited and read aloud within the Catholic church specifically
by local Latin dialect (that is, Romance language) speakers. (the
analogy sort of peters out here).

Lots of people were able to speak Hebrew fluently before the end of
the 1800's, but only as a second language, never as a home language.

Wouldn't that have provided some competing pronunciations for
the modern language at the latter's inception? Is that the
Ashkenazi/Sephardi distinction you've mentioned, presumably with large
variations within each of those communities?

Exactly (along with Peter's comments). My initial question was just
wondering which one (or what proportion of mix or what just plain made
up or what developed as a matter of course).

With the little I've been able to discover in the meantime, it seems
that the Yemeni accent (I guess as a sub-categorization of Sephardic)
is one considered in high regard (supposedly news anchors in Israel
tend to have that accent).


Thanks to both you and Peter for explaining. I did think of the Latin
analogy. And I recall now that I was surprised when my brother
explained to me that it didn't matter how one pronounced New Testament
Greek, since it was no longer a spoken language. I knew nobody spoke
that version of Greek any more, but it hadn't occurred to me that this
meant there need be no agreement on how to pronounce it.
.

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