[Lexicog] Hamito Semitic languages

[Peter Kirk]

On 11/07/2004 18:08, daved_89793 wrote:

> ...
>
> In my studies in Hamito Semitic languages there is a substratum of
> Semitic (throughout Hamitic), that relates to changes in phonology
> that were due to Greek influence and later Latin influence, I can
> even differentiate the times of influence, relative. And the
> substratum is basic Hebrew which was revived from being a dead
> language, so effectively all of those basic forms were borrowed from
> texts. This is not taught.


Dave, please can you clarify this one. Modern Hebrew was indeed revived
from being nearly dead, but I don't know of any other Hamito-Semitic (or
other) languages which have a substratum of modern Hebrew.

There are languages which have a lexical substratum of Hebrew words
which may have appeared in those languages after Hebrew was no longer a
generally spoken language - the only Hamito-Semitic language in this
situation which I know of is Judeo-Arabic. But that does not imply that
the Hebrew words were borrowed from written texts. There is a good
chance that at least many of these loan words, typically referring to
the religious domain, have been in continuous use by the Jewish
community and borrowed from language to language as the community has
adopted different languages for non-religious purposes.

It is anyway misleading to suggest that mediaeval and modern Hebrew are
dependent on texts. Although for many centuries Hebrew was no one's
mother tongue, there has been a continuous tradition of using it as a
spoken language within limited domains of religion and study. That has
not of course prevented phonological assimilation to the surrounding
languages. But it is quite misleading to suggest that loan words from
Hebrew have been taken from texts apart from a tradition of spoken use.



--
Peter Kirk
peter at qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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