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 HEBREW

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HEBREW

passage, the proper vowels to be supplied for each word. After the Christian Era, when, through the final dispersion of the Jews and the destruction of their centre of religious worship, Hebrew was be- coming more and more a dead language, and the danger of losing the traditional pronunciation and readings was correspondingly increased, the rabbis realized the absolute necessity of making a more adequate provision for the indication and fixing of the vowel sounds, and this in time led to the painstaking elaboration of the vowel system which is known as the work of the Massoretes. The vowels, five in number (a, e, i, 0, u), each of which may be short or long, are indicated by means of dots and dashes placed either above or below the consonants, and, particularly for the long vowels, in conjunction with one of the weak letters. Besides these full vowels, there are also four half vowels or sliewas, indicated likewise by combina- tions of dots and dashes, and representing very short vowel sounds, e. g. like that contained in tlie first syllable of the English word before. This rather mi- nute analysis and puzzling notation of the vowel sounds is due to the fact that the Massoretes were anxious to indicate and fix, not the conversational pronunciation of the language, but rather the traditional and dis- tinctly articulated enunciation employed in the public reading of the Old Testament in the synagogues. As in the case of all languages, this solemn and emphatic mode of utterance involved distinctions and shades of sound that were doubtless overlooked in everyday conversation. Many other signs generically called "accents" were added by the subtle and painstaking Massoretes. Some of them determine with greater precision the pronunciation of certain consonants; others (the accents properly so called) indicate the tone syllable in each word, and, besides, serve to indi- cate pauses and also the logical connexion between words and clauses. Still another function of this complicated .system of accents was to serve as a musi- cal notation governing the modulations of the litur- gical chant in the service of the synagogue. The tone accent in Hebrew words is ordinarily on the last syllable; sometimes it falls on the penult, but never on the antepenult.

VocABUL.^^RY. — The vocabulary of the Hebrew language as known to us is quite small, and there is also a dearth of grammatical forms, especially when comparison is made in tliis twofold respect with the marvellous richness of the sister Semitic tongue, Arabic. But we are justified in assuming that to the living Hebrew belonged many words and forms that never found a place in the writings of the Old Testa- ment. As a matter of fact, lexicographers count only about 2050 root words, and of these a large number occur only seldom in the Bible, or have little impor- tance in the formation of derivatives. It is generally claimed that a knowledge of 500 roots is a sufficient equipment for the reading of most of the Old Testa- ment texts, and the total number of words in the language as preserved in the Bible is estimated at about 5000. There is an abundance of Hebrew terms to express the things that belong to everyday life — domestic animals and utensils, phenomena and actions . that are of common occurrence, ordinary social relations etc., and in particular to express the acts and objects pertaining to religious life and worship. But the Hebrew vocal^ulary is notably wanting when considered from the philosophical and psychological standpoint, there being few terms for the expression of abstract ideas or the sentiments of the soul. In such matters there is little evidence of psychological analysis or logical precision. Thus in the Old Testa- ment, which is eminently a religious monument, there appears no abstract term corresponding to what we call "religion", the idea being rather inadequately rendered by the words, "fear of the Lord". There are words for love and hate, but no intermediary VII.— 12

term to express the idea of simple preference. Hence the surprising harslmess of certain expressions found even in the Gospels, which, though written in Greek, often exhibit the limitations of the Hebrew idiom in which the Evangelists thought. Such, for instance, is the passage (Luke, xiv, 26): "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters ... he can- not be my disciple ". In like manner the terms used in referring to the supposed organic seat of the soul's various operations are vague and give evidence of a rather crude psychological analysis. Thus the intel- lect or understanding is often called the "heart", while the affections are connected with the "reins " or the "liver", mercy with the "bowels" etc.

A.mong the structural characteristics which Hebrew possesses in common with the other Semitic languages may be mentioned the great predominance of triliteral roots, which in Hebrew constitute, with the proper vowels, words of two syllables (pDp, qdtal). True it is that many root forms exhibit only two consonants (e. g- 3D, sab), but these are considered as contractions of original triliteral stems (e. g. D3D. sAvav), and the few quadriliteral roots that occur are almost entirely of foreign origin, or can be otherwise accounted for. Among the parts of speech the verb is of paramount importance, not only because it is the principal ele- ment in the construction of a sentence, but also for the reason that the other parts of speech, with relatively few exceptions, are derived from verbal stems. Even when certain verbs called denominative are derived from nominal stems, these latter are generally found to be radically dependent on other verbal forms. In fine, it may be noted that Hebrew syntax, like that of the Semitic languages generally, is very elementary and simple — long and involved periods or sentences being entirely foreign to either the prose or poetic writings of the Old Testament. For further discus- sion of the grammatical structure and peculiarities of the language tlie reader is referred to the standard treatises on the subject, which are very numerous.

History. — To construct an historical sketch of the origin and development of the Hebrew language is a task beset with much diflSculty. In the first place the number of literary documents available for that pur- pose is very limited, being confined exclusively to the writings of the Old Testament, which doubtless repre- sent only a portion of the Hebrew literature, and al- though these WTitings were produced at different intervals, covering a period of over a thousand years, yet there is not a little uncertainty as to the date of the various books. Moreover, in those early times the rules of grammar and orthography requisite for the stability of a language had not yet been formu- lated. Hence the notable divergencies that apjiear when the same passage happens to be reproduced in different books of the Old Testament (e. g. in II Kings, xxii, and Ps. xvii). It seems quite probable that the scribes in reproducing the older texts took the liberty of changing the archaic words and locutions into the more intelligible ones in current use, as is known to have been done with regard to the Hebrew text of Ecclesiasticus. Naturally the earlier stages of the growth of the language are the ones involved in the greatest obscurity. The contention that Hel^rew was the original language bestowed upon mankind may be left out of discussion, being based merely on pietis- tic a priori considerations. That it was simply a dialect belonging to the Chanaanitish group of Se- mitic languages is plain from its many recognized affini- ties with the Phrenician and Moabitic dialects, and presumably w'ith those of Edom and Ammon (see Jeremias, xxvii, 3). Its beginnings are consequently boimd up with the origins of this group of dialects. The existence in remote antiquity of the Chanaanitish language is vouched for by conclusive monumental evidence. Thus the Tell-el-Amarna tablets bear