{"id":1056,"date":"2020-07-09T05:02:02","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T02:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/?p=1056"},"modified":"2020-07-09T05:20:08","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T02:20:08","slug":"aramaic-and-hebrew-personal-pronouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/2020\/07\/aramaic-and-hebrew-personal-pronouns\/","title":{"rendered":"Aramaic and Hebrew Personal Pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

You may know that I\u2019m currently leading a group through a study of The Basics of Biblical Aramaic<\/em> (BBA) from the Zondervan Language Basics series. Last week we covered chapter 9, which you can view here<\/a> on our YouTube channel (youtube.com\/thehebrewcafe<\/a>).<\/p>\n

You may also be aware of the project known as the Daily Dose of Hebrew <\/a> (DDH), which is currently working through Deuteronomy chapter 7. I happened to passively listen through their playlist of Deuteronomy chapter 5 while working on other things online today, and once I got a chance I decided to just open up the chapter and read through it on my own. The following verse (5:23 or 5:27, depending on your version [DDH Video<\/a>]) jumped out at me because of a connection to what we covered in Aramaic this week:<\/p>\n

Deuteronomy 5:23<\/strong> (Hebrew = 5:27 in Christian Bibles)<\/p>\n

\u05e7\u05b0\u05e8\u05b7\u05a4\u05d1 \u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05b8\u05d4\u0599 \u05d5\u05bc\u05bd\u05e9\u05c1\u05b0\u05de\u05b8\u0594\u05e2 \u05d0\u05b5\u059b\u05ea \u05db\u05bc\u05b8\u05dc\u05be\u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05c1\u05b6\u05a5\u05e8 \u05d9\u05b9\u05d0\u05de\u05b7\u0596\u05e8 \u05d9\u05b7\u05d4\u05b0\u05d5\u05b6\u05a3\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b1\u05dc\u05b9\u05d4\u05b5\u0591\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b7\u05a3\u05ea\u05bc\u05b0 \u05c0 \u05ea\u05bc\u05b0\u05d3\u05b7\u05d1\u05bc\u05b5\u05a3\u05e8 \u05d0\u05b5\u05dc\u05b5\u0597\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc \u05d0\u05b5\u05ea\u05a9 \u05db\u05bc\u05b8\u05dc\u05be\u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05c1\u05b6\u05a8\u05e8 \u05d9\u05b0\u05d3\u05b7\u05d1\u05bc\u05b5\u059c\u05e8 \u05d9\u05b7\u05d4\u05b0\u05d5\u05b6\u05a7\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b1\u05dc\u05b9\u05d4\u05b5\u059b\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc \u05d0\u05b5\u05dc\u05b6\u0596\u05d9\u05da\u05b8 \u05d5\u05b0\u05e9\u05c1\u05b8\u05de\u05b7\u05a5\u05e2\u05b0\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc \u05d5\u05b0\u05e2\u05b8\u05e9\u05c2\u05b4\u05bd\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5\u05bc\u05c3<\/p>\n

Notice that the expression \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05b0 \u05ea\u05bc\u05b0\u05d3\u05b7\u05d1\u05bc\u05b5\u05e8<\/span> \u201cand you<\/em> shall speak.\u201d This looks like grammatical discord. We would expect to see either \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05b8\u05d4 \u05ea\u05bc\u05b0\u05d3\u05b7\u05d1\u05bc\u05b5\u05e8<\/span>\u200e (2ms) or \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05b0 \u05ea\u05bc\u05b0\u05d3\u05b7\u05d1\u05bc\u05b0\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9<\/span>\u200e (2fs), but what we actually see seems odd.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The 2ms personal pronoun is used fourteen times in the Aramaic portions of the Bible (BlueLetterBible<\/a>), where it displays an oddity. In all non-biblical Aramaic, the form is either \u05d0\u05b7\u05e0\u05b0\u05ea\u05bc\u05b0<\/span> or \u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05b0<\/span> for the masculine and \u05d0\u05b7\u05e0\u05b0\u05ea\u05bc\u05b4\u05d9<\/span> for the feminine (Hebrew was originally [pre-historically] \u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05b4\u05d9<\/span> for 2fs according to Gesenius \u00a732h), but biblical Aramaic uses \u05d0\u05e0\u05ea\u05d4<\/span>, which the Masoretes understood to be spelled incorrectly and they corrected to \u05d0\u05b7\u05e0\u05b0\u05ea\u05bc\u05b0<\/span> in the k\u0259t\u0331i\u0302b\u0331-qe\u0306ri\u0302<\/span> system. Gesenius suggests, though, that we should actually read it as \u05d0\u05b7\u05e0\u05b0\u05ea\u05bc\u05b8\u05d4<\/span> under the influence of Hebrew. This would make these pronouns \u02beanta\u0302<\/span> (2ms) and \u02beanti\u0302<\/span> (2fs), which correspond exactly to the 2ms and 2fs pronouns in Arabic (\u0623\u064e\u0646\u0652\u062a\u064e<\/span> \u02beanta<\/span> and \u0623\u064e\u0646\u0652\u062a\u0650<\/span> \u02beanti<\/span>, respectively).<\/p>\n

In Hebrew, the historical *\u05d0\u05b7\u05e0\u05b0\u05ea\u05bc\u05b8\u05d4<\/span> \u02beanta\u0302<\/span> became \u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05b8\u05d4<\/span> \u02beatta\u0302<\/span> with the assimilation of the nun<\/i> before the tav<\/i>, but in Aramaic and Arabic there was no assimilation of the nun<\/i>, which remained in these forms. The verse here in question shows that these personal pronouns were not only in fluctuation in biblical Aramaic (which doesn\u2019t evince the 2fs or 2fp pronouns at all), but that biblical Hebrew also had a range of forms that popped up in verses hidden throughout the text of the Bible. In \u00a732g, Gesenius says that \u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05bc\u05b0<\/span> should be read as 2ms three times in the Bible: Numbers 11:15, Deuteronomy 5:24, and Ezekiel 28:14.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may know that I\u2019m currently leading a group through a study of The Basics of Biblical Aramaic (BBA) from the Zondervan Language Basics series. Last week we covered chapter 9, which you can view here on our YouTube channel (youtube.com\/thehebrewcafe). You may also be aware of the project known as the Daily Dose of Hebrew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-categories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1076,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions\/1076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehebrewcafe.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}