Inleiding Hebreeuwse taalkunde (HE65111)
Spring 2012, BA in Hebrew, University of Amsterdam
Teacher: Tamás Biró
Rooster
Studiegids
One-semester introductory course about the history of the Hebrew language and its structure, including some words about the Semitic languages, the Judeo-languages, general linguistics, and much more.
Weekly assignments and readings: please look at the end of each ppt.
Week 1: Introduction. Download ppt (or as pdf).
Reading for next week: Rabin, A Short History of the Hebrew Language, pp. 5–24. (Internet edition, and passwd protected local copy.)
Week 2: The Semitic context. Download ppt (or as pdf).
Reading for next week: Jana Loose (ed.), De Talen van het Oude Nabije Oosten, pp. 77-120: "Syrië en Palestina: De Noordwestsemitische talen" (passwd protected).
Handouts for the asssignment: Deut. 6 with Targum Onkelos, Rashi and Dutch translation (also for latter use). A pdf aligning the Masoretic Text with Onkelos.
Week 3: The North-West Semitic context. Tell el-Amarna and "proto-Hebrew". Download ppt (or as pdf – updated version)
Week 4: An overview of the history of Aramaic. Download ppt (or as pdf)
Reading and homework for next week: Arie Schippers en Kees Versteegh. Het Arabisch: Norm en realiteit. Coutinho 1987. Pp 11-27 (semitische talen, schift).
Download (passwd protected).
John Huehnergard: 'Introduction'. In: John Kaltner and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.): Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages. SBL 2002. Pp. 1-18.
The whole book (in the UB) is highly recommended to those specializing on Biblical studies or antiquities.
Download (passwd protected; page numbers missing – sorry for it).
Week 5: Writing systems, epigraphy and inscriptions from the First Temple period. Download ppt (or as pdf).
Reading for next week: Rabin, A Short History of the Hebrew Language, pp. 25–37. (Internet edition, and passwd protected local copy.)
Assignment for March 16: download assignment.
Local copies of the JPost article of Ghilad Zuckermann and Shira Leibowitz Schmid.
Week 6: Biblical Hebrew. Download slides as ppt or pdf.
Reading for next week: Rabin, A Short History of the Hebrew Language, pp. 38–44. (Internet edition, and local copy of chapter V and chapter VI, passwd protected.)
Reading(s) for the assignment for March 23:
M. H. Segal (1927/1958/1991). A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew (Clarendon Press). Introduction (pp. 1–20). Download pdf (password protected>.
A classical introduction, a good summary, but certainly not upt-to-date. Therefore, I also recommend having a look at the following survey of scholarship up to the 1980s:
Nahum M. Waldman (1989). The Recent Study of Hebrew: A survey of the literature with selected bibliography. (Hebrew Union College Press). The Historic position of Mishnaic Hebrew (pp. 109–114). Download pdf (password protected).
Additionally: Would you be so kind to prepare the following text? You do not need to understand everything (not the separate words, and not the entire text as a whole). Just get familiarized with the Hebrew text so that it will be easier for us to discuss it next week. Download original of Mishna Brakhot 1:1, and Dutch translation (or local copy, passwd protected).
Week 7: Qumran Hebrew. Samaritan Hebrew. Rabbinic Hebrew (Mishna, Talmud, midrashim). Download ppt or pdf. Texts: Mishna and Babylonian Talmud.
Midterm take-home exam:
download.
Tanakh RaM: text of Gen. 13 and 37.
Patrick R. Bennett: Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual. Eisenbrauns, 1998.
UvA library.
Download pages 1–18 (cover pages, intro and Part 1) and
pages 19–33 (Parts 2 and 3).
Deadline: April 13.
For April 20:
Reading: Rabin, A Short History of the Hebrew Language, pp. 45–56. (Internet edition, and local copy of chapter VII and chapter VIII, passwd protected.)
Assignment: homework based on an article by B. Goldstein on "Jacob's staff" (Aleph 11(2):365–383).
Week 8: Medieval Hebrew: piyyutim, codices, commentaries. Code switching, pidgin and creole languages. The Judeo-languages. Download ppt or pdf. Texts: Rashi, Mishne Tora and Got fun Avrohom.
Reading: Rabin, A Short History of the Hebrew Language, pp. 57–73. (Internet edition, and local copy of chapter IX and chapter X, passwd protected.)
Recommended reading for the assignment: Benjamin Harshav: 'Essay on Multilingualism'. In: Marvin Herzog et al. (eds.), Eydes. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2008. Download (password protected).
Week 9: Haskala and the revival of the Hebrew language. Download ppt or pdf.
Reading and assignment:
(1) Rabin, A Short History of the Hebrew Language, pp. 74–86. (Internet edition, and local copy of chapter XI passwd protected.)
(2) Ghilad Zuckermann, '"Abba, why was Professor Higgins trying to teach Eliza to speak like our cleaning lady?": Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, Prescriptivism and the Real Sounds of the Israeli Language'. Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 19: 210-31. 2005. Link or local copy.
Suggested reading:
(3) Yishai Tobin, "(A) Modern Hebrew? (B) Contemporary Hebrew? (C) Israeli Hebrew? (D) Israeli?: Choose One of the Above or: Is the Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full? Or: Where Do You Draw the Line of Demarcation and Why?" Iyunim be Safa ve-Hevra/Israel Studies of Language and Society 2(1): 137-144. December 2009. Local copy.
Week 10: The Israeli (Hebrew) language.
Sociolinguistics: language contact, borrowing, foreign influences; language planning.
Assignment: homework about the history of the sound system of Hebrew (Ashkenazi pronunciation).
The following table from the EncyclopaediaJudaica will help you: part 1 of the table and part 2 of the table.
Week 11: Lexicon and phonology.
Download ppt or pdf.
Additional material on the consonants.
Week 12: Morphology. Download ppt or pdf.
Student presentations: Nellie on personal pronouns and
Merel on tense, aspect and mood.
Assignment: homework about syntax in Israeli Hebrew.
Reading about sociolinguistics: handout, written by J. Junger in 2008.
Week 13: Syntax. Download ppt or pdf.
(If time would have permited: semantics, psycholinguistics and computational linguistics.)
Is Israeli (Hebrew) a Semitic language? Summary.
Reading: Haiim B. Rosén. Contemporary Hebrew. The Hague [etc.]: Mouton, 1977. Chapter 1.
Available in the UvA library (3 copies). Download (passwd protected).
Extra meeting: Monday, May 21, 13.00-15.00 in PCH 3.31.
Mock exam: the structure of the exam and list of eventual questions is available here.
Final exam: Monday, June 18, 11.00-13.00, in PCH 3.31.
Chaim Rabin: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. Orot publication, 1973.
Internet edition, 2005.
Local copy (passwd protected).
Patrick R. Bennett: Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual. Eisenbrauns, 1998.
Also in the UvA library (in PCH). Passwd protected downloads:
Pages 1 -- 18: Cover pages, intro and Part 1.
Pages 19 -- 33: Parts 2 and 3.
Pages 68 -- 93: Paradigms A and B.
Pages 94 -- 126: Paradigms C and Bibliography.
Pages 130 -- 142: Wordlist B (for homework).
Pages 232 -- 249: Wordlist G/H/I. Also in original A3 format (for homework).
Arie Schippers en Kees Versteegh. Het Arabisch: Norm en realiteit.
Coutinho 1987. Pp 11-27 (semitische talen, schift).
Download (passwd protected).
John Huehnergard: 'Introduction'. In: John Kaltner and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.):
Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages. SBL 2002. Pp. 1-18.
The whole book (in the UB) is highly recommended to those specializing on Biblical studies or antiquities.
Download
(passwd protected; page numbers missing – sorry for it).
Jana Loose (ed.). De Talen van het Oude Nabije Oosten. Ex Oriente Lux, Leiden. Peeters, Leuven, 1999.
The whole book (on shelf in the Bungehuis library) is highly recommended to those specializing on Biblical studies or antiquities.
Read the section on "Syrië en Palestina: De Noordwestsemitische talen" (pp. 77-120). Passwd protected
download.
Sabatino Moscati (ed.). An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages: Phonology and Morphology.
Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1964 (and later printings).
Reading the useful (even though certainly not up-to-date!) summary of the Semitic languages will help you prepare for the exam.
Password protected download.
The whole book (several copies at the UvA) is an important reference work for anyone dealing with Semitic linguistics.
M. H. Segal (1927/1958/1991). A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew (Clarendon Press). Introduction
(pp. 1–20). Download pdf (password protected>.
A classical introduction, a good summary, but certainly not upt-to-date. Therefore, I also
recommend having a look at the following survey of scholarship up to the 1980s:
Nahum M. Waldman (1989). The Recent Study of Hebrew: A survey of the literature with selected bibliography.
(Hebrew Union College Press). The Historic position of Mishnaic Hebrew (pp. 109–114).
Download pdf (password protected).
Benjamin Harshav: 'Essay on Multilingualism'. In: Marvin Herzog et al. (eds.), Eydes: Evidence of Yiddish Documented in European Societies, The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2008. Download (password protected).
Haiim B. Rosén. Contemporary Hebrew. The Hague [etc.]: Mouton, 1977. Chapter 1.
Available in the UvA library (3 copies).
Download (passwd protected).
Joseph Shimron: 'Semitic languages: Are they really root-based?'.
In: Idem (ed.):
Language Processing and Acquisition in Languages of Semitic, Root-based, Morphology.
John Benjamins: Amsterdam, 2002.
Download (passwd protected).
Website of Ghil'ad Zuckermann ('Articles').
See especially: “Abba, Why Was Professor Higgins Trying to Teach Eliza to Speak Like Our Cleaning Lady?”: Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, Prescriptivism and the Real Sounds of the Israeli Language’. Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 19.
and: 'A New Vision for "Israeli Hebrew": Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language'. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 5.1: 57-71.
Robert Hetzron, Alan S. Kaye, Paul Newman (and others), in: Bernard Comrie (ed.). The Major Languages
of South Asia, The Middle East and Africa. Routledge: London, 1987.
Available in the UvA library (2 copies).
Download (passwd protected).
Please also look at the 2008 handouts on the BlackBoard page of this course.