Re: Biblical Hebrew or Modern Hebrew?

On Sep 29, 2004, at 6:38 PM, David H wrote:
> Well, how much difference is there between Biblical and Modern Hebrew
> grammar? I know a lot of the MHe grammar has been simplified. When you
> say
> it is best to start reading with the vowels, are you referring to MH or
> BH? Can you recommend any good books on MH? Also, by learning BH, is it
> possible to read the Talmud?
> Thanks
A lot of difference!  Biblical Hebrew works mostly with an aspect
system, while Modern Hebrew works more with tense.  Biblical also has
verb forms that don't exist in later forms of the language, especially
the "vayiqtol" past-actions-in-sequence form.
I mean for any form of Hebrew - it's always better to know how to read
with vowels, because it's easy to compensate for vowelless writing -
it's much harder to read with vowel marks if you don't know what they
mean.
Sorry, i don't know any good books for learning the language(s).
No, learning Biblical Hebrew does not help you read the Talmud - most
of the Talmud is written in Aramaic, a completely different Northwest
Semitic language.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "Presumably, Sauron gave up carnal pleasures when he became an
all-seeing eye at the top of a tower, but it’s hard to say for certain.
Maybe he gets a kick out of the all-seeing bit."
      ~ alex ross, The New Yorker