History of Hebrew

Catalog description

This course traces the history of Hebrew as a language of a people. It focuses on sociolinguistic and sociocultural elements of the language and its users. The course begins with the origins of Hebrew as a Canaanite language and of Tanakh. It then explores the status of Hebrew during the periods when Aramaic and Greek supplanted it as the most commonly spoken languages among Jews. This era led to the eventual death of spoken Hebrew, yet it continued to be used by the Jewish diaspora in various ways. Hebrew continued to develop during this time, giving rise to Byzantine poetry, the study of Hebrew grammar, and the invention of Hebrew vowel and Cantillation marks. Early Modern literary Hebrew represents the revival of Hebrew belles-lettres. The end of the course will be devoted to the revival of spoken Modern Hebrew and its status in todays world. The course does not involve a diachronic history of the language itself, but the ability to read primary sources in Hebrew is strongly preferred. Crosslisted with HIS 2230 .