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In the Beginning
A Short History of the Hebrew Language
Table of Contents

  List of Tables
  List of Figures
  Acknowledgments
  Part I: Getting Started
  Chapter 1: Introduction
  Chapter 2: Rules of the Game
  Three Theories of the World
  Two Theories of Language
  Loose Ends
  Transliterations
  Other Matters of Notation
  Part II: Antiquity
  Chapter 3: Writing
  A Difficult Task
  Non-alphabetic Writing
  Logographs
  Syllabic Writing
  Consonantal Writing
  Logo-Consonantal Writing
  True Consonantal Writing
  The First Hebrew Alphabetic Writing
  Adding Vowels
  The Old Script and the New Script
  How It Worked
  A Natural Connection
  Helping Letters
  Why Did It Take So Long?
  How Do We Know?
  The Question
  The Answers
  Ugaritic Cuneiform
  The Izbet Sartah Abecedary
  The Gezer Calendar
  Mesha Stone
  Siloam Tunnel
  Aramaic
  Greek
  Summary
  Chapter 4: Magic Letters and the Name of God (Back to main page....)
  Magic Letters
  Setting the Stage
  The Magic H
  Of ``God'' and ``Gods''
  Of God and Writing
  The Name of God
  Chapter 5: The Masoretes (Back to main page....)
  Why We Care
  The Masoretic Groups
  Tiberias
  Two Families
  The Vowels
  The Shewa
  Consonants with Dots over Them: Shin and Sin
  Consonants with Dots in Them: ``Beged Kefet''
  More Dots
  Babylonia
  The Vowels
  The Shewa
  Other Differences
  The Land of Israel
  Other Systems
  What Were the Masoretes Doing?
  What Did the Masoretes Try to Do?
  What Did the Masoretes Really Do?
  What the Tiberian Masoretes Invented
  Beged Kefet
  Trope
  Beged Kefet and Trope
  Conclusions
  How Do We Know?
  The Leningrad Codex
  The Aleppo Codex
  Other Manuscripts
  Descriptions of the Manuscripts
  Chapter 6: Pronunciation (Back to main page....)
  Methods
  Comparison with Modern Hebrew
  Comparison with Masoretic Hebrew
  Comparison with Other Semitic Languages
  Comparison with Ancient Greek
  What Did Greek Sound Like?
  Transliterations
  Names and Places
  Transliterated Words
  The Septuagint and Hebrew
  A First Example
  More about Vav
  General Patterns
  Doubled Letters
  Summary
  Origen's Hexapla and Hebrew
  What Is the Hexapla?
  A First Example
  Some More Background
  Aspiration
  The Greek Letters for ``E''
  General Patterns
  Consonants
  Doubled Letters
  Vowels
  Segolate Nouns
  The Pronominal Suffix ``You''
  Errors
  What Is the Secunda Columna?
  Summary
  Conclusions
  Part III: Moving On
  Chapter 7: The Dead Sea Scrolls (Back to main page....)
  Background
  How Did We Get Them?
  A Lost Goat (Cave 1)
  Another Cave (Cave 2)
  Of Copper and Gold (Cave 3)
  A Wounded Partridge (Cave 4)
  The Race Is On
  Publish or Perish
  Are They Real?
  What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
  Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
  What Do We Learn from the Dead Sea Scrolls?
  The Hebrew of the DSS
  Vowel Letters
  God's Name
  Grammar
  The Content of the DSS
  Minor Differences
  Major Differences
  The Big Picture
  Chapter 8: Dialects in the Bible (Back to main page....)
  Late Biblical Hebrew
  Overview
  Vowel Letters
  Grammar
  Caveats
  The Nature of the Evidence
  External Evidence
  Pre-Exilic Hebrew
  Post-Exilic Hebrew
  Ramifications
  Ancient Texts
  Ancient Texts from Different Sources
  Chapter 9: Post-Biblical Hebrew (Back to main page....)
  Background
  Aramaic
  Aramaic in the Bible
  Aramaic in the Talmud
  Greek
  Rabbinic Hebrew
  Where Do We See Rabbinic Hebrew?
  The Prayers
  The Mishnah
  Midrash
  Other Sources
  On Variety
  The Nature of Rabbinic Hebrew
  Vowel Letters
  Final Nun
  Other Letters
  Bet/Vav and Bet/Pe
  Sin/Samech
  Chet/Chaf
  Vocabulary
  Grammar
  Conclusions
  Non-Spoken Hebrew
  Part IV: Now
  Chapter 10: Modern Hebrew (Back to main page....)
  The Fire of Love for Hebrew
  Periods of Modern Hebrew
  Ben-Yehuda's Hebrew
  Early Israeli Hebrew
  Current Israeli Hebrew
  Ben-Yehuda's Hebrew
  Pronunciation
  Vocabulary
  Grammar
  Spelling
  Early Israeli Hebrew
  Pronunciation
  Vocabulary
  Grammar
  Spelling
  Current Israeli Hebrew
  Pronunciation
  Ashkenazic or Sephardic?
  Accentuation
  Beged Kefet
  Epenthesis
  Vocabulary
  Grammar
  Spelling
  Chapter 11: Keep Your Voice from Weeping (Back to main page....)
  Part V: Appendices
  Appendix A: More about the Rules of the Game
  Three Theories of the World
  The Dumb-Luck Theory
  The God Theory
  The Science Theory
  Choosing the Science Theory
  Consequences of the Science Theory
  Two Theories of Language
  Prescriptive Linguistics
  Descriptive Linguistics
  Language-Specific Linguistics
  Universal Linguistics
  Appendix B: Further Reading (Back to main page....)
  General
  Rules
  Writing
  Magic Letters and the Name of God
  Masoretes
  Pronunciation
  The Dead Sea Scrolls
  Dialects in the Bible
  Post-Biblical Hebrew
  Modern Hebrew
  Bibliography
  Index
  About the Author





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