[Avodah] Yekum Purkan

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, December 13, 2007 12:08 pm, Zev Sero wrote about my using
"rav" vs "rabbi" as an example of differences between Israeli and
Babylonian Aramaic:
: In any case, it's irrelevant, because the difference isn't one of
: language.  Rabbi means someone with smicha and Rav means someone
: without.  That's why all the Rabbis were from EY and the Ravs from
: Bavel.  So it proves nothing about YP's dialect.

IIRC, it's the other way around. People got used to calling those
without true semichah by the title "rav" because in the early days,
they tended to be the ones from Bavel. I think the tendency toward
dropping open syllables had to do with the local forms of Aramaic, and
can be seen in Syriac vs Chaldean as well.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
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Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv