[Avodah] Proto-Semitic?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 12:51:51PM -0400,  wrote:
: For the purpose of this discussion, I'll grant that "Loshon Kodesh" is
: Hebrew. But there is today's Hebrew and there is the Hebrew of thousands
: of years ago. They are not the same. I think that as nations were being
: created, there were probably faster mutations in languages than what
: we see today...

In languages other than Hebrew. And I think that's all we're talking
about. IOW, Adam's speech was in a predecessor to Hebrew as much as a
predecessor to Aramaic or to proto-SinoTibetan. However, the semitic
languages drifted less than others, anchored by Sheim and by proximity
to Hebrew which had no supernatural drift.

In what way is Hebrew qualitatively different?

As RSRH emphasizes, the pre-Bavel humanity spoke safah achas udevarim
achadim. More than their language being the same, the pasuq focuses on
the fact that they exchanged thoughts using the same ideas. Their words
referred to the same pigeonholes for basic concepts (devarim).

I think this is the point of associating Divine "Speech" and the
primordial Torah with lashon haqodesh. Hashem's Torah doesn't have words
in any way that we comprehend. However, our lashon haqodesh are shadows
of His Will in a manner that is qualitatively different than other
languages.

This is because Avraham didn't participate in Migdal Bavel. Thus, he
wasn't scattered, he wasn't given a new culture, and his thoughts still
used the compartments HQBH originally gave Adam.

All of the above (except for one idea from RSRH) is mine. Feel free to
argue me out of the notion, or into making the idea more robust. Please.



:                                      Despite the attempts at Esperanto,
: nobody "makes" a language.

Nicholas Wirth, Dennis Ritchie, Bjarne Sourtrop and James Gosling? <g>
(The inventors of Pascal, C, C++ and Java, respectively; all of them
programming languages.)

Actually ASL (American Sign Language) and BlissSymbolics (the symbols
used by the severely handicapped to communicate) are counterexamples. In
a she'as hadechaq, people do adopt and use invented languages.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
micha at aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org   Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      It is two who look in the same direction.