[Avodah] Choshen

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:51:09 -0400
Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 04:47:13PM -0400, Yitzhak Grossman wrote:
> :> I just meant that if Rashi believes that the pre-Hapelagah language was
> :> LhQ and yet the post-Hapelagah new languages have cognate words to LhQ,
> :> then clearly the bilbul wasn't complete. Leaving us words that weren't
> :> changed beyond recognition.
> 
> : Your conclusion only follows if we grant the implicit, and in my view,
> : rather dubious, assumption that ante-Dispersion "Lashon Ha'Kodesh" /
> : Biblical Hebrew was a static and unchanging language...
> 
> Not at all. Cognates require that things didn't drift too far in this
> particular word, not that the words are static. After all, cognates are
> often found between languages that diverged millenia ago.

In your previous message, you wrote:

> Definitely not "come from other languages"! Rashi on Bereishis  1:11
> reads "'Safah achas' - leshon haqodesh."
> 
> Clearly Rashi felt the  bilbul leshonos was incomplete, leaving traces
> of similarities in some words  from the original leshon haqodesh.

So the definition of the word cognate is completely irrelevant.  Your
argument fails to prove that words in Biblical Hebrew could not have
"come from other languages", even unrelated ones, since no matter how
far apart the two languages might have been, borrowing may nevertheless
have occurred.

> I actually would agree that LhQ is not static. And in fact, I would say

[detailed explanation snipped]

I still have no idea how you think you've proved that words in Biblical
Hebrew can't have "come from other languages".

Yitzhak
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