Modern Hebrew is a highly synthetic Semitic language—its lexicon is rich in morphemes. This volume supplies the first in-depth psycholinguistic analysis of the interaction between morphological knowledge and spelling in Hebrew. It also examines how far this model can be applied to other languages. Anchored to a connectionist, cognitive, cross-linguistic and typological framework, the study accords with today’s perception of spelling as being much more than a mere technical skill. Contemporary psycholinguistic literature views spelling as a window on what people know about words and their structure. The strong correlation between orthographies and morphological units makes linking consistent grammatical and lexical representation and spelling units in speaker-writers a key research goal. Hebrew’s wealth of morphological structures, reflected in its written form, promotes morphological perception and strategies in those who speak and write it, adding vitality and relevance to this work.
This innovative textbook by two leading experts in Biblical Hebrew combines the best of traditional grammars, new insights into Hebrew linguistics, and a creative pedagogical approach. The material has been field tested and refined for more than a decade by the authors, who are actively engaged in Biblical Hebrew discussions and research. The book includes fifty brief grammar lessons with accompanying workbook-style exercises, appendixes providing more detailed explanations, and a full-color reader--bound at the back of the book for right-to-left reading--that incorporates comics, line drawings, and numerous exercises, all in Hebrew. This work offers a realistic approach to beginning Hebrew, helping students comprehend texts without overloading them with too much information, and it can be adapted to either one-semester or full-year courses. An accompanying website through Baker Academic's Textbook eSources offers helpful resources for students and professors. Resources for students include flash cards and audio files. Resources for professors include sample quizzes, sample exams, sample lesson plans, vocabulary cards, and a full-color printed instructor's manual.
Three experienced biblical language professors inspire readers to learn, retain, and use Hebrew for ministry, setting them on a lifelong journey of reading and loving the Hebrew Bible. This companion volume to the successful Greek for Life offers practical guidance, inspiration, and motivation; incorporates research-tested strategies for learning; presents methods not usually covered in other textbooks; and surveys helpful resources for recovering Hebrew after a long period of disuse. It will benefit anyone who is taking (or has taken) a year of Hebrew. Foreword by Miles van Pelt.
The volume addresses developing knowledge and use of Hebrew from the dual perspective of typologically specific factors and of shared cross-linguistic trends, aimed at providing an overview of acquisition in a single language from infancy to adolescence while also shedding light on key issues in the field as a whole. Essentially non-partisan in approach, the collection includes distinct approaches to language and language acquisition (formal-universalist, pragmatic-usage based, cognitive-constructivist) and deals with a range of topics not often addressed within a single volume (phonological perception and production, inflectional and derivational morphology, simple-clause structure and complex syntax, early and later literacy, writing systems), with data deriving from varied research methodologies (interactive conversations and extended discourse, adult input and child output, longitudinal and cross-sectional corpora, structured elicitations). Each chapter provides background information on Hebrew-specific facets of the topic of concern, but typically avoids ethno-centricity by relating to more general issues in the domain. The book should thus prove interesting and instructive for linguists, psychologists, and educators, and for members of the child language research community both within and beyond the confines of Hebrew-language expertise.
This volume investigates the linguistic development of children with regard to their knowledge of the verb and its grammar. The selection of papers brings to researchers and in particular psycholinguists empirical evidence from a wide variety of languages from Hebrew, through English to Estonian. The authors interpret their findings with a focus on cross-linguistic similarities and differences, without subscribing to either a UG-based or usage-based approach.
The Routledge Introductory Course in Biblical Hebrew provides a comprehensive introduction to Biblical Hebrew language and texts. Combining a fresh and innovative approach with an in-depth treatment of the language, it presents the essentials of biblical grammar and vocabulary in an engaging and systematic way. Unlike other Biblical Hebrew courses, it is structured around a series of vibrant and memorable stories, with each story reinforced by grammar explanations, supportive exercises, and a concluding genuine biblical text. This coherent focus encourages students to engage with the text actively and facilitate their mastery of the language to the full. Features include: Forty units covering all the topics expected in a first-year Biblical Hebrew course, including the Hebrew writing system, pointing rules, nouns and adjectives, parsing, mastery of strong and weak verb paradigms and full attention to syntax Clear and detailed grammar explanations supported by plentiful examples An extensive assortment of varied and stimulating exercises designed to reinforce new grammar and develop students’ ability to use Biblical Hebrew actively Incorporation of a wide range of genuine biblical texts to familiarise students with the main biblical narrative cycles and to equip them with the ability to read authentic material from the earliest stages of learning A free companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/kahn) offering a wealth of additional instructor and student resources, including many extra exercises and biblical texts, flashcards to test knowledge, a vocabulary guide listing words by part of speech, a full answer key, translations of all the stories and biblical texts, a sample syllabus, coursework assignments covering the entire contents of the course and audio recordings of the stories and biblical texts Coherent chapter organisation to consolidate and reinforce learning consistently at each step of the course Grammar summary, two-way glossary and subject index presented at the back of the book for easy access A user-friendly text design with original illustrations and clear presentation of the Hebrew script Written by an experienced instructor and extensively trialled at UCL, The Routledge Introductory Course in Biblical Hebrew will be an essential resource for all students beginning to learn Biblical Hebrew.
In this book, Aaron Hornkohl defends the diachronic approach to Biblical Hebrew and the linguistic dating of biblical texts. Applying these methodologies to the biblical book of Jeremiah, he dates the work on the basis of its linguistic profile, determining that, though composite, Jeremiah is likely a product of the transitional time between the First and Second Temple Periods.0Hornkohl also contributes to unraveling Jeremiah’s complicated literary development, arguing on the basis of language that its 'short edition', as reflected in the book’s Old Greek translation, predates that 'supplementary material' preserved in the Masoretic edition but unparalleled in the Greek. Nevertheless, he concludes that neither is written in Late Biblical Hebrew proper.
The emergence of Modern Hebrew as a spoken language constitutes a unique event in modern history: a language which for generations only existed in the written mode underwent a process popularly called “revival”, acquiring native speakers and becoming a language spoken for everyday use. Despite the attention it has drawn, this particular case of language-shift, which differs from the better-documented cases of creoles and mixed languages, has not been discussed within the framework of the literature on contact-induced change. The linguistic properties of the process have not been systematically studied, and the status of the emergent language as a (dis)continuous stage of its historical sources has not been evaluated in the context of other known cases of language shift. The present collection presents detailed case studies of the syntactic evolution of Modern Hebrew, alongside general theoretical discussion, with the aim of bringing the case of Hebrew to the attention of language-contact scholars, while bringing the insights of the literature on language contact to help shed light on the case of Hebrew.
Drawing on recent debates about the methods of book history, this book explores in detail the foundation and development of Chetham's Library, in Manchester, from its foundation in 1655 until the end of the seventeenth century.