Qumran Hebrew

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Qumran Hebrew refers to a language level of Hebrew as it is attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls . It presents itself as a natural further development of the late Biblical Hebrew. It deviates from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew in numerous places. Qumran Hebrew shares many of these peculiarities with Samaritan Hebrew and with the Babylonian tradition.

orthography

A significant deviation of the orthography in the scrolls from the Masoretic tradition concerns the use of vowel letters. So ו ( waw ) stands for all types of u and o vowels. Even the short proto-Semitic u has apparently been preserved. In some places waw can also be found for Tiberian Schwa . Words that, regardless of this, always have a defective spelling, are evidently subject to a different word formation pattern. B. טמאה in Qumran therefore not as in the Masoretic text for ṭum'a , but as in the Babylonian tradition of the Mishnish Hebrew for ṭim'a .

In contrast, the use of י ( jod ) is essentially restricted to the long i . Occasionally it is used to play sere or segol , in exceptional cases a short i . In the words of III iodine decline roots, can take the Masoretic ה ( hey sometimes) iodine are, mostly, however, this only applies to the construct state .

He is in the Qumran manuscripts as a vowel letter for auslautendes a or e . In addition to the use in Masoretic Hebrew, the final vowel (long a ) in verbs and pronominal suffixes (especially the 2nd person singular is masculine). Rarely found he as a vowel letter for historical א ( aleph ). The use as an indicator for o is largely identical to the biblical use and concerns v. a. the biblical manuscripts or the words פ (ו) ה and כ (ו) ה.

Aleph is still used as a vowel letter, but phonetic spellings are increasingly prevailing over historical ones (e.g. רוש instead of ראש), but mixed forms also appear (רואש). This is particularly common לוא (biblical לא). It is controversial whether it is actually a phonetic spelling or rather an attempt to prevent aramaising pronunciation. Conversely, in the short word כיא (biblical כי) aleph is added. Occasionally aleph appears instead of he in the final vocal (e.g. for). This is probably the usual Palestinian spelling of the time - probably influenced by Aramaic (e.g. היא for היה).

A specialty is the spelling of the relative particles -ש: In the copper roll (3Q15) it is written with additional iodine , in 4QMMT - both proklitically and separately with aleph . Such spellings also exist in later times; spellings with he (e.g. Klgl 5,18) may already be found in later biblical texts .

The (historical) phoneme [ś] is sometimes not represented by שׂ ( sin ), but by ס ( samech ), more often v. a. in the copper roll and in 4QMMT, suggesting that it has already been realized as [s].

Phonology

The phonology can be calculated from the scrolls naturally insufficiently raised. Deviations from the expected standard orthography are mainly used for this purpose. However, it also remains open whether it is just a question of spelling variants or spelling errors. Only a few phenomena are more common.

There is a clear weakening of the gutturals , especially the aleph . For example, it falls out according to Masoretic schwa (מודה for מאודה). Something similar can be observed when two gutturals meet (אשמעל for ישמעאל). The ר ( resch ) is also affected by a weakening , especially in the final sound near gutturals.

The sibilants show a declining differentiation. So sin and samech coincide. It may even be assumed that under the influence of Greek and contemporary Punic only a single sibilant remains, although its realization as [s] or [ʃ] is unclear.

In individual cases there is a confusion between ג ( gimel ) and ( kaph ).

The nasals מ ( mem ) and נ ( nun ) are often interchangeable, especially in the final position. In addition, especially the shows now the tendency to fail or end of the word to be added. This may indicate the transformation into a nasal vowel . On the other hand, the following word is now less likely to be assimilated to מן ( min ). An exception is 4QMMT, where assimilation occurs even before articles, which is the rarer case in Biblical Hebrew.

The final descending diphthongs -aw and -uj are often monophthonged and contracted to a long o (or u ) (e.g. ראו for ראוי). But there is also the opposite phenomenon that the diphthong is broken up into two vowels with a sliding sound in between . The latter is represented by aleph in Scripture (cf. ראואי for ראוי).

A peculiarity of Qumran Hebrew is apparently that proto-Semitic short u , which in other pronunciation traditions of Hebrew was usually shortened to schwa , is still preserved. The v. a. for verbs with suffixes in which the o was in the unstressed syllable after the 2nd radical , for example in יקטולני.

Another specialty is the spelling of the Segolata of the quṭl type. While in the status absolutus a waw appears as mater lectionis only in the first syllable , in the status constructus it can appear in the first, the second or in both syllables. Either this refers to different auxiliary vowels in the second syllable, depending on the status , or a formation analogous to Aramaic with an emphasis on the second syllable, e.g. q o ṭol . Such a shape would also correspond to the Hebrew inscription in the 2nd column of Origen's Hexapla .

A prosthetic (prefixed) aleph to resolve double consonance at the beginning of the word is occasionally found in the typeface. As the form שאול shows, which is written once אשאול, but never שול, which would be expected with weak aleph after schwa, it can be assumed that a prosthetic aleph is still more common in pronunciation .

The question of emphasis is completely uncertain.

Overall, there is a proximity to the Samaritan pronunciation tradition.

literature

  • Eduard Yechezkel Kutscher: The language and linguistic background of the Isaiah Scroll (1 Q Isa). Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 6. Leiden 1974.
  • Shelomo Morag: Qumran Hebrew: Some Typological Observations. In: Vetus Testamentum XXXVIII (1988), 149-164.
  • Elisha Qimron: The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Srcolls. Harvard Semitic Studies 29. Atlanta 1986. ISBN 0-89130-989-6