imputerate@puteracy.com

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imputerate
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imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by imputerate »

Hello. I taught Russian literature for a third of a century at UCLA.
I'm out to pasture now, completely submerged in the study of biblical Hebrew and the Pentateuch. I'm easy in a few languages, but find the Masoretic version daunting. Since I can't imagine anybody will ever care how it sounds when I read the bible aloud (which I intend to do at length), I am working on a transliteration, a phonemic system, and a cursive which will correspond exactly to the printed version of the text.
Once I get to navigate this forum, I'll be posting questions like, "How do you know if a dotted BGDKPT is "hard" or doubled?" and then on to matters like "whose flood?"
Peter Hodgson
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"rhetoric is reality"
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Jason Hare
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by Jason Hare »

imputerate wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 6:41 am Hello. I taught Russian literature for a third of a century at UCLA.
I'm out to pasture now, completely submerged in the study of biblical Hebrew and the Pentateuch. I'm easy in a few languages, but find the Masoretic version daunting. Since I can't imagine anybody will ever care how it sounds when I read the bible aloud (which I intend to do at length), I am working on a transliteration, a phonemic system, and a cursive which will correspond exactly to the printed version of the text.
Once I get to navigate this forum, I'll be posting questions like, "How do you know if a dotted BGDKPT is "hard" or doubled?" and then on to matters like "whose flood?"
Peter Hodgson
Well, by all means, re-invent the wheel. You do know that this is a language that is tied to a culture, and that we speak this language today? Why not just learn it as you would any other language instead of making up your own way? :sigh:

Can you imagine if I decided to learn Russian but then said, “Well, I don’t care how Russians speak this language or how anyone else in the world pronounces it. I’m just going to make up my own way and start writing the language in transliteration, not bothering with learning the Cyrillic letters or how they should be pronounced. It doesn’t really matter, anyway.” That’s how this sounds. Why not just learn the language as a real language and not make things up? We have enough invented individual systems floating around. If you don’t want to learn to pronounce the language for the sake of other speakers, what does it matter if you’re looking at one type of dagesh or another? We have a member here who thinks that dagesh never doubles letters. Does it matter what the majority of grammarians have to say? Can’t you just invent your own self-consistent system of transcription and pronunciation?

Oh well... Just one thing I’d ask: please put your name in your signature so that it shows up on any posts that you make in the future. Welcome to B-Hebrew. I hope you’ll reconsider just learning the language in a way that can be communicated to other people. There are plenty of resources, including full recordings of the Bible being read in Hebrew (like these ones), that will help you learn to read correctly and consistently.
Jason Hare
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
יוֹדֵ֣עַ צַ֭דִּיק נֶ֣פֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּ֑וֹ וְֽרַחֲמֵ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים אַכְזָרִֽי׃
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Kenneth Greifer
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Peter,
I read the Hebrew Bible silently, without pronouncing any words at all because I just look at it as letters that make up words like a silent language. The people here got very mad at me when I told them that. You already broke the most important unwritten rule on language discussion forums: Never tell people what you are really doing. Just act like everybody else. Nobody needs to know if you have any ulterior motives that they won't like because they might decide not to answer you. Some people here told me I was wasting their time by asking questions about Biblical Hebrew because I admitted I am not trying to actually learn the language in the usual way. They said they won't answer any of my questions anymore. I just wanted to study Biblical Hebrew without trying to learn the language, which is a little different, but I am still studying the language anyway.
I am not sure I understand what you are trying to do, but I think you should not have told anybody.
Kenneth Greifer
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Jason Hare
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by Jason Hare »

Kenneth Greifer wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 4:27 pm Peter,
I read the Hebrew Bible silently, without pronouncing any words at all because I just look at it as letters that make up words like a silent language. The people here got very mad at me when I told them that. You already broke the most important unwritten rule on language discussion forums: Never tell people what you are really doing. Just act like everybody else. Nobody needs to know if you have any ulterior motives that they won't like because they might decide not to answer you. Some people here told me I was wasting their time by asking questions about Biblical Hebrew because I admitted I am not trying to actually learn the language in the usual way. They said they won't answer any of my questions anymore. I just wanted to study Biblical Hebrew without trying to learn the language, which is a little different, but I am still studying the language anyway.
I am not sure I understand what you are trying to do, but I think you should not have told anybody.
What can I do? I teach the Hebrew language, and it occupies a large part of my life. It also worries me that there are so many people in the world who think that they know the language and then begin proclaiming things that cannot be justified regarding the language. Why not just learn the language before coming to your own conclusions? I strongly advocate making a formal study of the language, reading the text of the Bible, being serious about it. It’s entirely possible to know so little that you don’t know how little you know or how off your conclusions are that you base on poor knowledge. Why not learn when there are so many opportunities to do so?
Jason Hare
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
יוֹדֵ֣עַ צַ֭דִּיק נֶ֣פֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּ֑וֹ וְֽרַחֲמֵ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים אַכְזָרִֽי׃
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Jason Hare
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by Jason Hare »

This is, after all, the B-Hebrew forum. Our stated goal is the promotion of learning of the biblical language and scholarship that focuses on it. One would think that a desire to learn the language would be a basic requirement for membership, even if one struggles with fulfilling that desire. We can encourage, help, point in the right direction, give tips for getting started and pulling through. I don’t think, though, that we should aim at dwarfed goals, such as not learning the language or not engaging with the materials that are available for any potential student to get involved. Again, how foolish would I be to learn Chinese without attempting to learn the tone system? It’s part of the language! If I don’t want to learn either to speak or to write Chinese (whether Mandarin or Cantonese), why would I engage at all with the language? It disheartens me to hear these types of things from people who are just beginning to approach Hebrew. It’s a language that can be learned. It isn’t in the heavens above. Just ask someone where to start. That’s all that is required.
Jason Hare
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
יוֹדֵ֣עַ צַ֭דִּיק נֶ֣פֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּ֑וֹ וְֽרַחֲמֵ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים אַכְזָרִֽי׃
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by Jason Hare »

If I can offer a place to start, you should really check out the Alef with Beth YouTube channel. There are tons of places for learning the alphabet online. If you want to learn standard academic transcription (as in bərēʾšîṯ bārāʾ ʾĕlōhîm), I can give you some links or simply post images of pages from within various grammar books. We have a standard cursive writing form in Israel, which you can easily learn (as in part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 of a YouTube series). You don’t need to create a cursive that no one in the world will recognize; we already write in cursive Hebrew. You don’t need to create a transcription system; we already have one that is accepted for academic purposes. Why re-invent the wheel when the academic study of Hebrew is a vibrant field filled with people who have been on this journey for decades, and we have a long tradition of how to read, write, and understand the language. I just don’t know why someone who doesn’t know the language would want to create their own system of understanding it instead of just learning it from people who already know.
Jason Hare
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
יוֹדֵ֣עַ צַ֭דִּיק נֶ֣פֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּ֑וֹ וְֽרַחֲמֵ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים אַכְזָרִֽי׃
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Kenneth Greifer
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Jason Hare wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 5:23 pm
Kenneth Greifer wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 4:27 pm Peter,
I read the Hebrew Bible silently, without pronouncing any words at all because I just look at it as letters that make up words like a silent language. The people here got very mad at me when I told them that. You already broke the most important unwritten rule on language discussion forums: Never tell people what you are really doing. Just act like everybody else. Nobody needs to know if you have any ulterior motives that they won't like because they might decide not to answer you. Some people here told me I was wasting their time by asking questions about Biblical Hebrew because I admitted I am not trying to actually learn the language in the usual way. They said they won't answer any of my questions anymore. I just wanted to study Biblical Hebrew without trying to learn the language, which is a little different, but I am still studying the language anyway.
I am not sure I understand what you are trying to do, but I think you should not have told anybody.
What can I do? I teach the Hebrew language, and it occupies a large part of my life. It also worries me that there are so many people in the world who think that they know the language and then begin proclaiming things that cannot be justified regarding the language. Why not just learn the language before coming to your own conclusions? I strongly advocate making a formal study of the language, reading the text of the Bible, being serious about it. It’s entirely possible to know so little that you don’t know how little you know or how off your conclusions are that you base on poor knowledge. Why not learn when there are so many opportunities to do so?
Jason,
I don't try to change the language or re-invent it in some way. I just study it without trying to memorize words. I don't think what I am doing will hurt the language or have any negative impact on the language, even if my work would be accepted by people as legitimate. I know some people teach people strange things about Hebrew that they have made up, but I am not doing that in any way. I don't make up new rules or word meanings or whatever. I assume deaf people who study languages just read the words without sounds and that doesn't change anything.
Kenneth Greifer
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Jason Hare
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by Jason Hare »

Kenneth,
Kenneth Greifer wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 6:07 pm I just study it without trying to memorize words.
Do you think, though, that this sentence would stand if you were studying any other language? I just study Spanish without trying to memorize words. I just try to study English without memorizing words. Don’t forget, though, that you are not only not memorizing words, but you are also not learning grammar. So, I want to learn Persian without memorizing words or learning grammar. I hope that it strikes you as odd. Are you studying Hebrew if you aren’t learning the words contained in the language? Without learning the grammatical structures or syntactic features it exhibits? What does it mean to “study” a language if you aren’t studying the language?
Kenneth Greifer wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 6:07 pmI know some people teach people strange things about Hebrew that they have made up, but I am not doing that in any way. I don't make up new rules or word meanings or whatever.
Yet, I understand (if I remember correctly) that you take sentences in Hebrew (בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ) and remove all vowels and spaces (בראשיתבראאלהיםאתהשמיםואתהארץ), seeking ways to re-pair the letters in alternative forms (בראש יתברא אל הים אתה שם ים ואתה ארץ), providing new interpretations: “At the head, it will be created unto the sea. You are the name of the sea, and you are land.” This is my playful attempt to do what I think you described yourself doing in another thread. Do I remember correctly? Is this something of your system, or have I remembered something that someone else said here? How can one successfully re-pair Hebrew letters to create new meanings without memorizing Hebrew words or learning how words can properly be placed together to create meaningful phrases? I really struggle to understand what you do.
Kenneth Greifer wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 6:07 pmI assume deaf people who study languages just read the words without sounds and that doesn't change anything.
It might be a good question to pose to a Deaf person (“Many people in the Deaf community prefer use of a lowercase ‘d’ to refer to audiological status and the use of a capital ‘D’ when referring to the culture and community of Deaf people.” [source]). I personally imagine that they conceive of some kind of “sounds” when learning words from another language, though it most certainly wouldn’t sound recognizable to speakers of that language but would represent something of how they use voice when speaking English. (Most Deaf people are able to articulate words in the language of their own majority culture language, though those within the Deaf community certainly prefer that signed languages take precedence in education and in cultural exchange.)

I happened to have a Deaf friend in Columbus, OH, who once tried to demonstrate to me some Chinese that he had been studying. He wrote out the characters and voiced out how he imagined them to be pronounced. The word, and I remember it until today, was a word for “God” 上帝 (Shàngdì). I don’t know any Chinese at all except for this one word that he taught me back in 2000 when I stayed the summer in Columbus and attended a certain Deaf-focused church there. At that point, I was still involved in interpreting church services and had intended to become an interpreter by profession. I was eventually licensed at the beginning level by the State of Missouri, but I let the license lapse after I left the Christian college where I had been studying until then.

I have no idea how most Deaf people who learn other languages process them. It might be an interesting question to pose somewhere.
Jason Hare
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The Hebrew Café
יוֹדֵ֣עַ צַ֭דִּיק נֶ֣פֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּ֑וֹ וְֽרַחֲמֵ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים אַכְזָרִֽי׃
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Kenneth Greifer
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Jason,
I imagine Deaf people who want to learn Biblical Hebrew as a written language and not signed somehow have no choice but to learn it without sounds, if they have never heard sounds, I assume. If someone goes deaf later in life, then they can imagine sounds to the words.
I do study grammar and words that I look up, but I don't try to pronounce the words, and I don't try to memorize them. I just visually recognize them and if I see them enough, I might accidentally memorize them. Usually, I only redivide the letters in a small way that moves one or two letters over. I don't change every word. I just don't try to say words or memorize words because I don't have to for what I am doing. I just see them as letters put together as words. I can just look at "bayit' in Hebrew and read it as "house" in English without actually pronouncing the Hebrew word. It is like reading Hebrew in English translation and ignoring the Hebrew word sort of.
Kenneth Greifer
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Re: imputerate@puteracy.com

Post by talmid56 »

Kenneth, I wouldn't call what you are doing with Hebrew studying it. Playing around with it, dabbling in it, those would better describe it IMHO. Biblical Hebrew, just like Israeli Hebrew today, IS A REAL LANGUAGE! (I know that's bad form to use all caps, but I am passionate about this.) I know I'm stating the obvious, but real languages have to be pronounced. You must also work with vocabulary, idioms, grammar, and syntax to learn them. Yes, I know that there are uncertainties and disagreements in the BH learning community about pronunciation systems and the way the verbal system works (the Tense-Aspect-Mood question). That does not negate the fact that BH can be and should be learned with the same basic methods as used for Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, English, or any other language (take your pick).

I would sincerely hope, like Jason, that if you ever take a notion to "learn" or "study" some other language, and approach it the way you approach Hebrew, that you take a step back and reconsider. You would do yourself a favor. And if you really want to learn Hebrew, not play with it, we are happy to help you.

None of this is meant to put you down, but to help you see reality. Call it tough love. :lol:
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Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

כִּ֤י שֶׁ֨מֶשׁ׀ וּמָגֵן֮ יְהוָ֪ה אֱלֹ֫הִ֥ים חֵ֣ן וְ֭כָבוֹד יִתֵּ֣ן יְהוָ֑ה לֹ֥א יִמְנַע־ט֝֗וֹב לַֽהֹלְכִ֥ים בְּתָמִֽים׃
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