Stand-Alone Perfect and Imperfect examples with identical 'time' meanings

[Jason Hare]

What I understand from this:

Given that I speak a more simplified English than that of the Bard, I think it can be assumed with good conviction that English is not my native tongue. In fact, it is no longer a natively spoken language. It cannot be that language naturally goes through change and that someone can speak English natively today while not speaking it exactly like William Shakespeare.

The same is the case with Hebrew. There could not have been native speakers of Hebrew, even at the time of the return from the Exile, since they spoke (wrote) it differently to how Moses wrote it some 2,000 years previously. The language cannot change; and if it does, it is becoming an impure version of the language. And anyone who spoke it was speaking something else entirely and could not understand what was written in the Bible.

[Jason Hare]

Well, let's forget Shakespeare... we don't speak like the translators of the KJV or the framers of the Constitution, so we speak a different language and our language is an impure and diluted version of the language.

[Jason Hare]

In fact, I speak and write differently to how my grandmother's generation did. Perhaps it's a perversion of her more perfect form of the English language. Maybe I cannot really understand my grandmother when she speaks to me, and she cannot understand me. Perhaps knowing the version of English that I acquired in the 1980's prevents me from fully comprehending what my grandmother speaks from the 1940's (yes, my grandma will be 80 in February, and I'm currently 41). I'm learning so much about how human language works through the logical consequences of this discussion. Perhaps those who grow up in New York have a language that cannot be understood by those who grow up in Arizona. Hmmm... It makes me wonder.

[talmid56]

Yep, and my Spanish must be debased and corrupt since I don't speak it the way that Cervantes and Lope de Vega did. Although I can read and enjoy them in the original, without modernized Spanish editions. So maybe that counts for something.

Speaking of which, don't let anybody tell you that the academic, traditional (some call it "restored") accent for Latin is the only way to go when speaking it. The traditional Spanish way of speaking Latin sounds lovely to me, and so I use it. The Italianate or Ecclesiastical accent is fine too.

[Jason Hare]

I don't know how Spanish-speakers treat Latin. I'd love to hear it.

I read quite a bit of modern literature in Spanish in college, but we never tackled Don Quixote. I tried to just pick it up and read it, and I didn't get very far before I became disheartened and gave up.

[kwrandolph]

(And, as I believe they were also Hebrew speakers, they would have learned that also growing up. And not just for synagogue either.)

You’re grasping at straws here.

I don't know of anyone who believes Mark and John didn't speak Greek natively just because they wrote in a simpler style. And if they do believe such, I would suggest they're wrong.

How well do you know koiné Greek? Have you read the New Testament completely through in Greek?

I’m not an expert in Greek, but I have discussed writing styles used in the New Testament. Those who are sticklers in Greek and know the language really well, complained to me when we discussed the issue, that John is the most difficult to read, because his Greek is so poor. To a large degree, he wrote Greek words on an Aramaic grammar. With John, it wasn’t just a simpler Greek, rather he just didn’t know Greek that well. I find John the easiest to read because I know Hebrew better than Greek. On the other hand, the most high fallutin’ Greek is found in the Gospel of Luke, Acts and Hebrews.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Chris Watts]

Karl wrote :

There is evidence that native speaking of Hebrew ceased. There’s no evidence that the language was forgotten, a claim that I never made, but there’s also no evidence that Hebrew was the language spoken in the market nor on the street. In fact, the evidence from Ezra and Nehemiah was that Hebrew was not used on the street nor in the market during their time. I have seen no evidence that it was revived as a natively spoken language at a later date.

Karl, I refer to Ezra/Nehemiah and Daniel. Firstly, unless some fortunate Israeli Archeologist on a dig trips over a stone carved with a symbol of Aphrodite holding a bunch of red roses and next to it a clay jar within which he discovers a letter written by a young man to his bride to be in vernacular hebrew dated to 210 BC I guess you will not be swayed.

Point One : May I now refer you back to this:
Maybe I should refer you to Nehemiah 13:24. No doubt you know this verse, of course you do. Now surely one would assume that this corroborates your reasoning? Yes I could see how one might use this as an argument in your favour. However I see it differently, that the incredible resoluteness of Nehemiah and others to preserve national identity, to preserve language and to ensure that Judah returns not just to God, but to what was in danger of being lost, not what had already dissappeared.

Point Two :
Haggai chapter Two - Those that had seen the temple in its former glory were obviosly collectng their Temple Pension by now, but may I ask what language they were speaking in the market place? And if they were alive, and weeping, did they not have kids and grandkids? And would they not have spoken market place Hebrew?

Point Three:
The many who came back, sorry, the very few that came back from Egypt, yep, speaking Egyptian?

Point Four:
Daniel's Aramaic is absolutely and categorically and in its utter totality no evidence that he waslacking any vernacular or biblical hebrew skills. I write poems, prose, short stories and a play. Some of my work, especially the play are written with archaisms. My play is written in 17th century English with 17th century grammar. My poetry contains old words and modern mixed. Put everything I wrote into a book, bury it for 500 years and boy would I love to see the grammarians conversations then. Karl, Literary styles change with age, what Iwrote 20 years ago has a different style and language than what I write today, yet composed into a single book and dicovered in 1000 years time I would be divided into Chris watts One and second and thrid Chris watts. This is just one reason why I have never agreed with a multiple authorship of Isaiah and find the critics in this area crouching between tightly packed historically literary compact walls through a linguistic escape tunnel.

Point Five:
I live amongst Polish people in Ireland. Next door to me are little children speaking Polish to their Polish friends and English to their English friends. I hear parents in the supermarket with their kids seaking Polish and English. The ones I talk with have been here already 10 some 15 years. These children want to speak Polish to their children. Now these people have no religious identity or common bond of tradtional legalisms and cultural habits that unite them as a people, plus they left their homes voluntarily and most do not wish to return to live. YET they continue with the importance of passing on their language, they, like other foreigners, prefer to mix with their own kind and speak not English but Polish. How much more, how much more Karl can you imagine the importance that a people in exile would wish to continue to pass on their market slang language AND huddle together in groups in Market language using the slang words they are used to while eating their olives and sandwiches over a mug of yoghurt and Persian tea? (of course I allow for exceptions, and yes I have here a university paper on the socio-economic situation of these people in exile and how many got rich and stayed behind and assimilated, BUT, this is important, the majority that returned would have been poor and landless along the Euphrates and South of Babylon, those were the ones that returned for the most part).

Point 6
I know you will not like point 6 Karl, but I hve to re-iterate my feelings, I am not apologetic for their intrusion, for they remind my that we are talking about human experience and peoples' daily lives as opposed to generalising upon the coldness of a printed sentence that has been emptied of its breath, its tears, sweat and hopes and struggles. The emotions and forces that drive people today, are absolutely no different from what drove the returning Jews, or their teenage children. You say that the last person died out around 500 BC and that vernacular hebrew spoken over chicken soup while mosquitos and grasshoppers un-silenced the night was no longer used, I say there is no evidence to support this and that there is enough circumstantial evidence to refute this idea.

"And I really hope someone finds that love letter in market place hebrew......"

Chris watts

[Chris Watts]

On top of this Saenz-Badillos comments casually that there is evidence that a vernacular form of Hebrew was still spoken in the south post exillic times and this led to the form of Rabbinic Hebrew. Now I am no scholar here, just quoting him.

Chris watts

So he’s the source of wishful thinking? Notice, he says “spoken”, not “natively spoken”. Remember, there’s a difference between those two terms.

Karl W. Randolph.

Karl, I have reviewed and re-read a number of chapters fron Angel Saenz-Badillos's book, a history of Hebrew language, published by Cambridge Univerity press - I can tell you now, quoting the pages if you ever need them, that he speaks about Rabbinic Hebrew developing naturally, not forced, from the verancular pre-exilic hebrew but with natural changes in pronounciation and of course aramaisms. He quotes opposing views in a mature manner and does not argue with them but does summerize recent developments as of 2004 that would concur with this belief. He says much about many hebrew words found in the copper scroll, in letters and biblical texts that support this view. He also states that Rabbinic hebrew was a vernacular language of the Pharisees and demonstrates this. He shows how RH was spoken by the people and disdained by some of the writers of the Dead sea scrolls, in fact too much detail that I can not possibly write here. That RH was only called Rabbinic becasue the Rabbis slowly elevated it to a religious language as the vernacular was dying out, this was a slow process but takes us to at the least to 200 AD.


I have only given a very non-academic un-professional summary of what I am reading, but enough that says that this is no wishful thinking.

Chris watts

[talmid56]

In fact, I do know Koine Greek well, and regularly read it ( and the Septuagint). I am revising a translation of John right now, which would be impossible if I couldn't read him. I stand by my view that John had a good command of Greek. Some of the people who make such claims that he didn't are using unrealistic standards. He was not writing a theological treatise per se, though there is theology there. He was not aiming at writing literature. He was writing to bring people to faith in Jesus as the Messiah and to encourage those who believed already. Neither of these goals demands anything more than a simple style of Greek. If his Greek resembles Semitic style, that could be language interference. But there is simpler Greek in the non-Bibical papyri also, by people who were Gentiles who spoke Greek natively. Stylistic arguments are among the most subjective, so I often don't put much stock in them. It is rather in Revelation that some claim John's Greek has grammatical errors. That may be so from a strict point of view, but need not mean he did not know the difference. People often commit "errors" for the sake of emphasis. Consider the old Engish saw about never splitting an infinitive. Yet, which sounds better, "To boldly go where no man has gone before" (Star Trek, The Original Series), or "to go boldly..."? The second version is technically correct, but the other way sounds better. It has more punch to it.

[talmid56]

Well, the Spanish of Quijote is 17th century, comparable in difficulty to Shakespeare's English. I took some Old Spanish courses in grad school which helped me read him. (I read him on my own later.) We studied writers from the 11th-13th centuries, which was interesting. The language hadn't changed that much by Cervantes' day.

Jason, I'll send you a link so you can check out the Spanish pronunciation of Latin.