A History of the Hebrew Language Quotes

“Relations with the Jews of Spain and Provence led to the Arabizing style of earlier Spanish writers making its mark on the type of prose used, for example, in Poland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”
― Angel Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language

“In Qumran, as in RH, final mem and nun are interchangeable.”
― Angel Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language

“Phonologically, the langauge of Qumran represents a period of transition and fluctuation, during which, as is true of other texts from this time, Aramaic and Greek were able to exert a marked influence. Weakening, merger, and loss of the laryngeals and pharyngeals is typical ... in the Isaiah scroll there are many instances of merger and interchange of gutturals ... the confusion of the gutturals may not always simply be a matter of phonology - occasionally it also has a lexical dimension ... or it can involve morphological change.”
― Angel Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language

“Codex Leningradensis B 19a, used by R. Kittel and P.E. Kahle as the basis for the third edition of Biblia Hebraica and for the edition by A. Dotan. It has been corrected by a second hand, responsible for many erasures and changes in order to make the text conform more closely to bA, although it still preserves some bN readings. Its colophon bears the date 1008/09, and according to the scribe it was a copy of a manuscript vocalized by Aaron Ben-Asher, who also provided the masorah. It is the manuscript which approximates most closely to the Aleppo Codex, although it differs occasionally in vocalization and accents. Its masorah is later and sometimes contradicts the text.”
― Angel Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language

“The Pharisees deliberately avoided the Late form of Biblical Hebrew (LBH), which is the language of the Bible written after the exile, presenting their teaching in the language of the spoken vernacular.”
― Angel Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language

“Over a quarter of the words in the Bible appear just once, and of these no less than 289 belong to roots used only once in BH.”
― Angel Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language