Mishnaic Hebrew Totally Explained

Everything about The Mishnaic Hebrew totally explained

The Mishnaic Hebrew language or Early Rabbinic Hebrew language is one direct ancient descendant of Biblical Hebrew as preserved by the Jews after the Babylonian captivity, and definitively recorded by Jewish sages in writing the Mishnah and other contemporary documents. It wasn't used by the Samaritans, who preserved their own dialect, Samaritan Hebrew.

Phonetics

Mishnaic Hebrew probably sounded much like Late Biblical Hebrew.
However, final /m/ is often replaced with final /n/ in the Mishna (see Bava Kama 1:4, "מועדין"), but only in agreement morphemes. Perhaps the final nasal consonant in these morphemes wasn't pronounced, and instead the vowel previous to it was nasalized. Alternatively, the agreement morphemes may have changed under the influence of Aramaic.
Also, some surviving manuscripts of the Mishna confuse guttural consonants, especially (א) (a glottal stop) and 'ayin (ע) (a pharyngeal fricative). That could be a sign that they were pronounced the same in Mishnaic Hebrew.

Verb tenses

The verbal system in Mishnaic Hebrew is similar to Biblical Hebrew, but with changes that appear in many other dialects of Hebrew, including the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Modern Hebrew. Missing in Mishnaic Hebrew is the conversive vav.
   Past is expressed using the same form as in Modern Hebrew. For example (Pirkei Avoth 1:1): "משה קיבל תורה מסיניי". ("Moses received the Torah from Sinai".)
   Continuous past is expressed using + , unlike Biblical and Modern Hebrew. For example (Pirkei Avoth 1:2): "הוא היה אומר" ("He often said".)
   Present is expressed using the same form as in Modern Hebrew, for example using the participle (בינוני). For example (Pirkei Avoth 1:2): "על שלושה דברים העולם עומד". ("The world is sustained by three things".)
   Future is expressed using the future form or by עתיד + infinitive. For example (Pirkei Avoth 3:1): "ולפני מי אתה עתיד ליתן דין וחשבון".
   The imperative (order) is expressed using a form similar to future in modern Hebrew. For example, (Pirkei Avoth 1:3): "הוא היה אומר, אל תהיו כעבדים המשמשין את הרב".

Further Information

Get more info on 'Mishnaic Hebrew'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://mishnaic_hebrew.totallyexplained.com">Mishnaic Hebrew Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.