Biblical Hebrew for Students of Modern Israeli Hebrew.

• Author: Kaye, Alan S.
• Position: Brief Reviews - Book Review

Biblical Hebrew for Students of Modern Israeli Hebrew. By MARC ZVI BRETTLER. Yale Language Series. New Haven: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2002. Pp. xii + 355. $40.00.

Because many have been exposed to Modern Israeli Hebrew (MIH) and then become interested in Biblical Hebrew (BH), there has long been a need for a book designed with such students in mind. I thus agree with the author's perspective that this volume "is unique not only in terms of audience but in terms of structure" (sic) (p. ix). This means that the instructor need not spend time on the alphabet, basic pronunciation, declensions, conjugations, and simple sentence patterns, because they are similar in both varieties of the language. (I do not agree, however, with the assertion that BH and MIH "are two different languages ..." [ibid.]).

This work faces stiff competition, of course, since there is a plethora of linguistically oriented textbooks to teach BH. However, the potential user must note that this is a more advanced introduction to BH since it presupposes a knowledge of the rudiments of MIH. Furthermore, it is different from numerous other textbooks in that it emphasizes phonology, which we are told "serves as the backdrop for the rest of the text" (ibid.). I certainly concur with Brettler that it is easier to master the grammar of the language if one understands its phonology. To illustrate, one may note that the student can appreciate the notion of the allophonic rule when confronted with stop-spirant alternations of the begadkephat series (p. 5). However, in trying to explain the allomorph concept via an English parallel (which is always helpful), Brettler affirms that the English -es plural "follows s, x, z, ch, and sh" (p. 7). First of all, this rule has nothing to do with orthography; rather, it should have been couched in phonemic terms. Furthermore, it is an incomplete description, since the -[partial derivative]z allomorph occurs after /z/ and /j/ as well.

Let me now take up a few details. First, when describing the emphatics, it is erroneous to claim that they are "velar" and are "pronounced in the...