The Sociolinguistic Landscape of Palestine in Transit: Jewish Language Shift from Hebrew to Aramaic in Antiquity
Samir Levitt, Michigan State University
Introduction
Throughout history, various conquests of foreign lands have shaped the linguistic makeup of the world through centuries of acculturation. The rate of acculturation has varied to a great degree depending on the conquerors’ language policy. Such radical examples of language shift in Ireland, Australia, Iberia, and many other places have occurred due to processes of forced assimilation, ethnic cleansing, and widely repressive language policies enacted by the conquering power. Modern linguistic assimilation of immigrants in North America represents a similar end point, whereby speakers of minority languages acculturate over generations and adopt the dominant language, but is realized through less violently repressive means. Instead, pressure to linguistically assimilate in North America stems from socioeconomic factors such as access to economic opportunities. I will discuss the causes of language shift among immigrants in North America in the first section of this thesis.
Language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic in ancient Palestine represents a complex example of intergenerational linguistic assimilation in a setting that can be compared both to assimilation in North America and to more violent settings. However differing many aspects of Palestinian Jewish shift towards Aramaic were, many root causes of linguistic assimilation are shared between ancient Palestine and the modern day US and Canada. Language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic occurred in what can be divided into three periods of history: the Aramaic Period (c. 722 BCE — 340 BCE), the Hellenic Period (c. 340 BCE — 70 CE), and the Early Diasporic Period (c. 70 CE — 3rd cen. CE). I will discuss each of these periods in Sections 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Starting in the 8th century BCE with the Aramaic-speaking Neo-Assyrian Empire’s conquest of Palestine, Palestinian Jews adopted Aramaic in lieu of their community’s original Hebrew due to a process of intergenerational linguistic assimilation provoked by geographic, demographic, familial, and socioeconomic factors, eventually leading to the complete death of Hebrew as a spoken language in the 3rd century CE.
Section 1: Sociolinguistic Causes of Language Shift
Before discussing the gradual loss of Hebrew as a spoken language in ancient Palestine, we must establish the sociolinguistic causes of language shift. Several studies have examined modern language shift amongst immigrants in the United States and Canada, and I will present them as analogous to language shift in ancient Palestine, using the assumption that sociolinguistic forces and their effects are applicable regardless of time. These studies find that immigrants in North America adopt their host country’s language on a three generation schedule, whereby the heritage language is lost in most cases by the third generation. This schedule produces third-generation immigrants (the grandchildren of immigrants) monolingual in English. This schedule can be seen in the United States, for example, in that the importance of the family as a factor determining bilingualism differs in the second and third generations (Alba & Stowell, 2007: 6). This is one of many examples that suggest the three generation schedule, a common theme of sociolinguistic scholarship studying immigrant language loss in North America. Several factors affect the likelihood of any given immigrant family to follow this three generation schedule, whereby the family’s grandchildren grow up monolingual in English. Although not all factors affect different linguistic communities equally, the factors that push individuals towards proficiency in the heritage language, the host language, or both include the familial makeup of the home, the linguistic makeup of the area in which speakers live, and socioeconomic factors such as racism and economic opportunity.
Alba, Stowell, and Rennie offer several familial factors as significantly affecting linguistic assimilation, including intermarriage, education of the parents, and the presence of other monolinguals in the home. Statistics from Alba & Stowell find that intermarriage is the single most important predictor of monolingualism among the children and grandchildren of Mexican-American immigrants (Alba & Stowell, 2007: 5). As children generally acquire their first language from their parents, it comes as no surprise that the language parents speak at home is an important determiner of the primary language of their children. Mixed marriages necessarily require the use of English unless the non-immigrant spouse learns their partner’s language, leading many children of interethnic marriages to be monolingual in English. Intermarriage also encourages English monolingualism in second-generation Cuban-Americans, but has less of an effect on third-generation Cuban-Americans (Alba & Stowell, 2007: 6). This suggests that other factors affect the primary language of Cuban-Americans more than intermarriage. As such, it seems that not every linguistic group is affected to the same degree by the same factors. Similarly to Mexican-Americans, second-generation Chinese-Americans are more likely to speak English monolingually if they are the product of intermarriage (Alba & Stowell, 2007: 6). In fact, endogamy (in-marriage) is the most compelling factor pushing third-generation Chinese-Americans towards bilingualism (Alba & Stowell, 2007: 7). It seems that intermarriage is such a strong factor in language loss, and endogamy such a strong factor in language retention that it can counteract other factors. The situation in Canada is similar, as marriages between immigrants and native born descendants of immigrants from the same country encourage bilingualism among their children (Rennie, 2018: 876). This shows that endogamy has the power to preserve the heritage language generations on, making it a very strong factor in heritage language maintenance. According to Rennie, intermarriage may even “represent an endpoint” in the process of assimilation as monolingual descendants of immigrants are more likely to marry outside of their ethnic community, all but ensuring their children’s monolingualism (Rennie, 2018: 877). As such, intermarriage highly correlates with assimilation, linguistic and otherwise.
In addition to the effects of intermarriage on rates of intergenerational linguistic assimilation, other familial factors such as the education of parents and the presence of monolinguals in the home affect assimilation. For example, educated Mexican-American parents are “more likely to rear children who speak only English” (Alba & Stowell, 2007: 5). This influence of parents’ education on the vernacular of their children further points to a strong tie between family dynamic and language. In fact, Rennie directly states this, claiming that “household composition stands out as [a] particularly important” determiner of heritage language proficiency (Rennie, 2018: 877). Apart from parents’ effect on linguistic assimilation, the presence in the home of other family members who speak the heritage language “substantially increases the probability of bilingualism” in children (Alba & Stowell, 2007: 6). This shows that the heritage language can be passed down not only by parents, but by any other members of the family residing with the children. For example, third-generation Chinese-Americans are more likely to be bilingual if Chinese speaking relatives live in their family home (Alba & Stowell, 2007: 6). Clearly, the whole family is important in the process of retention or loss of the heritage language.
The larger linguistic community also contributes to the preferred language of the children and grandchildren of immigrants. According to Rennie, factors such as religious participation and geographic location “affect whether immigrants’ descendants maintain or lose the mother tongue” (Rennie, 2018: 877). In the United States, for example, growing up in a Spanish-speaking enclave such as the US-Mexico border “enhances the prospects for bilingualism” amongst Mexican-Americans (Alba & Stowell 2007: 6). As such, speaking the heritage language at home is far from the only determiner of primary vernacular. Children of immigrants growing up in communities full of heritage speakers are much more likely to retain their language, even over multiple generations, as “the role of the larger community grow[s]” in the third generation (Alba & Stowell 2007: 6). Similarly to the border region, living in Miami, a Cuban enclave, has a positive effect on bilingualism among Cuban-Americans (Alba & Stowell 2007: 6). Clearly, the role of community as a preserver of the heritage language is not relegated to Mexican-Americans. In fact, the linguistic community has the power to preserve the heritage language over generations, mitigating the common three generation schedule. However, the linguistic community does not affect all immigrant groups’ language use equally. Unlike Chicanos and Cuban-Americans, for instance, Chinese-Americans’ linguistic community has less influence on their rates of bilingualism, even if they are raised in Chinese enclaves such as Chinatowns (Alba & Stowell 2007: 6). Instead, as discussed earlier, family considerations such as endogamy and the presence of other Chinese-speaking relatives in the home are more significant determiners of proficiency in the heritage language in Chinese-American households. This does not change the fact, however, that linguistic groups that live in ethnic enclaves are generally more likely to preserve their language (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002: 469). Chinese-Americans simply represent an exception to that rule. For most communities, living in an ethnic enclave can perpetuate the heritage language indefinitely, seriously slowing the rate of assimilation. Immigrant enclaves can even revitalize the heritage language in the area generations after the initial migrants arrive. For example, the relatively regular stream of Mexican immigrants to the border region in the US “sometimes revives bilingualism in English and Spanish among later-generation Mexican Americans” living near the border (Rennie, 2018: 876). As such, ethnic enclaves hold the power to delay the three generation schedule of linguistic assimilation prevalent in most of North America.
The same rule applies for non-immigrant linguistic minority groups, such as Native Americans. According to a study by Fishman, “Native American languages are surviving far better on-reservation than off” (Fishman, 1981: 580) and there has even been an increase in native Navajo speakers, mostly on-reservation (Fishman, 1981: 582). The history of indigenous people in North America more closely resembles Jews in ancient Palestine than American and Canadian immigrants do, as both Native Americans and ancient Jews were invaded by foreign powers and slowly acculturated. Therefore, the theory that ethnic enclaves preserve heritage languages can certainly be applied to language shift in ancient Palestine.
The modern phenomenon of globalization has also hampered linguistic assimilation in recent years, even among later-generation immigrants. Specifically, exchange with and travel to home countries encourages descendants of immigrants to maintain their heritage language (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002: 469). As such, “strong transnational ties to the homeland” give the descendants of immigrants the chance to remain bilingual (Rennie, 2018: 876). Although Jews in the Classical Era could not hop on a plane abroad, many Jews lived in the diaspora even before Roman persecution forced most of them from Palestine. As we will discuss, intermarriage between Greek-speaking diaspora Jews and their Palestinian counterparts likely led to some limited degree of Hellenization in Palestine, meaning that transnational ties affected the rate of intergenerational linguistic assimilation in Palestine even before globalization.
Bigotry and oppression can also encourage the retention of the heritage language, even over generations, and intersect with socioeconomic factors of linguistic assimilation. In the United States, for example, English has always held a hegemonic place in society, pushing foreign languages out (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002: 468). Racism, however, has actually discouraged many non-White descendants of immigrants from linguistically assimilating. For example, all European-American third-generation immigrant groups in the 1970s were over 90% monolingual in English (excluding Greek-Americans who spoke English monolingually at a rate of 80.5%) (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002: 475). Third-generation Mexican-Americans, on the other hand, were only 26.3% monolingual in English (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002: 475). Mexican-Americans preserving their language in opposition to the trend of acculturation among White immigrants is no coincidence. In all likelihood, White prejudice against Mexican-Americans led to the preservation of Spanish by encouraging ethnic enclaves and denying socioeconomic opportunities. Related to the effects of linguistic repression and bigotry is the socioeconomic benefit of adopting the host language as a vernacular. As such, not being able to speak English is “a serious disadvantage in the U.S. labor market” (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002: 468) It is very likely that the economic benefits of speaking English lead many first and second generation immigrant parents to encourage their children to speak the host language as a means of climbing the social ladder. Without sufficient knowledge of the host language, immigrants simply are not able to access the same level of social mobility as their English-speaking counterparts. This encourages the adoption of the host language, a process that rang true in Palestine under Aramaic-speaking empires.
Section 2: The Aramaic Period (c. 722 BCE — 340 BCE)
The conquest of Palestine by the Aramaic-speaking Neo-Assyrian Empire marks the beginning of a protracted language shift among Jews in the country from the use of Hebrew to Aramaic as their vernacular. This conquest took place over several decades and began in 722 BCE, solidifying Aramaic-speaking imperial control of Palestine until Alexander’s conquest in 340 BCE. This conquest was extremely violent and featured the deportation of thousands of Palestinian Jews, weakening the Hebrew-speaking community and allowing Aramaic to more easily permeate society. Although the Assyrian conquest of Palestine was extremely violent, the general lack of persecution of Jews under Assyrian rule allowed Jews to adopt Aramaic as a vernacular, eventually leading it to supplant Hebrew entirely. During Aramaic-speaking rule of Palestine, Aramaic became the High language and Hebrew the Low language among Palestinian Jews, pressuring Jews to adopt Aramaic in order to access socioeconomic benefits.
Several scholars have studied this period in the linguistic history of Palestinian Jews, coming to varying conclusions regarding the degree to which Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the community’s vernacular. Before getting into the specifics of Hebrew’s place between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE in Palestine, it is important to note that at the time “multilingualism was not the exception, but the rule — especially in urban centers” in the Eastern Mediterranean (Berlejung, 2019: 253). It is likely, as such, that Hebrews would have viewed becoming proficient in Aramaic as completely normal, possibly even as a communally acceptable goal. Philistines and Phoenecians lived in Palestine at the time, as well, contributing to the multilingual character of the country. Despite widespread multilingualism, at the time of the conquest, Hebrew was the main vernacular of the Jews, as “the earliest Biblical Hebrew texts probably date to about the 12th century B.C.E” (Hühnergard). The rate at which Hebrew was replaced by Aramaic is debated among scholars, but it is likely that Palestinian Jews “generally came to adopt Aramaic as their normal means of communication” under Aramaic-speaking rule (Schwartz, 1995: 19). The adoption of Aramaic was a gradual, but consistent, process of linguistic acculturation which eventually led to the death of the Hebrew language as a spoken vernacular.
Figure 1:
As a result of the Neo-Assyrian Empire’s conquests, Aramaic came to be “utilized as the lingua franca” in 1st millennium BCE West Asia (Hühnergard). It continued as the language of imperial rule under the Babylonians and even the Persian Achaemenids (Schwartz, 1995: 20). Possibly the most clear indication that Aramaic was the High language in this period is its use as the language of imperial control over Palestine. In the early days of Neo-Assyrian rule, Aramaic was used in diplomacy trade, but the Jewish population in Palestine continued to use Hebrew as their daily vernacular (Bagg, 2013: 125). The fact that Hebrew was spoken colloquially gives credence to the idea that it was a Low language in Palestine, and Aramaic the High language of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Despite this sociolinguistic dichotomy, Palestine did not assimilate as quickly as the Assyrian core lands (Bagg, 2013: 123). This fact may well be attributed to distance from the Assyrian core lands. One may very well ponder, however, the possibility of Assyrian antisemitism precluding Jewish acculturation to Assyrian customs and adoption of the Aramaic language. As I will argue later in this paper, Greco-Roman antisemitism was the biggest obstacle between Palestinian Jews and the adoption of Greek as a vernacular. However, it is clear from historical sources that the Assyrians did not, in fact, hold any more animosity against Hebrews than they did against any other group they conquered.
In Assyrian texts uncovered by archaeologists, “nomadic groups are described as uncivilized” (Bahrani, 2006: 54). Clearly, Assyrians were more than capable of bigotry that would be quite shocking by modern standards. However, Assyrians seemed to have considered foreign urbanized peoples “far more acceptable…than [domestic] nomadic groups” (Bahrani, 2006: 54). Therefore, Assyrians did not have much reason to specifically dislike the Hebrews. Especially as Jewish areas of Palestine already had large sedentary cities such as Jerusalem and Samara, as well as many settled villages, it seems unlikely that the Assyrians’ distaste for nomads would extend to the Jews. However, Assyrian accounts of their conquests often portray their enemies as “barbaric” and “lacking in correct religious conviction” (Bahrani, 2006: 56). The Assyrians clearly were prejudiced, but not specifically against Jews. They certainly had a strong distaste for Jewish monotheism and Jewish cultural practices, but this distaste was likely no stronger than Assyrian prejudice against other ethnic and religious groups in their empire. Furthermore, ancient Mesopotamians (such as the Assyrians) saw foreigners as geographically and culturally distinct, with no import given to one’s descent (Bahrani, 2006: 51). As such, it is reasonable to infer that Assyrian conquerors in Palestine did not care that Jews and Assyrians shared no common ancestral ties. Instead, they simply would have disliked Jewish culture, a sentiment they would not have reserved only for the Jews.
Given the general lack of specific Neo-Assyrian hatred of Jews, the Aramaic language was not forced on the Jewish community in Palestine. The traditional scholarly view of the Assyrian conquest of Palestine is one of Assyrianization, whereby the native Hebrews were pressured to adopt the Aramaic language and other aspects of Assyrian culture by their powerful and militaristic conquerors (Bagg, 2013: 122). This view, however, is countered by several scholars, and cannot in good faith be considered true. According to Bagg, “neither a systematic nor an enforced adaptation to Assyrian values and customs took place in Palestine” (Bagg, 2013: 129). Furthermore, Bahrani writes that “languages in Mesopotamian antiquity were not seen in correspondence with racial or ethnic groups,” (Bahrani, 2006: 54) giving the Assyrian conquerors no reason to discriminate against Jews for using their native language. As such, there is no evidence that the Neo-Assyrian Empire forced conquered groups to give up their native languages (Schwartz, 1995: 12). There is correspondingly no proof of forced use of Aramaic in Palestine (Bagg, 2013: 125). Unsurprisingly, the scholarly consensus surmises that Jews were not required to adopt Aramaic as a vernacular. In fact, they were not even directly pressured to learn Aramaic. This situation rang true across the Neo-Assyrian Empire, as “new texts continued to be composed in Akkadian, Old Egyptian and Phoenician” as late as 31 BCE (Schwartz, 1995: 19). Clear indication that few, if any, were forced to speak Aramaic.
Despite the lack of obligation to adopt Aramaic, socioeconomic benefits would give Hebrews good reason to learn the language. Under the Neo-Assyrian and other Aramaic-speaking empires, Jews and other conquered peoples felt pressure from above to adopt Aramaic so as to access certain socioeconomic benefits. Aramaic was spread throughout Aramaic-speaking empires due to its prestige and use, as proficiency in Aramaic “opened chances for trade, markets, marriages, careers, diplomacy, social interactions and social climbing” (Berlejung, 2019: 253). Essentially, if a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian wanted to advance their social standing during the Neo-Assyrian Empire’s reign they would find it necessary to become proficient in Aramaic. Aramaic opened up the door to employment, wealth, and social prestige. This is evidence that it was, in fact, the High language of Palestine at the time. As a result of this sociolinguistic change, Hebrew became a Low language and began to be swept under the rug. Berlejung also suggests in the above quote that Jews in this period may have intermarried with Assyrians and other foreigners, encouraging these couples’ offspring to speak Aramaic as a primary language. Intermarriage was not the only example of Jewish and Assyrian cultural mixing in Palestine, as “the Assyrian presence left its traces in architecture, pottery, glyptic, inscribed remains, and funerary customs, among other areas” (Bagg, 2013: 128). Clearly, Assyrians were present in Palestine and intermingled with Jews and other indigenous Palestinians. Somewhat less clear, but still altogether likely, is that Assyrians’ culture spread in Palestine to its indigenous inhabitants. It is uncertain how many of these cultural artifacts were produced by Palestinians, but unlikely that none of them were. Bagg describes this intermingling of cultures as non-compulsory “emulation” of Assyrian customs and traditions by native Palestinians (Bagg, 2013: 128). At the end of the day, it is difficult to ascertain to what degree intermarriage between Jews and Aramaic-speaking foreigners occurred, but it is extremely likely that intermingling of Jews and Assyrians heavily contributed to the shift from Hebrew to Aramaic as the main vernacular of Palestine’s Jews.
As a result of Aramaic-speaking rule of Palestine, Aramaic became the High language of the country. A perfect example of Aramaic’s prestige during the Aramaic Period is its use in “government business…and upper-class literary expression” (Schwartz, 1995: 21). Use of Aramaic in upper-class literature and official business certainly point towards it serving as the High language of the time, as it carried over prestige and was associated with the wealthy class and the imperial administration. Aramaic’s use as a High language seeped down in society, becoming the common speech of those hoping to emulate their rulers. The language was held in such prestige, in fact, that Jewish scribes were largely bilingual and had few qualms code-switching between Hebrew and Aramaic freely in their texts (Schwartz, 1995: 11–12). This represents an early example of Aramaic being used as a truly domestic language in Palestine in addition to its budding use as a vernacular.
It seems that Jews were willing to adopt Aramaic because they felt little attachment to Hebrew, marking the former as a Low language. During the Iron Age (c. 1200 BCE — 550 BCE), Hebrew was so mutually intelligible with neighboring languages that it was usually considered the same language, causing Hebrew speakers to pin little of their ethnic identity to their language (Schwartz, 1995: 10). Linguistic nationalism would later become important for the Hebrew language in Palestine, but under Aramaic-speaking empires it never was. Jews’ lack of attachment to Hebrew was not abnormal in ancient West Asia, as most of the region’s national and tribal groups “did not consider language an essential component of their group identity” (Schwartz, 1995: 13). This allowed Hebrews and other conquered peoples to adopt Aramaic as their vernacular under Aramaic-speaking rule, as they had little reason to maintain their heritage languages. On the contrary, Jews in ancient Palestine had every reason to speak Aramaic instead of Hebrew.
Perhaps one of the most defining catalysts of language shift in Palestine was the ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland during and immediately after the Neo-Assyrian conquest. Over the course of the 90 year conquest of Palestine, the Neo-Assyrian Empire carried out 11 military campaigns, each incredibly violent and traumatizing for the region’s native inhabitants (Bagg, 2013: 123–124). This horrific violence weakened Palestine, making its people fearful of the Neo-Assyrian Empire’s military might and pressuring native Palestinians to assent to the Empire’s policies and cultural influence in the country. As a part of the Neo-Assyrian conquest, King Tiglath-pileser III deported Syrians and Palestinians to Assyria (Miller, Maxwell, & Hayes, 2006: 361). As native peoples were expelled, “people from Babylonia and Elam as well as Arabian tribes among others were settled” (Bagg, 2013: 127–128). These deportations and subsequent settlements of foreigners, most of whom spoke Aramaic, changed the linguistic makeup of Palestine. Palestine’s Aramaic-speaking population rose, and its Hebrew-speaking population shrank. This demographic shift also prompted linguistic shift by implicit threat of continued violence and ethnic cleansing. The violence continued as “Nebuchadnezzar’s second campaign against Judah in the year 586…ended with the conquest of Jerusalem, the looting of the Temple, and a mass deportation” (Bagg, 2013: 123–124). This sustained use of ethnic cleansing as a tool of control further contributed to the replacement of Hebrew with Aramaic by pressuring Palestinian Jews to learn Aramaic as it became more common in Palestine. Despite the Neo-Assyrian Empire’s track record of conquest, followed by ethnic cleansing and the importation of Aramaic-speaking settlers, “Assyrian people were rather seldom resettled in the Levant or in Palestine” (Bagg, 2013: 127). This indicates that the Empire did not plan to replace native Palestinians with Aramaic-speaking settlers on an extremely large scale. Rather, bouts of ethnic cleansing and occasional settlement were used to keep Palestine in check. These measures did not aim to force the Aramaic language or Assyrian culture on conquered peoples. Instead, they were “an instrument of domination” meant “to prevent future opposition and to acquire manpower and skilled specialists for the Assyrian capitals” (Bagg, 2013: 127). Aramaic-speaking empires carried out horrible campaigns of violence and ethnic cleansing against the entire region into which they expanded, causing drastic shifts towards the use of Aramaic in Palestine by quickly decreasing the number of Hebrew speakers. Thus, language shift in Palestine from Hebrew to Aramaic began, paving the way towards the eventual death of Hebrew as a spoken language.
Section 3: The Hellenic Period (c. 340 BCE — 70 CE)
The period of Aramaic-speaking control of Palestine came to an end in 340 BCE with Alexander’s conquest of the country. This conquest marked the beginning of what I term the Hellenic Period, which, for our purposes, ended in 70 CE with the destruction of the Second Temple. The conquest marks the end of Aramaic as the official language of imperial control in Palestine and the beginning of Greek-speaking control of West Asia, which persisted under Alexander, subsequent Hellenistic kingdoms, and the Roman Empire until the Islamic conquest of Palestine (c. 634 CE). Despite this geopolitical change, Aramaic and Hebrew continued to be spoken alongside Greek throughout the Hellenic Period (Emerton, 1973: 2). It is also during this period (c. 1st century CE) that Mishnaic Hebrew developed, indicating a continued use of Hebrew as a vernacular under Greek rule (Hühnergard). Greek’s failure to replace Aramaic as the common tongue can be attributed to Greco-Roman antisemitism dulling the Greek language’s ability to better Jews’ socioeconomic standing and preventing Jewish intermingling and intermarriage with Greek speakers. The lack of large-scale ethnic cleansing during the Hellenic Period also prevented widespread use of Greek by Jewish Palestinians. During the Hellenic Period, Palestine became triglossic, maintaining Hebrew as a religious, literary, and heritage High language, Aramaic as the common vernacular and Low language, and introducing Greek as a foreign language limited only to the most educated Jews.
There is a great deal of discussion on the extent to which Hebrew remained a spoken language in Palestine between the 4th century BCE and the 1st century CE. Many scholars hold that Hebrew was still spoken colloquially in the first three centuries CE (Emerton, 1973: 2). However, others such as Abraham Geiger go as far as to argue “that Mishnaic Hebrew was an artificial and learned language” (Geiger, 1845 as cited in Fassberg 2012: 265). If Geiger is correct in his assertion, Hebrew would have died out by the 1st century CE. In direct opposition to Geiger’s 1845 claim, Moshe H. Segal pointed out features of Mishnaic Hebrew that suggest it was spoken in daily life (Segal, 1908 as cited in Fassberg, 2012: 269). Thus, the more up to date and more likely correct view is that Mishnaic Hebrew (c. 1st cen. CE — 3rd cen. CE) was in fact a spoken language in Palestine, necessitating the existence of a Hebrew vernacular throughout the Hellenic Period. Despite evidence of such a vernacular, Aramaic scrolls and Hebrew scrolls containing Aramaisms found at Qumran support the assertion that Aramaic was spoken during the time of Christ (Fassberg, 2012: 270; Admin, 2017). These scrolls are dated from the 3rd century BCE to 68 CE, suggesting that both Hebrew and Aramaic were spoken colloquially at the time (Fassberg, 2012: 271–272). Another scholar, Naveh, has claimed that although Hebrew was spoken in daily life during the Second Temple Period (c. 516 BCE — 70 CE), Aramaic was significantly more common (Naveh, as cited by Fassberg, 2012: 276). In addition to the Qumran scrolls, Hebraists claim “inscriptions on tombs and ossuaries in Hebrew and Aramaic” indicate Hebrew-Aramaic bilingualism during the Hellenic Period (Fassberg, 2012: 274). This points to the continued shift from Hebrew to Aramaic throughout the Hellenic Period. Hebraist Ben-Hayyim comes to the same conclusion, citing “parallels between Samaritan Hebrew and the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls” which suggest colloquial Samaritan and Jewish use of Hebrew in the 1st century CE (Fassberg, 2012: 275). Clearly, Hebrew survived as a vernacular throughout the entire Hellenic Period, and not just as a constructed language, as Geiger posited. However, Eusebius wrote in the 4th century CE that the Apostles conversed in “the Syrian language,” (Eusebius, as cited by Fassberg, 2012: 264–265) a clear indication that Aramaic was well established as a Jewish vernacular by the 1st century CE. Based on this body of evidence, the most likely timeline features a slow decline in the number of Hebrew speakers in Palestine and a corresponding increase in the use of Aramaic as a vernacular over the entirety of the Hellenic Period. This represents continuity from the Aramaic Period, suggesting little change in the trajectory of Palestinian Jewish language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic until the end of the Hellenic Period and the destruction of the Second Temple (c. 70 CE).
Scholars disagree on the geographical distribution of Aramaic and Hebrew in the 1st century CE. Some believe that Hebrew was more common in Judea and Aramaic more common in Galilee, and that Judeans were largely bilingual. A minority opinion, likely incorrect according to Emerton, holds that Hebrew was also more common in Galilee (Emerton, 1973: 2). The likelihood that Galilean Jews mainly spoke Aramaic colloquially can be explained by the fact that Galilee’s inhabitants were forcefully converted to Judaism in 103–104 BCE, giving them little time or reason to adopt Hebrew as a vernacular (Emerton, 1973: 16–17). According to Emerton and Fassberg, Aramaic was in wide use among Jews in Judea during the 1st century CE, but it is uncertain to what extent Hebrew was spoken (Emerton, 1973: 17; Fassberg, 2012: 266). A similar view claims that Hebrew died out by 300 BCE and was uncommon throughout the Hellenic Period (Schwartz, 1995: 3). This points to the large-scale shift towards Aramaic continuing throughout the Hellenic Period, as Judea was the heartland of Palestine and the home of Jerusalem and the Temple. In fact, Aramaic’s use was so pervasive in Judea that Jesus was able to use it in Jerusalem even as Hebrew persisted in the city (Emerton, 1973: 17). This implies that Aramaic was the majority language of Judeans, but Hebrew lived on even in the capital city through the 1st century CE. This is in line with the majority scholarly belief that Hebrew existed in pockets of Jewish society, but was dwarfed by the dominant Aramaic. Schwartz offers a dissenting opinion, namely that Aramaic was “predominant in Jerusalem” but that Hebrew was most common in the Judean countryside. This means that Judean villages essentially acted as Hebrew-speaking enclaves, preserving the language in these areas. Meanwhile, the cosmopolitan Jerusalem spoke more Aramaic as a result of Jews mixing with speakers of the language and a lack of enclaves. However, most of the Masada rebels (c. 66 CE) spoke Aramaic, and it would be unrealistic to assume the majority of them were Jerusalemites (Schwartz, 1995: 16). Therefore, according to Schwartz, it is unlikely that Hebrew maintained complete hegemony in the Judean countryside during the 1st century CE.
Finally, Bernard Spolsky proposes what Fassberg believes to be an accurate summary of the geographical distribution of different languages in 1st century Palestine in a table (Ex 1) organized by how commonly they were spoken (Spolsky, as cited by Fassberg, 2012: 276).
Example 1:
- Villages (non-coastal): Hebrew
- Jerusalem, upper class: Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew
- Jerusalem, lower class: Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek
- Galilee: Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek
- Coastal cities: Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew
- Gentiles: Greek, Latin
Figure 2:
This table seems the most compelling summary of the geographic distribution of Palestine’s three languages, divided triglossically according to region, ethnicity, and class. To sum up what seems to me the most accurate linguistic makeup of Palestine in the 1st century CE, rural Judean Jews mostly spoke Hebrew and some Aramaic, Galileans mostly spoke Aramaic and some Hebrew and Greek, poor Jerusalemites mostly spoke Aramaic and some Hebrew, and rich Jerusalemites mostly spoke Greek and Aramaic and some Hebrew. As mentioned earlier, Aramaic likely became at least a secondary vernacular in the Judean countryside during this century, in opposition to Spolsky’s claim that the area was monolingually Hebraic. Most Palestinian Jews were at least bilingual in Hebrew and Aramaic, a minority, including gentile communities, foreigners, and wealthy Jews, adding Greek to the repertoire. This low level of Hellenization will be discussed in a few paragraphs, and likely was even lower than represented in Spolsky’s table.
The Hellenic Period saw a shift not only from Hebrew to Aramaic as a vernacular, but also from Aramaic to Hebrew as the High language of Palestine’s Jewish population. Hebrew, as such, came to be used in liturgy, literature, and nationalist thought. As Aramaic became Palestine’s Low language, it also became the first language of some of the poorest people in Jewish society. In fact, slaves mostly spoke Aramaic with their masters (Feldman, 1986: 92). The least educated and least upwardly mobile social group in Palestinian society primarily speaking Aramaic points to the deterioration of the language’s social standing. As Aramaic’s social standing lowered, Hebrew became more prestigious. Hebrew’s place as a liturgical language predates the Hellenic Period, but there is no doubt that it continued to occupy that place throughout the Period as the language of the Second Temple (Schwartz, 1995: 19). As the Temple was the center of Judaism at the time, Hebrew’s place as the Temple’s liturgical language extended to the majority of Palestine’s Jewry. The Hebrew language also came to symbolize national identity during the Hellenic Period. It was, in fact, through Hebrew’s association with the Temple and religious life that it came to symbolize the Jewish people’s nationhood (Schwartz, 1995: 25). Emerton reports that certain scholars believe “that Hebrew was widely used in Palestine [during the Hellenic Period], but not as a vernacular” and rather as a liturgical language only (Emerton, 1973: 2). This seems an extreme view, given all of the evidence that Hebrew was, in fact, used as a vernacular by a minority of Jewish Palestinians. As such, Emerton mentions that many scholars accept this view, but argue that some Palestinian Jews still spoke Hebrew as a first language as late as the 1st century CE (Emerton, 1973: 3). Despite its use as a first language by some, the majority of Jewish Hebrew speakers learned the language as children for religious use, a similar linguistic situation to Medieval Jewish communities (Emerton, 1973: 4). This suggests that Hebrew was, for most Jews during the Hellenic Period, a learned heritage language used for religious and educational purposes, not everyday communication. Hebrew’s stance as a vernacular was so tenuous during the Hellenic Period, in fact, that Fassberg reports “the moribund state of Hebrew,” evidenced by the prevalence of translations (targumim, earliest c. 1st century CE) of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic (Fassberg, 2012: 265) As it was necessary to accommodate Aramaic speakers even for religious purposes, Hebrew truly must have been moribund by the end of the Hellenic Period. Regarding Hebrew’s use as a literary language during the Hellenic Period, Feldman writes that “a whole series of works in Hebrew and in Aramaic” written in Palestine have been discovered, whereas other ancient West Asian societies did not produce literature as prolifically (Feldman, 1986: 99). The unique Jewish literary tradition in the community’s native languages certainly explains why the Greek language was never fully adopted by Jews in Palestine. It also gives credence to the idea that Hebrew was used mainly as a learned language during the Hellenic era, and was steeped in a deep religious and national history of which the Jewish public was aware. Hebrew was also used as a sign of education. Educated men distinguished themselves by their knowledge of Hebrew, marking the language as “a path to prestige” (Schwartz, 1995: 4). Thus, Hebrew journeyed from a shrinking Low language to a still shrinking High language during the Hellenic Period, taking on new societal importance but continuing to cede ground to Aramaic as the main vernacular of the Jewish community in Palestine.
As Aramaic slid from prestige and into vernacular use, Greek found itself the imperial language of Greek and Roman rulers of Palestine alike. Greek has a very long history in Palestine, predating even the Hellenic Period. Before Alexander’s conquest, Greek soldiers, mercenaries, and merchants had been visiting Palestine for centuries (Feldman, 1986: 85). The Greeks’ newfound control of Palestine did, however, cause their language to replace Aramaic as the language of administration and foreign influence for the first time. Despite this, “the predominant language” spoken by Palestinian Jews remained Aramaic, not Greek (Feldman, 1986: 92). As such, the Greeks failed to spread their language amongst the Jews, who preferred Aramaic and maintained it alongside Hebrew in lieu of Greek. In fact, according to Feldman, Hellenization was “hardly profound” even as late as the 2nd century CE, at least 440 years after Alexander’s conquest (Feldman, 1986: 85). After hundreds of years of Greek-speaking control of Palestine the Jews still stuck with Aramaic. Learned Jews even commented on this peculiar linguistic situation, such as Rabbi Judah the Prince, who rhetorically asked near the end of the 2nd century CE, “why use the Syriac [Aramaic] language in the Land of Israel? Either the Holy Language or Greek” (Rabbi Judah the Prince, as cited by Feldman, 1986: 92). A public scholarly debate on the merits of the daily use of Hebrew or Aramaic as late as the 2nd century, mentioning Greek only as an afterthought, indicates that Greek simply never broke the social mold among Palestinian Jews. It remained an essentially foreign language, learned primarily by elites and spoken by foreigners and gentiles. Thus, Feldman considers the maintenance of Aramaic and Hebrew to have been “a constant barrier against assimilation” (Feldman, 1986: 93). Palestinian Jews did not widely adopt Greek as a native language because Hebrew and Aramaic already occupied roles in society that Greek was unable to replace.
One reason for the lack of Hellenization of Jews in Palestine was the tendency for Jews to live in ethnic enclaves, which was likely linked to Greco-Roman antisemitism. Feldman reports that Jews “deliberately sought to isolate themselves” from foreigners (Feldman, 1986: 89). As discussed in Section 1, isolation from speakers of other languages has been shown to elongate the life of a heritage language over generations. When speakers of heritage languages, in this case Aramaic and Hebrew, actively avoid speakers of other languages, in this case Greek, it causes heritage languages to be preserved over generations. As Jews did not customarily live with Greeks, they would have had limited contact with them and similarly limited chances to adopt Greek as a vernacular or learn the language at all. In fact, relatively few Jews lived in areas, such as large cities, where they would have had any contact with Greek speakers (Feldman, 1986: 93). Thus, the majority of Palestinian Jews had little to no chance to adopt Greek. In fact, in Palestine “there were some thirty Greek cities” in total (Feldman, 1986: 93) but “not a single Greek urban community was founded in Judea” (Feldman, 1986: 93). This suggests that Judea was nearly completely devoid of Greek cultural and linguistic influence, save the more diverse metropolis of Jerusalem. As such, Greek settlements were mostly relegated to majority non-Jewish areas, such as the coast (ex 1). Thus, the presence of a Jewish supermajority in Judea helped preserve the already perspiring language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic due to ethnic enclaves’ tendency to encourage maintenance of heritage languages.
The linguistic situation in Galilee seems a bit more extreme. Few Greek inscriptions have been found in synagogues in Galilee, and only after the end of the 1st century CE (Feldman, 1986: 94). Given this fact, Galilee was likely completely devoid of Jewish Greek speakers in any large number during the Second Temple Period (c. 516 BCE — 70 CE). This suggests a nearly monolingual Aramaic-speaking society in Northern Palestine’s Jewish heartland. Comparable to Jerusalem, however, there were several population centers in Lower Galilee with large numbers of Greek-speaking Pagans (Feldman, 1986: 94–95). One might expect Galilean Jews to have intermingled with Greeks to some degree there, as Jerusalemites did, resulting in some Hellenization. Contrary to that very reasonable assumption, however, actual contact between Pagans and Jews in Lower Galilee was likely limited, as only once in the New Testament does Jesus make reference to the Pagans while preaching in his native Lower Galilee (Feldman, 1986: 95). This suggests a high degree of ethnic enclaving among the Jews of Galilee. Jews’ clustered living arrangements, even in multiethnic cities, was another cause for the preservation of Aramaic in lieu of Greek. Living in these ethnic enclaves encouraged Galilean and Judean Jews to continue to speak Aramaic over generations.
Hellenization was further hampered by a lack of close contact and intermarriage between Jews and Greeks. This lack of contact stemmed from the closed-gate nature of the Jewish community in Palestine. Jews felt a “sense of exclusiveness,” because of their status as an ethno-religious group, causing them to shun gentiles (Daniel, 1979: 47). Jews’ predisposition to shun gentiles stopped them from adopting Greek, as intermarriage with gentiles was forbidden. For instance, part of the reason for the Galilean Jewish enclaves discussed above was the fact that Galilee was a relatively zealous area of Jewish settlement with a robust system of religious education for males (Feldman, 1986: 111). As Jewish law prohibited marriage between Jews and gentiles, family ties between Aramaic-speaking Jews and Greek-speaking Pagans were likely scarce in the relatively less religious Judea and almost nonexistent in Galilee. As discussed in Section 2, one reason Jews were able to adopt Aramaic was because of intermarriage with Aramaic speakers. This was not often the case with Greek, making the general lack of familial ties between Greeks and Jews a prime reason for the latter community’s reluctance to adopt the language of the former. Greeks themselves even acknowledged the general Jewish reluctance to mingle with those from other cultures. In fact, Greek literature repeatedly accuses the Jews of “hostility to foreigners” (Feldman, 1986: 104). As such, the general lack of family ties between Jews and Greeks created an obstacle to Palestinian Jewish adoption of Greek as a vernacular.
Alongside Jews’ preference to stay within their own communities, the geography of Jewish settlement also prevented mixing between Greeks and Jews. Throughout antiquity, travelers were often unable to venture into the interior of countries they visited (Feldman, 1986: 85). The Jews of Palestine lived in the interior, generating a situation in which Jews did not encounter many Greek-speaking travelers, and by extension, many Greek speakers at all until the Hellenic Period (Feldman, 1986: 89). This contributed to the heavier rates of Hellenization seen on the coasts, as shown above in the Spolsky table (ex 1). The Jewish tendency to live away from Palestine’s coasts coupled with foreigners’ lack of willingness to venture inland contributed to the separation of Jews and gentiles in ancient Palestine. This separation largely barred any linguistic exchange, intermarriage, or other chances for Jews to adopt Greek even as a foreign language, much less their everyday vernacular. To the degree that Hellenization did occur, much of it was through intermarriage with Greek-speaking diaspora Jews who had immigrated to Palestine (Feldman, 1986: 90). There was also some familial contact with Greek speakers through intermarriage with Greek converts to Judaism (Feldman, 1986: 105). In this process of Hellenization, Jews did in fact marry a small number of Jewish Greek speakers in Palestine, as these marriages would not have gone against religious law. These intermarriages likely led to a small degree of Hellenization, but do not seem to have been very extensive, as they are mentioned by few historians. As such, Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Hebrew, were preserved because of the limited number of family ties with Greek speakers.
Likely the most impactful factor that contributed to Jews maintaining the already existing language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic instead of adopting Greek was significantly higher levels of antisemitism under Greco-Roman rule than under Aramaic-speaking empires. According to Daniel, Greco-Roman writing regarding Jews “shows that they were almost universally disliked” (Daniel, 1979: 56). This bigotry prevented Jews from adopting Greek as a tool of social mobility, like they were able to do with Aramaic under their former rulers, as Greeks and Romans likely discriminated against Jews regardless of their language. Furthermore, Greco-Roman gentiles considered Jews “odd” and unwilling to adopt Greco-Roman customs, which led Greeks and Romans to hold “a strong aversion for Jews” (Daniel, 1979: 51). This likely discouraged many Jews from learning Greek, similar to the process that discouraged Mexican-Americans from adopting English at the same rate as White immigrants, as discussed in Section 1 of this thesis (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002: 475). Greco-Roman antisemitism is further illustrated by many Roman writers’ “derogatory remarks about Jewish intellectual ability” (Daniel, 1979: 53). This pervasive antisemitism afforded Jews little chance to assimilate, as they were likely to be rejected even if they adopted the Greek language. In fact, most diaspora Jews (who generally spoke Greek) were usually unable to succeed economically and generally lived impoverished lives (Daniel, 1979: 52). This further demonstrates that even assimilated Jews were discriminated against by their Greco-Roman rulers.
Greco-Roman distaste for Jews was, however, not often extreme enough to include violent persecution during the Hellenic Period (Daniel, 1979: 47–48). Some Greeks even complimented aspects of Jewish culture in their writings (Daniel, 1979: 47–48). This lack of extreme persecution or violence kept intact the Jewish community in Palestine throughout the Hellenic Period until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, allowing the continued use of Aramaic and Hebrew. This fact also clearly distinguishes the Greco-Roman public from the Roman administration, the latter of which being relatively tolerant of non-Roman religious practices. In fact, “almost every imperial ruler of Palestine supported the temple and the Law” from the 6th century BCE until the Temple’s destruction in the 1st century CE (Schwartz, 1995: 22). This allowed Jews to continue living in their own communities, practicing their own religion, and speaking their own languages. In fact, Rome generally “tolerated and protected Jewish religion along with other cults” during the Hellenic Period (Daniel, 1979: 48). This led to the era being relatively peaceful for Jews in Palestine. Despite this relative peace, there were a small number of Roman pogroms and instances of violence against Jews during the Period, (Daniel, 1979: 53–54) but no large-scale ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland. This kept the Hebrew and Aramaic-speaking populations of Palestine intact, disallowing a large population transfer such as the ones orchestrated by the Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Mass instances of ethnic cleansing under the Aramaic-speaking empires led to an easier adoption of Aramaic as a vernacular, as the number of Hebrew speakers decreased, while the number of Aramaic speakers rose. This quick demographic change never occurred under either the Greeks or the Romans, allowing the already existing language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic to continue unmolested.
The general lack of acceptance of Jews by Greeks and Romans led to increased difficulty in Jewish social mobility. Unlike Jews during the Aramaic Period, “the average Jew had little if any contact with overseas commerce” during the Hellenic Period (Feldman, 1986: 93). This marks a departure from Palestinian Jewish participation in trade, eliminating a major driving factor for use of foreign trade languages such as Greek. During the Aramaic Period, Aramaic was adopted by Jews as a trade language, but without many Jewish merchants during the Hellenic Period, Greek simply was never learned as widely as Aramaic had been. Jewish conditions abroad also discouraged Palestinians from learning Greek. Diaspora Jews often lived in squalor, relegated to the worst occupations paying low wages (Daniel, 1979: 52). This gave Palestinian Jews little socioeconomic reason to learn Greek in hopes of emigration. After all, why make such an effort to learn a difficult foreign language just to be met with a poorer situation abroad?
Instead of a language used by the poor to advance their economic standing, Greek was learned by only the most wealthy and educated Jews of Palestine. For example, Flavius Josephus, a young Jew from a rich and prestigious Jerusalemite family, was chosen to travel to Rome because he spoke Greek, suggesting that knowledge of the language was not widespread amongst his countrymen (Feldman, 1986: 91). Therefore, Greek was mostly relegated to the upper and learned classes, and used primarily as a foreign language. Greek did not have the power to enrich Jews, and as such was unnecessary in the eyes of the poor. Despite their use of Greek, it is unlikely that even the Jewish upper class spoke Greek natively, as evidenced by Josephus speaking Aramaic as his first language (Feldman, 1986: 93). It is also suggested by the poor quality of Greek on Jewish ossuaries in Palestine (Feldman, 1986: 93). Clearly there was little social benefit for the lower classes in learning Greek. Therefore, Greek was largely ignored by the majority of Jewish society in Palestine as an inadequate tool for social mobility, as it was unable to truly fill any social niche. Hebrew, however, solidified its place as a liturgical, literary, and national language even as its use as a vernacular slowly waned.
Section 4: The Early Diasporic Period (c. 70 CE — 3rd cen. CE)
The final death of the Hebrew language took place in what I term the Early Diasporic Period, named as such because of the beginning of the greater Jewish diaspora in this period. The Early Diasporic Period features a serious uptick in violence and ethnic cleansing against Palestinian Jews perpetrated by the Roman Empire. This period begins with Rome’s destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the end of the last central Jewish religious authority in history, and ends in the 3rd century CE with the death of Hebrew as a spoken language. The demolition of the Second Temple came at the climax of the First Jewish-Roman War (c. 66 CE — 74 CE), in which Jewish rebels challenged Rome’s control of their homeland. The Jewish-Roman Wars continued, culminating in the 132 CE Bar Kokhba/Kosiba Revolt and the expulsion of Jews from Judea. Roman ethnic cleansing of Jews from Judea, where Hebrew was still spoken, and partial resettlement in Galilee ultimately finished off the already moribund language in the 3rd century CE by way of assimilation of refugees into the majority Aramaic-speaking Galilean society. Throughout the final period of the Hebrew vernacular the language continued to be used as a liturgical, literary, and nationalistic language and kept these roles after Hebrew’s death. Hebrew ultimately died because of Roman ethnic cleansing of Jews in a triglossic Palestine, continuing to be used as a High language by Jews even after its death, while Aramaic was spoken as Palestinian Jews’ Low language and Greek the language of imperial power.
Although scholars offer many differing opinions as to the expiration date of the Hebrew vernacular, it is most likely that Hebrew died off as a spoken language in the 3rd century CE. Before its death, written texts provide compelling evidence that Hebrew evolved naturally throughout the entirety of the Classical Era (c. 8th cen. BCE — 5th cen. CE), suggesting its continued use as a vernacular at least until the 3rd century CE (Schwartz, 1995: 14–15). Emerton, along with the majority of scholars, conclude that Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language in the 3rd century (Emerton, 1973: 2). Fassberg, a prominent dissenter of the scholarly consensus, points out that there is some evidence Hebrew was spoken in Palestine long after the 3rd century. For example, he mentions a papyrus written in the 5th or 6th century CE “written in part in…Mishnaic Hebrew” (Fassberg, 2012: 277). This papyrus is especially interesting, as its contents discuss business, as opposed to religious or nationalist topics. It is, of course, well within the realm of possibility that the author of this papyrus simply chose Hebrew to write this letter, but did not speak it natively or use it colloquially. Another document, written in Judeo-Arabic and dated to the 10th century CE (Ex 2), describes the author hearing Aramaic and Hebrew spoken in the streets of Tiberias (Fassberg, 2012: 278). If trustworthy, this document would point to the use of Hebrew as a vernacular long past the 3rd century CE, in opposition to the timeline favored by most scholars.
Example 2:
וכתת אטיל אלג’לוש פי סאחאת טבריה ושוארעהא א[סת]מע כלאם אלסוקה ואלעאמה ואבחת’ ען אללגה ואצול[הא] אנט’ר הל ינכסר שי ממא אצלת או ינפסד שי ממא ט’הר לי ופי מא נֻטק ב[ה מן] אלעבראני ואל סריאני ואנואעה אע’ [=אעני] לגה אלתרגום וגירה פאנה מג’אנס ללעבראני…
I have been sitting for a long time in the squares and streets of Tiberias listening to the speech of the market and of the simple folk and investigating (their) language and its origins, seeing if something was corrupted from what I considered to be (its) basis, or if something was missing from what seemed to be (correct), and how the Hebrew and Aramaic languages and their varieties were pronounced, that is to say, the language of the Targum and other (dialects) because it is similar to the Hebrew language.
In opposition to Fassberg’s claims, Schwartz describes the notion that Hebrew continued to be spoken into the Middle Ages “none too compelling” (Schwartz, 1995: 15). These two examples of Fassberg’s seem insufficient in refuting the majority scholarly opinion. It is well within the realm of possibility that the author of the second document simply misheard the people whom he observed, and that Fassberg chocked the author’s mistake up to the existence of spoken Hebrew in the Middle Ages. Fassberg, in fact, even admits that in the Middle Ages most West Asian Christians and Jews spoke Aramaic colloquially (Fassberg, 2012: 278). Considering that the evidence of spoken Hebrew past the 3rd century is incredibly scarce and the scholarly consensus has remained with the theory that the language ceased to be spoken by or in the 3rd century, I favor the scholarly consensus and conclude that Hebrew’s language death occurred in the 3rd century CE.
The evidence for Palestinian use of Hebrew throughout the first three centuries CE is overwhelming, but also indicates continuity in language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic, a process that concluded in the 3rd century. Emerton writes that Hebrew was most likely “still used as a vernacular by some Jews in the first century” and that it was even spoken by some as late as the 3rd century CE (Emerton, 1973: 16). This points to the same language shift we have seen throughout the entire time period on which this paper focuses, whereby Hebrew gave way to Aramaic slowly but surely, continuing throughout the Early Diasporic Period. Emerton goes on, mentioning that several rabbinical writings recount instances of gentiles conversing with Jews in Hebrew during the first two centuries CE, suggesting that Hebrew was spoken as a first language by some Jews during that period (Emerton, 1973: 14–15). Not only does this anecdote support the assertion that Hebrew was spoken through the 2nd century, but also tells us that it was still well established enough to be learned by non-Jews. Fassberg presents the “heterogeneity” of Mishnaic Hebrew in the 2nd century (ie, multiple Mishnaic varieties) as evidence of its status as a living language (Fassberg, 2012: 275). As linguistic variations in spoken Hebrew persisted as late as the 2nd century, it is incredibly unlikely that the language died out before then. Furthermore, Rabbi Judah wrote polemics in the 2nd century CE against the use of Aramaic in Palestine, and even spoke Hebrew with his maid, suggesting a contingency of Jews still using Hebrew in the vernacular (Emerton, 1973: 15). In fact, not only does conversation between a maid and a rabbi in Hebrew suggest the language’s continued use, but points directly to its use specifically as a vernacular. The Rabbi’s polemics against Aramaic also demonstrate that Jews were aware of language shift in their community by the 2nd century, as some spoke so vehemently against it. Rabbi Jonathan of Beth Gubrin wrote a similar polemic against Aramaic in the 3rd century, (Emerton, 1973: 15) suggesting that language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic persisted as late as the 3rd century. In Emerton’s eyes, these rabbis’ calls for the preservation of their people’s original tongue suggest “a situation in which Hebrew was losing ground” but was still used by some in everyday speech (Emerton, 1973: 16). Hebrew was used so sparingly throughout Palestine, in fact, that it is likely that the majority of the Bar Kokhba rebels (c. 132 CE) spoke Aramaic natively, and that few, if any, were more proficient in Hebrew than Aramaic. This is gleaned from the implication by a rebel scribe that he was more familiar with Greek than Hebrew (Emerton, 1973: 7). Thus, Hebrew must have been a very uncommon language by the 2nd century CE if a group of rebels from all around the country included only a handful of speakers. Hebrew was so scarce, in fact, that there were more inscriptions in Greek discovered in a Galilean burial ground than inscriptions in Hebrew (Avigad & She’arim: 1976). If there were truly more Greek-speaking than Hebrew-speaking Jews in 1st century Palestine, then Hebrew must have been spoken by a tiny minority, as very few Palestinian Jews ever adopted Greek as a vernacular.
While Hebrew declined in use as a vernacular, it maintained its place in Jewish society as the language of religion, high writing, and nationalist politics. Fassberg writes that Hebrew “became restricted to liturgy and writing” after the 2nd century CE, as Aramaic “overwhelmed” the language and replaced it completely in daily conversation (Fassberg, 2012: 277). Lange writes that, even after its death as a spoken language, “Hebrew continued as a written language” (Lange: 343). Hebrew’s use as a written and liturgical language marks its maintained place as a High language, as it was used for these functions throughout the Hellenic Period, as well. Much of written Hebrew was, in fact, religious writing, blending the two uses of the language into a very prestigious mixture. For instance, the Mishnah, the first written collection of Oral Torah, was written mostly in Hebrew (Lange: 345). Hebrew’s use as a written and liturgical language was so far reaching, in fact, that Lange claims that it was revived in the 3rd century “to serve as the medium of a new religious culture” and to be used in all corners of religious scholarship (Lange: 343). This theorized revival placed Hebrew at the top of Jewish culture, enshrining it even after its death as the High language of Judaism and Jewish heritage. This is clear from rulings in the Mishnah, which “does not polemise against the use of other languages” but does call on elites to use Hebrew (Lange: 348). Clearly, the religious scholarly class of Jewish society placed great import in Hebrew, partially relegating it to that most prestigious part of society. In fact, Hebrew was so pervasive among the scholarly class that all 3rd century rabbinic texts were written in Hebrew (Lange: 348). As Aramaic was certainly the first language of the vast majority of Jews in Palestine at the time, rabbis included, the intentional use of Hebrew as a rabbinic language speaks volumes to its prestige even near and after its death as a spoken language. It seems, as such, that Hebrew was associated with the rabbinic movement, further evidenced by the fact that almost all rabbis’ gravestones from the period were written in Hebrew (Lange: 350). Without a doubt, Hebrew occupied a prestigious place in Palestinian Jewish society as a liturgical and written language until and after its death in the 3rd century CE.
Hebrew was also used by Jewish nationalists during the Early Diasporic Period as a political language signifying Jewish heritage and identity. During the first three centuries CE, Hebrew began to be viewed as “uniquely linked to the people of Israel and their God” (Lange: 343). Because of the association of Hebrew with the Jewish people, Schwartz claims that Hebrew was considered an important national symbol by most Jews in Palestine (Schwartz, 1995: 27). This association fit very naturally with the budding nationalist movement that engendered the violence of the Jewish-Roman Wars (c. 66 CE — 135 CE), as Hebrew could distinguish Jews from their neighbors and thereby bolster nationalist claims to peoplehood. In fact, the Bar Kokhba rebels favored Hebrew in their correspondences despite it being the native language of neither their scribes nor their letters’ recipients (Emerton, 1973: 6). Rather, they chose Hebrew to embody their allegiance to the Jewish nation and to harken back to an era before Roman rule. Because the scribes were not native Hebrew speakers, Lange posits that the use of the language in the Bar Kokhba letters was likely “an artificial effort due to nationalistic principles” (Lange: 344). This goes to show that Hebrew held a strong nationalistic meaning for many Jews at the time and occupied a very prestigious position, especially for a dying language.
The final nail in Hebrew’s proverbial coffin came in the form of the large-scale ethnic cleansing of Jews from Judea perpetrated by the Roman Empire in response to the Jewish-Roman Wars (c. 66 CE — 135 CE) of the period. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Romans expelled an estimated 30,000 Jews from Judea (Gilbert: 2). This immense depopulation of Jews in Palestine would have significantly lowered the number of Hebrew speakers in the country, scattering the Hebrew language and detaching it from its former enclaves where it had occupied a more secure place in society. Apart from expulsions, Flavius Josephus alleges in his epic account of the First Jewish-Roman War that 97,000 Jews were enslaved by the Romans throughout the revolt and 1,100 killed in the Siege of Jerusalem (c. 70 CE) (Josephus). Of course, the statistical accuracy of a 1st century historian can hardly be relied upon to the letter, but it is clear that a substantial part of Judea was depopulated of Jews. This severe and sudden demographic change led to a steep drop in the total number of Hebrew speakers present in Palestine, as Judea was the Hebrew-speaking heartland of the country at the time.
After the Bar Kokhba Revolt (c. 132–136 CE), a large number of Jews relocated from Judea into Upper Galilee, where the Roman Empire had little influence and could not control the Jewish population (Feldman, 1986: 95). This likely caused a large linguistic demographic shift in Galilee, as Judeans were much more commonly Hebrew-speaking than their Galilean countrymen (Ex 1). To what degree the language persisted as a vernacular in Galilee in the following centuries is certainly debatable. It seems likely, however, that displaced Hebrew-speaking refugees would experience pressure to adopt Aramaic as their main language in their new home, as Hebrew-speaking enclaves no longer existed. As discussed in Section 1, such enclaves encourage the preservation of immigrant languages over generations. Without them, Hebrew no longer had a shield against language shift to Aramaic. In addition to the lack of Hebrew-speaking enclaves in Galilee, intermarriage with Aramaic-speaking Galileans and general integration into Galilean society likely put pressure on Judean migrants to linguistically assimilate. The lack of Hebrew-speaking enclaves, coupled with intermarriage with Aramaic-speakers increased refugee children’s chances of using Aramaic as a main language, hampered only by the presence of Hebrew speakers at home. According to Josephus “as many as a million Jews” were deported from Judea following the Bar Kokhba Revolt (Gilbert: 4). Of course this number may be high, but even a percentage of it would mean the destruction of a huge part of the Jewish community in Palestine, erasing Hebrew-speaking communities in Judea completely and leaving only the majority Aramaic-speaking Galilee (Ex 1). Schwartz points out that this erasure was so complete, in fact, that “the Bar Kokhba Revolt…put an end to large-scale Jewish settlement in Judaea,” leading to the death of Hebrew in the 3rd century (Schwartz, 1995: 15). Thus, Hebrew’s journey came to an end in a series of bloody and horrific ethnic cleansings aimed to suppress Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire.
Conclusion
Similarly to the process whereby non-English speakers are pressured to adopt English in the United States and Canada, Hebrew speakers felt pressure to gradually adopt Aramaic over several generations. Language shift from Hebrew to Aramaic in Palestine was accompanied by five empires and various kingdoms, the emergence of Greek as a lingua franca in the region, the advent of Christianity, multiple large expulsions of Jews from the country, and the beginning of the Jewish diaspora. Throughout the thousand year Jewish language shift in Palestine, Hebrew gradually died out as a spoken language and took its place in Jewish society as the language of religion, writing, and nationalism, while Aramaic took the mantle of the vernacular of Jews in the country until the Islamic conquest of the 7th century CE. In conclusion, the Hebrew language eventually died out as a spoken vernacular in the 3rd century CE as a result of economic benefits associated with Aramaic, ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s Jews, and intermarriage with Aramaic speakers, and was replaced by Aramaic instead of Greek because of Greco-Roman antisemitism and Jewish enclaves.
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