A North Israelite Dialect in the Hebrew Bible? Questions of Methodology (Essay‪)‬

Undoubtedly, different dialects existed in Israel, regardless of its various geo-political definitions during the times of the Hebrew Bible. And there is no doubt there were different dialects in the north and in the south; this is an induction from common human experience and a deduction from the principles of dialect geography. So Hebraists for some time now have reserved a grammatical-lexical receptacle labeled "North Israelite" into which linguistic odds and ends are thrown for various reasons, such as the books or pericopes in which they are found or cognate languages with which they were associated. Various Hebrew language scholars have insisted not only on the existence of such a northern dialect, but upon its occasional incursion into literary biblical Hebrew as well. (1) Not only biblical scholars, but also epigraphists, have isolated a small assortment of North Israelite traits. (2) Nonetheless, no systematic description of this alleged North Israelite dialect has been offered, though one able scholar of Hebrew has suggested on the basis of his and others' work that we are now ready to begin writing a North Israelite grammar. (3) Until now, discussions of North Israelite have been fragmented, more often as miscellania and usually on the level of parenthetical or footnote importance. On a rare occasion an article may be devoted to the subject, but usually without reference to a systematic evaluation of the issue.