Sociolinguistics: A Key to the Typology and the Social Background of Biblical Hebrew (Essay‪)‬

The methods of sociolinguistics enable us to view the large-scale variation in Biblical Hebrew in the light of the interaction between language and society, and thus to relate linguistic phenomena to a certain socio-cultural and sociopolitical context. One of the important aspects of sociolinguistic analysis is the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation between oral and written language (Chafe, Halliday). Thus we attempt the sociolinguistic characterization of three strata of biblical narrative: (1) corpus A--Achaemenid period (Late Biblical Hebrew, including the final stages of the Babylonian period); (2) corpus B--late Judean monarchy (seventh, early sixth century, including the inception of the Babylonian period); (3) corpus C--texts that are not explicitly related to periods A or B. An example for the relationship between linguistic features and the sociopolitical situation is provided by the Aramaic borrowings in corpus A (Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther). These borrowings pertain to a large extent to the scribal/administrative register, and thus represent the provincial chancery, where Aramaic was the official language. The imprint of the scribal chancery likewise comes to the fore in the literary style of this corpus. Like the Aramaic contracts and epistolography of the Achaemenid period, these texts stand out by the frequency of long noun groups, elaborate sentence structures and often highly complex hypotaxis. This characterization is confirmed by syntactic-stylistic analysis of a series of passages describing (1) public festivities/festive meals; (2) anointment and public honor; and (3) battles. In spite of the large variety in topic, rhetorical structure, and expressivity, the style of all passages is to a large extent characterized by the same features. These passages embody the elaborate, writerly style, also exemplified by prophetic discourse of the period (Haggai and Zachariah). The writerly style also dominates corpus B, representing the Judean royal chancery (e.g., Deuteronomy, Joshua and Kings, Jeremiah History, and such epigraphic texts as the Siloam inscription, and the documents from Lachish and Arad).