Testament books used merely the consonant-signs (§ 1 k), and even now the written scrolls of the Law used in the synagogues must not, according to ancient custom, contain anything more. The present pronunciation of this consonantal text, its vocalization and accentuation, rest on the tradition of the Jewish schools, as it was finally fixed by the system of punctuation (§ 7 h) introduced by Jewish scholars about the seventh century A.D.; cf. § 3 b.
[k] An earlier stage in the development of the Canaanitish-Hebrew language, i.e. a form of it anterior to the written documents now extant, when it must have stood nearer to the common language of the united Semitic family, can still be discerned in its principal features:—(1) from many archaisms preserved in the traditional texts, especially in the names of persons and places dating from earlier times, as well as in isolated forms chiefly occurring in poetic style; (2) in general by an a posteriori conclusion from traditional forms, so far as according to the laws and analogies of phonetic change they clearly point to an older phase of the language; and (3) by comparison with the kindred languages, especially Arabic, in which this earlier stage of the language has been frequently preserved even down to later times (§ 1 m, n). In numerous instances in examining linguistic phenomena, the same—and consequently so much the more certain—result is attained by each of these three methods.
Although the systematic investigation of the linguistic development indicated above belongs to comparative Semitic philology, it is nevertheless indispensable for the scientific treatment of Hebrew to refer to the ground-forms[1] so far as they can be ascertained and to compare the corresponding forms in Arabic. Even elementary grammar which treats of the forms of the language occurring in the Old Testament frequently requires, for their explanation, a reference to these ground-forms.
[l] 5. Even in the language of the Old Testament, notwithstanding its general uniformity, there is noticeable a certain progress from an earlier to a later stage. Two periods, though with some reservations, may be distinguished: the first, down to the end of the Babylonian exile; and the second, after the exile.
[m] To the former belongs, apart from isolated traces of a later revision, the larger half of the Old Testament books, viz. (a) of the prose and historical writings, a large part of the Pentateuch and of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings; (b) of the poetical, perhaps
- ↑ Whether these can be described simply as ‘primitive Semitic’ is a question which may be left undecided here.
