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Samaritan Hebrew
Samaritan Hebrew (Samaritan Hebrew: ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ, romanized: ʿÎbrit) is a reading tradition used liturgically by the Samaritans for reading the Biblical Hebrew of the Samaritan Pentateuch.
For the Samaritans, Ancient Hebrew ceased to be a spoken everyday language. It was succeeded by Samaritan Aramaic, which itself ceased to be a spoken language sometime between the 10th and 12th centuries and was succeeded by Levantine Arabic (specifically, the Samaritan variety of Palestinian Arabic).
The phonology of Samaritan Hebrew is very similar to that of Samaritan Arabic and is used by the Samaritans in prayer. Today, the spoken vernacular among Samaritans is evenly split between Modern Hebrew and Samaritan Arabic, depending on whether they reside in Holon or Kiryat Luza.
The early history of Samaritan Hebrew is poorly documented, though it cannot be easily associated with early Israelian Hebrew. Because of the relatively late divergence of Samaritanism from mainstream Judaism it is only by the first century BCE that there was definitely a separate Samaritan dialect. The roots of the Samaritan dialect are likely older than this, but were not at this point distinctly Samaritan.
The dialect did not survive long in a literary form as by the first century CE, it was already being supplanted by Samaritan Aramaic. Though it remained in liturgical use, Samaritan Hebrew eventually nearly stopped being used as a language for new literary compositions.
Starting in the 1300s, a liturgical revival of Samaritan Hebrew began, which resulted in new Hebrew piyyutim.
The Samaritan language first became known in detail to the Western world with the publication of a manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch in 1631 by Jean Morin. In 1616 the traveler Pietro Della Valle had purchased a copy of the text in Damascus. This manuscript, now known as Codex B, was deposited in a Parisian library.
In five volumes between 1957 and 1977, Ze'ev Ben-Haim published his monumental Hebrew-language work on the Hebrew and Aramaic traditions of the Samaritans. Ben-Ḥayyim, whose views prevail today, proved that modern Samaritan Hebrew is not very different from the Hebrew spoken by other local groups in the Second Temple period before Middle Aramaic supplanted it.
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Samaritan Hebrew
Samaritan Hebrew (Samaritan Hebrew: ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ, romanized: ʿÎbrit) is a reading tradition used liturgically by the Samaritans for reading the Biblical Hebrew of the Samaritan Pentateuch.
For the Samaritans, Ancient Hebrew ceased to be a spoken everyday language. It was succeeded by Samaritan Aramaic, which itself ceased to be a spoken language sometime between the 10th and 12th centuries and was succeeded by Levantine Arabic (specifically, the Samaritan variety of Palestinian Arabic).
The phonology of Samaritan Hebrew is very similar to that of Samaritan Arabic and is used by the Samaritans in prayer. Today, the spoken vernacular among Samaritans is evenly split between Modern Hebrew and Samaritan Arabic, depending on whether they reside in Holon or Kiryat Luza.
The early history of Samaritan Hebrew is poorly documented, though it cannot be easily associated with early Israelian Hebrew. Because of the relatively late divergence of Samaritanism from mainstream Judaism it is only by the first century BCE that there was definitely a separate Samaritan dialect. The roots of the Samaritan dialect are likely older than this, but were not at this point distinctly Samaritan.
The dialect did not survive long in a literary form as by the first century CE, it was already being supplanted by Samaritan Aramaic. Though it remained in liturgical use, Samaritan Hebrew eventually nearly stopped being used as a language for new literary compositions.
Starting in the 1300s, a liturgical revival of Samaritan Hebrew began, which resulted in new Hebrew piyyutim.
The Samaritan language first became known in detail to the Western world with the publication of a manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch in 1631 by Jean Morin. In 1616 the traveler Pietro Della Valle had purchased a copy of the text in Damascus. This manuscript, now known as Codex B, was deposited in a Parisian library.
In five volumes between 1957 and 1977, Ze'ev Ben-Haim published his monumental Hebrew-language work on the Hebrew and Aramaic traditions of the Samaritans. Ben-Ḥayyim, whose views prevail today, proved that modern Samaritan Hebrew is not very different from the Hebrew spoken by other local groups in the Second Temple period before Middle Aramaic supplanted it.