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Re: crosspost from Ioudaios
Dear Michael
My original posting some two weeks ago (on Ioudaios only), was to ask
about spoken languages in post-70 Palestine. As a targum scholars,
I am well aware of (and in favor of) the the arguments by Kutscher and
others for the dominence of ARamaic as the main spoken language, but also
of an ongoing role for Hebrew (whatever it is). However, all these
arguments are rather vague. They rarely pinpoint geographical location,
class, religion or religious training (although Goshen-Gottstein's
work on CPA is the exception here).
Following on thoughts inspired by the above-mentioned article by Steve
Fraade, I am wondering whether there is any scholarly work incorporating
the archeological finds (inscriptions) of the last few decades in putting
together a language map (?) over time of Palestine.
I also know that there is all sort of methodological problems of using
written material to draw conclusions about the spoken language. My initial
posting asked whether there had been any significant progress in the
methodology of asking this question. (Steve, does your forthcoming book
deal with any of this? How about giving us a hint or two?)
I hope this clarifies matters somewhat.
Paul
Paul Flesher
Religious Studies
University of Wyoming