The Distinct Linguistic Reality of the Jews in Late Antique Palestine and Babylonia as Reflected in the Lexicosyntax of ‮אפשר‬‎ ʾpšr

Abstract

Abstract Aramaic influence on Hebrew among Jews in the Land of Israel is well established, especially from the Persian period (from the sixth century BCE) until it completely replaced Hebrew as the natively spoken vernacular sometime before the Arab conquest (seventh century CE). Scholars have paid little attention to the Jews of that period as a distinct speech community, the uniqueness of their dialect or dialects of Aramaic, and the possibility that their ancestral language, Hebrew, had influenced their unique dialects of Aramaic. The present article aims to illuminate these understudied questions by analyzing the syntax of the lexeme ‮אפשר‬‎ ʾpšr, unique to Rabbinic Hebrew and the Jewish dialects of Qumran, Targumic, and Talmudic Aramaic from Palestine and Babylonia. This lexeme, and its shared syntax among those languages and dialects, points to an early use of language to maintain ethnic and religious distinctness among Jews in antiquity.