| Samaritan Hebrew | |
|---|---|
| ࠏࠁࠓࠉࠕÎbrit | |
| Pronunciation | [iːbrit] |
| Region | Israel andPalestine, predominantly inNablus andHolon |
| Extinct | c. 2nd century[1] survives in liturgical use |
| Samaritan script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | smp |
| Glottolog | sama1313 |
| Linguasphere | 12-AAB |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Samaritan Hebrew (Samaritan Hebrew:ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ,romanized: ʿÎbrit) is a reading tradition used liturgically by theSamaritans for reading theBiblical Hebrew of theSamaritan Pentateuch.
For the Samaritans, Ancient Hebrew ceased to be a spoken everyday language. It was succeeded bySamaritan Aramaic, which itself ceased to be a spoken language sometime between the 10th and 12th centuries and was succeeded byLevantine Arabic (specifically, the Samaritan variety ofPalestinian Arabic).
Thephonology of Samaritan Hebrew is very similar to that of Samaritan Arabic and is used by the Samaritans in prayer.[2] Today, the spoken vernacular among Samaritans is evenly split betweenModern Hebrew and Samaritan Arabic, depending on whether they reside inHolon orKiryat Luza.
The early history of Samaritan Hebrew is poorly documented, though it cannot be easily associated with earlyIsraelian Hebrew. Because of the relatively late divergence ofSamaritanism from mainstreamJudaism 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.[3]
The dialect did not survive long in a literary form as by the first century CE, it was already being supplanted bySamaritan 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 Hebrewpiyyutim.[3]
The Samaritan language first became known in detail to the Western world with the publication of a manuscript of theSamaritan Pentateuch in 1631 byJean Morin.[5] In 1616 the travelerPietro Della Valle had purchased a copy of the text inDamascus. This manuscript, now known as Codex B, was deposited in aParisian library.[6]
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 theSecond Temple period beforeMiddle Aramaic supplanted it.[7]
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Samaritan Hebrew is written in theSamaritan alphabet, a direct descendant of thePaleo-Hebrew alphabet, which in turn is a variant of the earlierProto-Sinaitic script.
The Samaritan alphabet is close to the script that appears on many Ancient Hebrew coins and inscriptions.[8] By contrast, all other varieties of Hebrew, as written byJews, employ the latersquare Hebrew alphabet, which is in fact a variation of theAramaic alphabet that Jews began using in theBabylonian captivity following the exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use this stylized "square" form of the script used by theAchaemenid Empire forImperial Aramaic, its chancellery script[9] while the Samaritans continued to use the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which evolved into the Samaritan alphabet.
In modern times,a cursive variant of the Samaritan alphabet is used in personal affects.
Consonants
| Name | A'laf | Bit | Ga'man | Da'lat | Iy | Baa | Zen | It | Ṭit | Yut | Kaaf | La'bat | Mim | Nun | Sin'gaat | In | Fi | Tsaa'diy | Quf | Rish | Shan | Taaf |
| Samaritan Letter | ࠀ | ࠁ | ࠂ | ࠃ | ࠄ | ࠅ | ࠆ | ࠇ | ࠈ | ࠉ | ࠊ | ࠋ | ࠌ | ࠍ | ࠎ | ࠏ | ࠐ | ࠑ | ࠒ | ࠓ | ࠔ | ࠕ |
| Square Hebrew (Ktav Ashuri) letter | א | ב | ג | ד | ה | ו | ז | ח | ט | י | כ | ל | מ | נ | ס | ע | פ | צ | ק | ר | ש | ת |
| Pronunciation | [ʔ] | [b] | [ɡ] | [d] | [ʔ] | [b],[w] | [z] | [ʔ],[ʕ] | [tˤ] | [j] | [k] | [l] | [m] | [n] | [s] | [ʔ],[ʕ] | [f],[b] | [sˤ] | [q],[ʔ] | [r] | [ʃ] | [t] |
Vowels
| Niqqud withࠌ/מ |  |  |  |  |  |  , , |
| value | /a/,/ɒ/ | /e/ | /e/,/i/ | /o/,/u/ | (geminate consonant) | /ʕa/ |
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar~Uvular | Pharyn- geal | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | emp. | plain | emp. | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||
| Stop | voiceless | t | tˤ | k | q | ʔ | |||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sˤ | ʃ | ||||
| voiced | z | ʕ | |||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
Samaritan Hebrew shows the following consonantal differences from Biblical Hebrew: The original phonemes*/bɡdkpt/ do not have spirantized allophones, though at least some did originally in Samaritan Hebrew (evidenced in the preposition "in" ב-/av/ or/b/).*/p/ has shifted to/f/ (except occasionally*/pː/ >/bː/).*/w/ has shifted to/b/ everywhere except in the conjunction ו- 'and' where it is pronounced as/w/.*/ɬ/ has merged with/ʃ/, unlike in all other contemporary Hebrew traditions in which it is pronounced/s/. The laryngeals/ʔħhʕ/ have become/ʔ/ or null everywhere, except before/aɒ/ where*/ħʕ/ sometimes become/ʕ/./q/ is sometimes pronounced as[ʔ], though not in Pentateuch reading, as a result of influence from Samaritan Arabic.[11]/q/ may also be pronounced as[χ], but this occurs only rarely and in fluent reading.[11]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː |
| Mid | e eː | (o) |
| Open | a aː | ɒ ɒː |
| Reduced | (ə) | |
Phonemic length is contrastive, e.g./rɒb/ רב 'great' vs./rɒːb/ רחב 'wide'.[13] Long vowels are usually the result of the elision of guttural consonants.[13]
/i/ and/e/ are both realized as[ə] in closed post-tonic syllables, e.g./bit/ בית 'house'/abbət/ הבית 'the house'/ɡer/ גר/aɡɡər/ הגר.[14] In other cases, stressed/i/ shifts to/e/ when that syllable is no longer stressed, e.g./dabbirti/ דברתי but דברתמה/dabbertimma/.[14]/u/ and/o/ only contrast in open post-tonic syllables, e.g. ידו/jedu/ 'his hand' ידיו/jedo/ 'his hands', where/o/ stems from a contracted diphthong.[15] In other environments,/o/ appears in closed syllables and/u/ in open syllables, e.g. דור/dor/ דורות/durot/.[15]
Stress generally differs from other traditions, being found usually on the penultimate and sometimes on the ultimate.
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| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | ࠀࠍࠊࠉā̊nā̊ki | ࠀࠍࠇࠍࠅā̊nā̊nnu | |
| 2nd person | male | ࠀࠕࠄåttå | ࠀࠕࠌattimma |
| female | ࠀࠕ(ࠉ)åtti (note the finalyodh) | ࠀࠕࠍattən | |
| 3rd person | male | ࠄࠅࠀū | ࠄࠌimma |
| female | ࠄࠉࠀī | ࠄࠍࠄinna | |
| this | that | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| singular | masc | ࠆࠄzē | alaz (written with ahe at the beginning).[citation needed] |
| fem | ࠆࠀࠕzē'ot | ||
| plural | ࠀࠋࠄilla | ||
Who, which: éšar.
When suffixes are added, ē and ō in an unstressed syllable may become ī and ū: bōr (Judeanbohr) "pit" > buˈrōt "pits". Note also af "anger" > ˈeppa "her anger".
Segolates behave more or less as in other Hebrew varieties: ˈbeṭen "stomach" > ˈbaṭnek "your stomach," ke′seph "silver" > ke′sefánu (Judean Hebrewkasˈpenu) "our silver," ˈderek > dirkaˈkimma "your (m. pl.) road" but ˈareṣ (in Judean Hebrew:ˈʾereṣ) "earth" > ˈarṣak (Judean Hebrewˈʾárṣeḵa) "your earth".
Thedefinite article is a- or e-, and causesgemination of the following consonant unless it is aguttural; it is written with ahe, but as usual, theh is silent. Thus, for example: ˈennar / ˈannar = "the youth"; elˈlēm = "the meat"; aˈʾemor = "the donkey".
Regular plural suffixes are
Dual is sometimes -aˈyem (Judean Hebrew: -ˈayim), šenatayem "two years," usually -ˈēm like the plural yeˈdēm "hands" (Judeanyaˈḏayim.)
Similar to Jews, Samaritans have the tradition of taboo avoidance of theTetragrammaton, either spelling out loud with the Samaritan letters: "Yoḏ Ye Bā Ye", or sayingShema "the Name" in Aramaic, similar to JudeanHaShem.
| perfect | imperfect | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | plural | singular | plural | ||
| 1st person | -ti | -nu | e- | ne- | |
| 2nd person | male | -ta | -tímma | ti- | te- -un |
| female | -ti | -tên | ti- -i | te- -na | |
| 3nd person | male | - | -u | yi- | yi- -u |
| female | -a | ? | ti- | ti- -inna | |
"in, using", pronounced:
"as, like", pronounced:
"to" pronounced:
"and" pronounced:
Other prepositions:
