Samaritan Hebrew language Information & Samaritan Hebrew language Links at HealthHaven.com

Samaritan Hebrew
עברית ‘Ivrit
Pronunciation	[ʔiwˈʁiθ]
Spoken in	Israel and Palestinian Authority territories, predominantly in Samaria and Holon.
Total speakers	fewer than 1,000; liturgical only
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic Canaanite Samaritan Hebrew; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Samaritan abjad
Official status
Official language in	none
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	–
ISO 639-3	heb
	Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Samaritan Hebrew language is a descendant of Biblical Hebrew as pronounced and written by the Samaritans. It is used in the reading tradition of the Samaritan Pentateuch.

[edit] Writing

Ancient inscription in Samaritan Hebrew. From a photo c.1900 by the Palestine Exploration Fund.

It is written in the Samaritan alphabet, a direct descendant of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet (itself a variation of what phoenicians used as an alphabet, see, the Phoenician alphabet), whereas all other varieties of Hebrew are written in the later Hebrew alphabet, a variation on the Aramaic alphabet.

[edit] Pronunciation

The Samaritan pronunciation of Hebrew differs in several respects from most others. The laryngeals He and Cheth have disappeared or turned into vowels. Behth and Waw both are pronounced as b (in fact, the letters' names are pronounced Bîhth and Baa), only the waw-conjunctive is pronounced as u. There is no double pronunciation of the Shin like Jewish Hebrew; it is always pronounced sh. Consonants with dagesh are pronounced geminate. Stress is commonly penultimate rather than ultimate.

[edit] Phonology

Name	Letter	Phoneme and Allophone (IPA)
’ālāph	א	/ʔ/
bîhṯ	ב	/b/ - v allophonically
Gā´mān	ג	/ɡ/ - ɣ allophonically¹
Dā´lath	ד	/d/ - ð allophonically¹
Iē’	ה	/i/, null at the end of words.²
bā	ו	/b/, null after /o/ or /u/ ²
zēn	ז	/δ/
ihēṯ	ח	/i/,
ṭiṯ	ט	/tˁ/
Yūhth	י	/j/, null after /ɛ/, /e/, or /i/²
káph	כ, ך	/k/ - x allophonically¹
Lā´bāth.	ל	/l/
mīm	מ, ם	/m/
Nūn	נ, ן	/n/
Sîn´gath/Sîn´kath.	ס	/s/
‛A´yîn	ע	/ʕ/, (/ɣ/³)
phī’'	פ, ף	/p/ - f allophonically¹
Tsa•dhey´	צ, ץ	/sˁ/
Qūhph.	ק	/kˁ/ (or /q/)
Rīhšh.	ר	/ɾ/ (trilled like in Arabic)
śhan/	ש	/ɬ/, /ʃ/
tāph	ת	- θ

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Parts of speech

[edit] Pronouns

[edit] Personal

I	anáki
you (male)	átta
you (female)	átti (note the final yohdh)
he	û
she	î
we	anánu
you (male, plural)	attímma
you (female, plural)	éttên
they (male)	ímma
they (female)	ínna

[edit] Demonstrative

This: masc. ze, fem. zéot, pl. ílla.

That: alaz (written with a he at the beginning).

[edit] Relative

Who, which: éšar.

[edit] Interrogative

Who? = mi. What? = ma.

[edit] Noun

When suffixes are added, ê and ô in the last syllable may become î and û: bôr (Judean bohr) "pit" > búrôt "pits". Note also af "anger" > éppa "her anger".

Segolates behave more or less as in other Hebrew varieties: beţen "stomach" > báţnek "your stomach", ke′seph "silver" > ke′sefánu (Judean Hebrew kaspe′nu) "our silver", dérek > dirkakimma "your (m. pl.) road" but áreş (in Judean Hebrew: ’e′rets) "earth" > árşak (Judean Hebrew ’arts-ekha) "your earth".

[edit] Article

The definite article is a- or e-, and causes gemination of the following consonant, unless it is a guttural; it is written with a he, but as usual, the h is silent. Thus, for example: énnar / ánnar = "the youth"; ellêm = "the meat"; a'émur = "the donkey".

[edit] Number

Regular plural suffixes are -êm, Judean Hebrew -im) masc., -ôt (Judean Hebrew: -oth.) fem: eyyamêm "the days", elamôt "dreams".

Dual is sometimes -ayem (Judean Hebrew: a′yim) (šenatayem "two years"), usually -êm like the plural (yédêm "hands", Judean Hebrew yadhayim.)

[edit] Tradition of Divine name

Samaritans have the tradition of either spelling out loud with the Samaritan letters

"Yohth, Ie', Baa, Ie’ "

or saying "Shema" meaning "(The Divine) Name" in Aramaic, similar to Judean Hebrew "Ha-Shem" .

[edit] Verbs

Affixes are:

	perfect	imperfect
I	-ti	e-
you (male)	-ta	ti-
you (female)	-ti	?
he	-	yi-
she	-a	ti-
we	?	ne-
you (plural)	-tímma	te- -un
you (female, plural)	-tên	?
they (male)	-u	yi- -u
they (female)	?	ti- -inna

[edit] Particles

[edit] Prepositions

"in, using", pronounced:

b- before a vowel (or, therefore, a former guttural): b-érbi = "with a sword"; b-íštu "with his wife".
ba- before a bilabial consonant: bá-bêt (Judean Hebrew: ba-ba′yith) "in a house", ba-mádbar "in a wilderness"
ev- before other consonant: ev-lila "in a night", ev-dévar "with the thing".
ba-/be- before the definite article ("the"): barrášet (Judean Hebrew: Bere’·shith′) "in the beginning"; béyyôm "in the day".

"as, like", pronounced:

ka without the article: ka-demútu "in his likeness"
ke with the article: ké-yyôm "like the day".

"to" pronounced:

l- before a vowel: l-ávi "to my father", l-évad "to the slave"
el-, al- before a consonant: al-béni "to the children (of)"
le- before l: le-léket "to go"
l- before the article: lammúad "at the appointed time"; la-şé'on "to the flock"

"and" pronounced:

w- before consonants: wal-Šárra "and to Sarah"
u- before vowels: u-yeššeg "and he caught up".

Other prepositions:

al: towards
elfáni: before
bêd-u: for him
elqérôt: against
balêd-i: except me

[edit] Conjunctions

u: or
em: if, when
avel: but

[edit] Adverbs

la: not
kâ: also
afu: also
ín-ak: you are not
ífa (ípa): where?
méti: when
fâ: here
šémma: there
mittét: under

[edit] Bibliography

J. Rosenberg, Lehrbuch der samaritanischen Sprache und Literatur, A. Hartleben's Verlag: Wien, Pest, Leipzig.
Ben-Hayyim, Ze'ev, and Tal, Abraham, A Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew Based on the Recitation of the Law in Comparison with the Tiberian and Other Jewish Traditions: 2000 ISBN 1-57506-047-7

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