Song of Songs - Language

Language

Song of Songs for the first time gives literary representation to the everyday post-exilic vernacular. It contains loan words from languages with which Hebrew had contact in post-exilic times, such as Persian, Greek, and Aramaic, and contains numerous items of vocabulary that are otherwise unknown in Biblical Hebrew but are known from Rabbinic Hebrew, and these expressions give the impression of being part of a living language and not the result of an archaic or artificial style. There are longer phrases that are typical of Rabbinic Hebrew in word order and are different from Biblical Hebrew.

Read more about this topic:  Song Of Songs

Famous quotes containing the word language:

    “Whether we regard the Women’s Liberation movement as a serious threat, a passing convulsion, or a fashionable idiocy, it is a movement that mounts an attack on practically everything that women value today and introduces the language and sentiments of political confrontation into the area of personal relationships.”
    —Arianna Stassinopoulos (b. 1950)

    “A president, however, must stand somewhat apart, as all great presidents have known instinctively. Then the language which has the power to survive its own utterance is the most likely to move those to whom it is immediately spoken.”
    —J.R. Pole (b. 1922)

    “It’s not that we want the political jobs themselves ... but they seem to be the only language the men understand. We don’t really want these $200 a year jobs. But the average man doesn’t understand working for a cause.”
    —Jennie Carolyn Van Ness (b. c. 1890–?)