Style Switching in the Speech of Transjordanians

Several scholars, including the present author, have argued in recent years that the biblical writers stylistically represented the speech of Arameans by coloring it with Aramaic elements. The discovery of this technique, known as “style switching,” raises the possibility that it was also used in the quoted speech of other foreigners, particularly of Transjordanians. Until now, very little has been written on the topic, for the obvious reason that while there is a vast corpus of ancient Aramaic literature, much less is known about the Transjordanian languages. Building upon conclusions of a previous Hebrew Studies publication by the present author, this article argues that it is nevertheless possible to identify style switching forms in the speech of some Transjordanian characters featured in the Hebrew Bible.