A Hebrew Dictionary of Linguistics and Philology (review)

Hebrew Studies 35 (1994) 209 Reviews a curriculum for the study of Jewish law, arranged topically. It contains material attributed to figures as early as the third century B.C.E. The vast bulk of the material is attributed to tannaim, sages from the latter years of the first century through the end of the second century C.E. The difficulty with this is that the bulk of the Mishna is anonymous and the role of the tannaim, as the author himself wrote, was "the systematic collection and transmission of traditions." This can only mean that the traditions were in large measure not their creation. Their source is a matter of debate, but the rabbinic understanding is that they were a face of the divine revelation, Torah, transmitted orally in contrast to its other face, the Torah in writing. This is discussed in chap. 10 in considerable detail. In addition, the chapter deals with the contrast between midrash and mishna and the distinction between halakah and haggadah. Chapters 11, 12, and 13 are concerned with the ultimate emergence of rabbinic Judaism as it found expression in the two Talmuds, the Babylonian and the Palestinian (Yerushalmi), with the former coming to dominate Jewish life and thought. There is a vast amount of material and learning in this small volume and one ought to be pleased with it but, as noted, it has its problems, not the least of which is an apparent expectation that the reader, if a novice in the field, know more than one knows and a repetitiveness that often trips over its own feet. Lou H. Silberman Tucson, AZ 857J6 A HEBREW DICTIONARY OF LINGUISTICS AND PHILOLOGY. By Ora Schwarzwald and Michael Sokoloff. pp. 288. Even-Yehudah, Israel: Reches, 1992. Paper, $18.00. The first version of this dictionary appeared in 1978 as a mimeographed manual issued by the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages at BarIlan University. Its earlier incarnation had approximately 1,000 entries, numerous typographical and alphabetization errors, as well as mistakes in cross-referencing between the Hebrew index and the body of the dictionary. Now published formally, this updated version is more than double in size and available to research scholars and teachers outside of Israel. There are still a few printing and alphabetization errors; however, for the most part, it does not suffer from the failings of the earlier edition. Hebrew Studies 35 (1994) 210 Reviews The dictionary is an alphabetical listing of foreign language terms, primarily English, though some are Latin, German, and French as well, along with their Hebrew equivalents. For each entry, the authors also provide an explanation and, where necessary, an illustrative example. In addition, there is a short introduction, an alphabetical Hebrew index, and a selected bibliography. A bilingual dictionary can serve as an aid for (reading) comprehension or (written) expression. It is incumbent upon compilers of bilingual dictionaries to choose one of these functions for their work, since it is difficult, if not impossible , to accomplish both in the same work. (Obviously, this does not include bilingual dictionaries which are essentially two volumes in one, as for example, Cassell's French-English/English-French dictionary.) In the dictionary under consideration here, the authors chose to produce a work which would facilitate comprehension for speakers of Hebrew who encounter foreign language terminology, primarily English, in their reading of scholarly material in linguistics. Thus, the dictionary is not just another English-Hebrew dictionary; rather, it is a specialized dictionary of a technical nature. Such a dictionary cannot be expected to fulfill all of the desiderata of ordinary bilingual dictionaries (see Sidney Landau, Dictionaries [Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984] pp. 9-10). Indeed, the purpose of a specialized dictionary is to provide information not included in an ordinary dictionary. Thus, it is appropriate to evaluate this kind of work on criteria such as comprehensiveness and usefulness, rather than on other grounds. As stated explicitly in the introduction, the authors collected terms from three sources: (1) dictionaries and lists of linguistic terminology; (2) indexes and lists of terms found in books on general and Hebrew linguistics; and (3) a selection of linguistic studies. Rather than just referring to...