The Emergence of Semantics in Four Linguistic Traditions: Hebrew, Sanskrit, Greek, Arabic (review)

Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 262 Reviews cognate. Tapani Harviainen presents the text of a medieval Arabic transcription of a biblical passage together with a detailed analysis. These types of transcriptions were produced by the Karaites of the Near East in the Middle Ages. Maria Mayer-Modena presents a list of biblical names that are used in metaphorical expressions in Judeo-Italian. We give here one example of this by way of illustration. Atritophel, King David's counselor who betrayed him to his rebellious son Absalom, is used in Judeo-Italian, by antonomasia, to refer to an unsolicited counselor. Stefan C. Reif makes a thorough study of the treatment of Exodus 2 by the medieval Jewish commentators beginning chronologically with the commentary of Saadya Gaon. E. J. Revell presents a perceptive assessment of the use of gentilic epithets in the Bible and argues convincingly that they cast important light on social relations and the place of composition. In the books of Judges, Samuel. and Kings. for example. the use of gentilics reflect a view of the world centered on Judah and specifically Jerusalem. Angel Saenz-Badillos presents a very clear summary of the concepts of Hebrew grammar that were adopted by Abraham ibn Ezra. Detailed notes are given on the background of these concepts. Richard C. Steiner offers us an important insight into the background of the distinction between sin and Sin in the medieval masoretic tradition of Hebrew. He cogently argues that the reading of sin as lsI. with the same pronunciation as samekh. should be regarded as a case where the reading tradition (qere) of the biblical text diverges from the written tradition (ketiv). Finally. Emilia Fernandez Tejero explores the biblical exegesis of the sixteenth century Spanish scholar Cipriano de al Huerga with special attention to his attitude to women. Geoffrey Khan University ofCambridge Cambridge. England gkJOJ@hermes.cam.ac.uk THE EMERGENCE OF SEMANTICS IN FOUR LINGUISTIC TRADITIONS: HEBREW, SANSKRIT, GREEK, ARABIC. By Wout van Bekkum. Jan Houben. Ineke Sluiter. and Kees Versteegh. Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 82. Pp. ix + 322. AmsterdamIPhiladelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.. 1997. Cloth. $99.00. Scholars from four universities in the Netherlands put together this fme study. Wout van Bekkum contributed the section on Hebrew. which comes Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 263 Reviews first and has the briefest text (pp. 3-41) but a long bibliography (pp. 4147 ). All four collaborated on the fmal chapter, "Meaning in four linguistic traditions: a comparison" (pp. 285-300). Their English is nearly flawless, as we have come to expect of educated Dutchmen. (Translating Rabbi Yose's comment on Deut 20:8, van Bekkum writes "it is him [I] who is afraid for his transgressions that he has committed"-which falls between two stools, neither colloquial nor correct standard English.) Misprints are few and unlikely to puzzle the readers. All Hebrew words are cited in transcription only. (Likewise for the other three languages; the section on Hebrew includes many quotations in transcribed Arabic from the works of medieval Jewish writers.) Vowels are inserted in texts that were written without them; consonants are usually doubled to indicate strengthening, and fricativation is indicated inf, \I, and k. (but not in t, d. and g). When it comes to passages of ten lines or more (pp. 16, 19. 26-27. etc.), the transcription can put a strain upon readers who are quite literate in ordinary Hebrew. Furthermore, van Bekkum adheres . on the whole, to a conventional misinterpretation of the Hebrew vowels: five long (with a macron), five without a macron, and e (for the pronounced.), raised e (for... ), a (for.,). (The rare" ' which occurs in nl1Pn~ '(she) has been taken' [Gen 2:23, quoted on p. 8], is grossly misrepresented as though it were a long vowel: ';Ulh ki me'iS luqll/Jllh zo't. The transcription also overlooks the strengthened consonant in nvJ~ 'woman' and falsely lengthens the vowel right before it.) This rendering would gravely compromise a work dealing with phonetics or morphology; however , the author's focus upon meaning makes accuracy in transcription less important, so long as the Hebrew words come through recognizably. The main semantic theme of his research is the...