שערי לשון: מחקרים בלשון העברית, בארמית ובלשונות היהודים מוגשים למשה בר-אשר (Sha'arei Lashon: Studies in Hebrew, Aramaic and Jewish Languages Presented to Moshe Bar-Asher). Volume 2: Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic (review)

Hebrew Studies 50 (2009) 392 Reviews The third part of this book is entitled “Medieval Hebrew.” It includes studies on the language as it is reflected in commentaries and other literary works during the medieval period. It seems that the editors intentionally distinguished studies of Biblical Hebrew during the medieval period (included in the second part) from studies of the language of the medieval period (in the third part). In the third part, there are studies such as: Ephraim Hazan, “The Epistles of R. Yaakov Eben Tsur: Studies in Language and Style;” Sara Japhet, “A Linguistic Discussion from the School of the Tosafists: Ktmxl (Song of Songs 4:1);” Zion Ukashi, “Double Entendre in the Poem of Shmuel Ha-Nagid;” and Angel Saenz-Badillos, “Hebrew Among Late Jewish Writers from Sefarad.” Sha‘arei Lashon volume 1 contains important works, written by leading scholars in the field of Hebrew language. It is a significant contribution to the study of Hebrew from Biblical Hebrew through the Dead Sea Scrolls to Medieval Hebrew. Ahouva Shulman York University Toronto, Ontario, Canada sahouva@yorku.ca MyCgwm Mydwhyh twnwClbw tymrab ,tyrboh NwClb Myrqjm :NwCl yroC rCa-rb hCml (Sha‘arei Lashon: Studies in Hebrew, Aramaic and Jewish Languages Presented to Moshe Bar-Asher). Volume 2: Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic. Edited by A. Maman, S. E. Fassberg, and Y. Breuer. Pp. w + 452 + vii + *84. Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 2007. Cloth, $37.83. This is the second of three volumes of Sha‘arei Lashon, and is dedicated to Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic. The first volume includes studies in Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Exegesis, and Medieval Hebrew. Clearly chronological order of the different periods was not the only consideration of the editors in determining the content of each volume since Rabbinic Hebrew preceded Medieval Hebrew. One can assume that the editors decided to devote an entire volume to Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic because of the number of important studies in Rabbinic Hebrew, which required a separate volume. In this volume there are thirty-four articles, twenty-eight in Hebrew, three in English, and three in French. It is divided into two parts: the first is entitled “Mishnaic Hebrew and Talmudic Literature,” and the second “Aramaic.” In the first part of this volume, several articles deal with the meaning, the function, and the history of certain words or expressions in Rabbinic Hebrew Studies 50 (2009) 393 Reviews Hebrew. Yoel Elitzur (“hdym in Mishnaic Hebrew and the Last Passage in the Tractate Avoth,” pp. 19–30) discusses the meanings of the word hdym as key to correctly understanding the last passage in tractate Avoth. He concludes that none of the known meanings of hdym applies to the context of this passage . Elitzur offers another meaning of hdym: a tractate, a halakic passage, or one of the sedarim of the Mishnah. He presents other passages in the Mishnah where this interpretation of hdym is the only one that would be plausible. Gabriel Birnbaum (“The History of the Word yadk,” pp. 31–46) thoroughly describes and analyzes the occurrences of the word yadk / yydk and the structures where it is found. He presents the different forms and syntactic functions of yadk. His analysis begins with the only occurrence of yådVk in Biblical Hebrew, where the meaning is not clear, through Rabbinic Hebrew, where the meaning is “deserving, adequate, worthy,” to Modern Hebrew in which the syntactic structures of sentences with yadk are different and its meaning is “desirable, advisable.” Syntactically, in Modern Hebrew, the subject of yadk is an infinitive form or a clause, and it is impersonal (lacks any markers of number or person—M″gj). Birnbaum claims that this change (in syntax and in meaning) did not take place at the beginning of the twentieth century, as previously thought, but in Rabbinic Hebrew of the thirteenth century. He assumes that the foreign languages spoken by the writers were the substratum for the change in structure and meaning of yadk, but he does not point with certainty to a specific language. Natan Braverman (“-b lka and the Like in Tannaitic Hebrew,” pp. 47– 61) examined the function of the preposition b following the verbs hbrh, zja, arq, aCo, qso, htC, lka...