Learning the basics of Biblical Hebrew from a book

“Our knowledge of Biblical Hebrew is directly dependent upon Jewish oral tradition and thus on the state of that tradition during and following the various dispersions of the Jews from Palestine. This dependence arises from the peculiarly deficient orthography in which the biblical text was written: it is essentially vowelless, or at most, vocalically ambiguous (see below, §8). The actual pronunciation of the language was handed down orally … The written consonantal text itself achieved a final authoritative form around the end of the first century A. D.”

– The introduction to Thomas O. Lambdin’s “Introduction to Biblical Hebrew” (1971), pages xiii-xiv

For nearly three years, I have read Thomas O. Lambdin’s “Introduction to Biblical Hebrew” – some 284 pages of it. Specifically, I read it from 14 August 2022 through 25 July 2025, at which time I completely finished it – excepting the appendices, index, and the entirety of the glossaries (although I read many parts of these glossaries). I did this completely from a book, and never had the benefit of a classroom, a professor, or a native speaker – or even a recording of one, for that matter! I’ve never heard so much as one hour of audio of the language, even from non-native speakers, and this made it somewhat daunting at times. It may have increased the difficulty level in at least some ways, and I don’t recommend it to others unless other options are not available (as they were not for me).

A review of PBS’s “Breaking the Maya Code”

Deciphering the Maya glyphs opened up an entire world to historians …

Deciphering the Maya glyphs opened up an entire world to historians. People had long known about Ancient Maya civilization, and it was famous for the monuments that it had left behind. But until recent times, the inscriptions on these monuments had long proved impossible for linguists to decipher. The breaking of the Maya code was one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of linguistics, and allowed scholars to learn much about the early history of the Americas. It opened up a world for future study, and allowed the modern Maya people to have a greater connection with their ancestors and their heritage. Europeans are known for their colonial empires, which did not always treat the native peoples kindly (to put it mildly). Indeed, the Spanish Conquistadors had done their best to destroy many of the written Maya records that were available in their own time. But the European and North American scholars who deciphered Ancient Maya are a prominent exception to this. They did the surviving Maya an invaluable favor, by helping to undo some of the cultural damage caused by the Conquistadors.

My passion for linguistics

“Much pioneering work in documenting the languages of the world has been done by missionary organizations (such as the Summer Institute of Linguistics, now known as SIL International) with an interest in translating the Christian Bible. As of 2009, at least a portion of the bible had been translated into 2,508 different languages, still a long way short of full coverage. The most extensive catalog of the world’s languages, generally taken to be as authoritative as any, is that of Ethnologue (published by SIL International), whose detailed classified list as of 2009 included 6,909 distinct languages.”

– Website of the Linguistic Society of America

I have always been interested in languages. When I was young, I wanted to learn Spanish because of having contact with it on the playground (not to be confused with true immersion). Later on, I also got the desire to learn French as well. I wished that I could pursue German and Japanese and Chinese at one point. Later on, I instead set my sights on the dead languages of Biblical Hebrew and Greek, both of which I have since pursued in actuality. Whether it be modern languages or ancient languages, I am still fascinated by language.

Why I am learning Biblical Hebrew

“And he [Jonah] said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.”

- The Hebrew Bible, “Jonah,” Chapter 1, Verse 9 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible)

I’ve posted a lot on Facebook about how I’ve been learning Ancient Greek. There’s been a lot of good reaction to this over the years, and some of my posts about it have been surprisingly popular (at least by my standards). I plan to continue learning Ancient Greek, but I have recently decided to undertake the study of Biblical Hebrew as well. Why would I want to do this, you might ask? Why do I not content myself with the languages that I already know? This is what I address in this post. It’s easy to assume that I’m just doing this because this was the language of the “Old Testament” - or the “Hebrew Bible,” if you prefer. And in truth, that is indeed a big part of my motivation. But there are a few other reasons as well, which are also motivations for me to learn Biblical Hebrew. Thus, I thought that I’d write this post to explain.

A review of Robert McCrum’s “The Story of English” (book)

In 1986, there were two versions of “The Story of English” – a television series, and a book. I never got to see much of the television series, since it’s almost impossible to get on VHS, let alone DVD. I had the opportunity to check out a few episodes from my local library, before that library got rid of these VHS tapes (why, I don’t know). Specifically, I watched the first three episodes, two of which are considered to be the best of them. But I was able to read the bestselling book, the version that I’ll be reviewing here in this blog post. It is a fine book, which I recommend to others interested in either linguistics or English – or history, for that matter.

John Milton, author of “Paradise Lost”

What is “linguistics,” and why is it important?

“If you are considering becoming a linguistics major, you probably know something about the field of linguistics already. However, you may find it hard to answer people who ask you, ‘What exactly is linguistics, and what does a linguist do?’ They might assume that it means you speak a lot of languages. And they may be right: you may, in fact, be a polyglot! But while many linguists do speak multiple languages—or at least know a fair bit about multiple languages—the study of linguistics means much more than this.”

– Website of the Linguistic Society of America

Linguistics is the scientific study of language

I am an amateur “linguist,” in both of the popular senses of that word. In everyday speech, the word usually means someone who knows a lot of languages (I have some basic knowledge of about four myself). But the word also has the meaning of someone who studies linguistics, a different but related discipline. In the words of the Linguistic Society of America, “Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and many topics are studied under this umbrella.” (Source: LSA website) They further state that “while linguists may be better informed if they know multiple languages, the work of a linguist actually involves learning about Language, rather than learning different languages.” (Source: LSA website)

Some thoughts about foreign language education

“What do you call someone who speaks three languages? (Trilingual.) What do you call someone who speaks two languages? (Bilingual.) What do you call someone who speaks one language? (American.)”

– An old joke, with an alternative punch line saying “British”

If we were to rank the world’s languages by the total number of speakers (native and non-native), the English language would be the most spoken language in the world. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage to native speakers of English. On the one hand, it makes it easier for us to find people that speak our language when we travel abroad, and this confers many advantages upon us when we travel. On the other hand, it means that we are seldom forced to learn a foreign language, the way that our counterparts elsewhere often seem to do (hence the joke above). Knowing a foreign language confers many benefits, and not just of the economic variety. Our brains benefit from this kind of education, and it allows us to see the world differently than monolinguals do. The benefits of knowing a foreign language are often advertised by professors of languages, at least when their languages are foreign to the places where they live and teach. But which languages should we teach in our school system? In my view, we should endeavor to teach something like all of them, whether they are ancient or modern or anything in between.

A review of Rafael Lapesa's “Historia de la lengua española”

“We hope that this book, which knows how to say the important and say it well, contributes to spread linguistic knowledge that usually receives so little attention.”

– Ramón Menéndez Pidal, in the “Prólogo” (or “Foreword”) to this book, 1942 (translation mine)

The title translates in English to “History of the Spanish Language”

So I recently finished reading a book about the history of the Spanish language – written almost entirely in Spanish. I say “almost,” because there are a few exceptions to this, which I will note later in this post. (But I'm getting ahead of myself … )

General comments about the history of the language itself

The Spanish language has a long and rich history. It is a source of endless fascination to me, with written records stretching back into the time of the Roman Empire – and beyond. It's a story of political and social change – of religious and literary ideas, which have had a vast influence on Western history. It's a story of a language that would become one of the most spoken languages on Earth, with 460 million native speakers at the time that I write this (see source). This is more than 5% of the world's population, and more than any other language in the world except Mandarin Chinese. But it's also a story of human beings – of people who are always reinventing themselves (and their language) to change with the times, and filling their culture with new life and new energy every day.

First page of the Castilian epic poem “El Cantar de Mio Cid,” which is referenced often in this book

Reflections on learning about Spanish linguistics

So I recently finished reading "El español a través de la lingüística: Preguntas y respuestas" ("Spanish Through Linguistics: Questions & Answers"), edited by Jennifer D. Ewald and Anne Edstrom. You might guess from the Gringo names that this book is written by Gringos for Gringos. If so, you'd be mostly right - this book is written largely by American scholars of Spanish, for American students of Spanish linguistics, at American universities.

This book is written largely by Gringos for Gringos

This book actually has about 30 different authors, only about one-third of whom have anything resembling a Spanish name - for either their first or last names. These chapters are written almost entirely in Spanish, and are thus geared towards students of Spanish beyond the beginning levels, who are already familiar with the basics of Spanish grammar. Nonetheless, these essays are, by and large, written by Gringos for Gringos - explaining difficult Spanish words with the equivalent English words in parentheses, and answering the kinds of questions that are most likely to come from Gringos learning Spanish as a second language - rather than from native speakers of Spanish, for whom the grammatical features discussed are familiar and taken for granted, and not something that would be looked upon as strange. Why, then, did I place such value on learning it? Put differently, if the Spanish of native speakers is the most instructive for second-language learners (and it usually is), then why would I read something written largely by people who aren't that way at all?

Reflections on studying the history of languages (and how they change over time)

So I recently read a book called "Historical Linguistics" (3rd edition), by Winfred P. Lehmann, which talks about the way that languages tend to change over time, and the way that modern scholars investigate this change. There's a strong emphasis on methodology in this book, but there are enough historical examples from actual data that I felt like I learned some interesting historical content as well - particularly from the regions I'm currently interested in most, which are the various parts of Europe. (Although there is a significant amount of content from India as well.) I feel like I learned a lot from the book.

The textbook that I read

The English Lesson

I don't know where I came across this poem, but I thought it was clever.

A review of Melvyn Bragg's “The Adventure of English” (ITV)

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

- William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (1597), Act II, Scene ii

I did not like most of my English classes growing up. This is ironic, considering I wanted to be a fiction writer, but with the notable exception of seventh grade (and English 101 in college), I found my English classes less than inspiring. So it might have come as a surprise to me that I would one day enjoy a documentary about the history of the English language. But enjoy it I did, and I felt inspired to write a post about it here.