Learning Dead Languages is a Drag

Read this, if you don’t believe me. You’ll be laughing out loud.

My first class in Hebrew was nothing like the seminary Greek class Lingamish describes in the link. I was 15 at the time. My teacher, a bouncy grad student named Ruth Driss, probably all of 23, marched into the classroom and informed us that she would speak to us in Hebrew, and only Hebrew, during class. And we would respond to her in Hebrew, and only Hebrew, during class.

By now I was getting excited. Ruth exuded enthusiasm and energy. And I, well I needed to go to the bathroom.

That’s how I learned my very first sentence (not word, which is bad pedagogy) in the language I came to love, thanks also to Ruth:

אני רוצה להשתין

In English, that’s “I have to go pee.”

What a nice way to start.

I was fortunate to learn Hebrew in this way. Better to start out with modern Hebrew, and then segue into biblical Hebrew.

Randall Buth and like-minded pedagogues are right to teach dead languages, including biblical Greek and Hebrew, as if they were living languages. There are many who advocate for teaching Latin as a living language. Menachem Mansoor taught us biblical Hebrew according to the ulpan method. I don’t ever remember thinking of Hebrew as a dead language.

Biblical Hebrew and Greek can be taught as living languages. Generally speaking, they are not. Language instruction, as normally endured, more often follows the pattern described by Lingamish.

UPDATE: No, Peter Kirk and I did not consult before posting with similar emphases. He makes some points more fully than I do. Go here.

For Bible trivia on peeing and such, look below the fold.

A frozen phrase to describe a male in ancient Hebrew is:

מַשְׁתִּין בְּקִיר

That is, “one who pees against a wall.’ How appropriate. Not something a female does. The phrase occurs 6x in the Tanakh. For some reason, the phrase is not rendered literally in modern translations.

 

The term for ‘urine,’ occurring only in the plural, is from the same hollow root (שׁין; note the unusual infixed t in the Hiphil form cited above; cf. the equivalent verb in Akkadian, on which it might be based):

לֶֽאֱכֹל אֶת־חֲרֵיהֶם (צוֹאָתָם)

וְלִשְׁתּוֹת אֶת־שֵׁנֵיהֶם (מֵימֵי רַגְלֵיהֶם) עִמָּכֶם׃

The above is a quote from Isa 36:12 (// 2 Kings 18:27). The Ketiv readings (which I’ve vocalized) were probably considered vulgar. The whole may be translated:

who are going to[1] eat their dung (waste)

and drink their pee (the water of their legs) along with you.

Quite the rhetorician, that Rab-shakeh.

The details, but not the meaning, of another expression in ancient Hebrew is disputed:

אַךְ מֵסִיךְ הוּא אֶת־רַגְלָיו (Judges 3:24)       

וַיָּבֹא שָׁאוּל לְהָסֵךְ אֶת־רַגְלָיו    (1 Sam 24:4)

“Ack! He must be relieving himself.”

“And Saul entered to relieve himself.”

According to BDB, the verb in the expression derives from סכך ‘cover.’ This comment follows: “אֶת־רַגְלָיו, i.e. with long garments, euphemism for evacuating the bowels, from posture assumed.”

But in that case, one might have expected the preposition על ‘over’ before the thing covered. I favor a derivation from סוך ‘pour.’ ‘Legs’ on this view is an evasive reference, or euphemism, for that which is between the legs. Lit., ‘make pour the legs.’ It must be remembered, of course, that רגלים in ancient Hebrew, like ידים, has a broader reference than ‘feet’ and ‘hands,’ respectively: ‘legs’ and ‘arms’ are sometimes the appropriate renderings (for the first, see Ezek 16:25; for the second, see Jer 38:12).

I don’t know if I’m the first to suggest this. It's hard to believe I am.

UPDATE: Tyler Williams and Duane Smith suggest other ways to understand the idiom “he that pisseth against the wall” (KJV). Take a look!

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[1] Ingressive use of the infinitive; syntactically, a kind of relative clause (are you reading this,

Robert Holmstedt?).

Comments

[Peter Kirk]

Great minds think alike, they say! Well, you and I both thought of a great mind, Randall Buth. And maybe we both love Hebrew because we didn't have to learn it the old-fashioned way.

As for the last part of your post, there is a parallel here in the closely related languages Azerbaijani and Turkish. In Azerbaijani qıç means "leg", but the Turkish cognate (spelled with a "k" at the beginning, I won't spell it out so as not to offend any Turkish readers) means what is between the male legs. The Azerbaijani word is actually going out of use because of increasing contact with Turks. Well, we have the same situation in the UK, in which the good old-fashioned KJV word for what you call a "rooster" is in decline even over here to avoid offending Americans.

[Tyler Williams]

Interesting theory on going pee. My take on that idiom may be found here.

[John Hobbins]

Thanks, Tyler, for a great link.

My little Anna likes to announce what she is about to go and do before she does it, no. 1 or no. 2. In favor of no. 1 for the verbal expression is the apparently related nominal expression מי רגלים.

[Robert Holmstedt]

Hi John,

Of course I'm reading. What other blog has consistently insightful biblical discussion (slanted toward the Hebrew Bible in particulars) and reminds me how to "take a leak" in Hebrew? :-)

Unfortunately, I can't say that my start on Hebrew was as exciting. I started studying Hebrew on my own (with Mansoor and through UW's correspondence program). To think that I couldn't pronounce anything decently for over a year!

I agree that Hebrew learning should be fun, dynamic, and use as much of our language receptors as possible (eyes, ears, smell, movement, etc.) However, I can't say that I agree with your enthusiasm for Randy Buth's method in all the particulars. And my participation in a BH pedagogy workshop this summer, at which we tested and refined teaching materials build solely on the communicative learning approach and in which Randy participated as well, has only confirmed my position that ancient language teaching should be an (albeit odd) mixture of the grammar-translation approach as well as the communicative learning approach. Our goals simply differ too much from a modern language sequence. ?אתה מסכים אתי או לא

As for the construction in question, I would neither take it as a relative nor take the preposition על as a continuation of the prep. אל in the previous clause. Instead, the על PP is a way to express obligation, e.g., עלי ללכת 'I have to go'. So, this part of the verse is best translated, in my humble opinion, "Won't the men sitting on the wall have to eat their dung and drink their urine with you?" (lit. "isn't it incumbent upon them men sitting on the wall to eat...")

[John Hobbins]

Robert,

By all means, you could be right about the Isa // 2 Kgs passage. It is true that NJPSV, NRSV, etc. translate with a relative clause, and not in terms of an expression of obligation, but that makes your counter-proposal all the more interesting.

I imagine you're right that a hybrid approach to teaching ancient languages will ultimately prove best. I'm still learning here.

For example, I am beginning to think it might be better to teach Hebrew without vowels on paper as much as possible, or in a two-phase process.

But I'll know better after trying it out on guinea pigs this fall.

[Robert Holmstedt]

John,

Well, if there's one thing I'm pretty familiar with, it's the syntax of relative clauses. :-)

I find it interesting that you're going to teach without vowels. My grad instructor and I have reached the same essential conclusion and are also going to teach without vowel pointing early on. Then I'm going to make sure in 2nd year that they are not dependent on the vowel points by having them read unpointed biblical texts as well as selections from epigraphic and DSS texts (and maybe a few bits of Ben Sira). It sounds like so much fun I can hardly wait.

By the way, I should have said that I agree with the idea that biblical and modern should both be studied (for those who have such an opportunity). Apart from the differences (which I think are more the area of semantics than in basic syntax), a modern course fills the second language acquisition holes left by studying biblical Hebrew. It's a marriage that should happen more often and not only has my personal appreciation (or empathy) for Hebrew as a language increased, so has my ability to carry out research on and in it.