"'Oldest Hebrew script' is found"

[lethargic_man]

"Five lines of ancient script on a shard of pottery could be the oldest example of Hebrew writing ever discovered, an archaeologist in Israel says," reports the BBC News site. "Preliminary investigations since the shard was found in July have deciphered some words, including judge, slave and king." It even provides a picture:

...which is fine for giving an impression to those who can't read Palaeo-Hebrew, and can't understand Hebrew, and is maddening to those of us who can! I've just spent the last five minutes googling other news sites, and can't find any better picture than this, which is just good enough to show that a letter aleph is being pointed to, and one or two other letters, but that's all.

How annoying!

(Of course, I'm sure if I but wait—possibly for proper publication—I will learn more.)

Comments

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Don't they have a knowledgable Jewish person?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they've got lots of knowledgeable Jewish people, but they don't want to rush into an interpretation. Possibly interpretation of the text is ambiguous, not least since at that time they hardly used any matres lectionis (the use of ו ,י and ה to indicate vowels), and there may not have been spaces between words. Furthermore, it may not be clear which letters are which, if this is older than previous known texts. There may also be words of unknown meaning.

As an example, consider the Gezer calendar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gezer_calendar), dating to the same century. The text reads (transcribed from כְּתַב עִבְרִית to כְּתַב אַשׁוּרִית):

ירחואספ|ירחוז
רע|ירחולקש
ירחועצדפשת
ירחקצרשערמ
ירחקצרוכל
ירחוזמר
ירחקצ

אבי(ה)

Can you read that? Now here's the text with spaces, vowels and matres lectionis added:

יַרְחַו אָסִ(י)ף
יַרְחַו זֶרַע
יַרְחַו לֶקֶשׁ
יֶרַח עֲצַד פִּשְׁתָ(ה)
יֶרַח קְצִ(י)ר שְׂע(וֹ)רִם
יֶרַח קָצ(וֹ)ר וְכַלֵּ(ה)
יַרְחַו זֶמֶר
יֶרַח קֵץ

Finally, a bit of interpretation: יֶרַח (lit. "moon") means here "month", and "יַרְחַו" is an old dual form: in Biblical and modern Hebrew that would be יַרְחַיִים, "two months". Also, קֵץ is misleading: it doesn't mean "end" but is a variant on what in Biblical (and modern) Hebrew would be קַיִץ, "summer".

I think I need a linguistics geekery icon. :o)

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can. Thank you for that. I know the meaning of the words in modern Hebrew but no in old.
Yes, you should have linguistics geekery icon. Maybe one with a table of different letters of different languages like the one you once showed on a piece of paper.