השפעת העברית על לשון המגילות הארמיות מקומראן וטיב המגע בין שתי השפות

With both Hebrew and Aramaic scrolls found in the Qumran caves it isevident that these were `languages in contact' among the sectarians. Though the Aramaic influence on the Hebrew in Qumran has been scrutinized closely, the effect of Hebrew on Aramaic has not attracted much attention. In my Hebraismen in den arama Èischen Texten vom Toten Meer (Heidelberg, 2008) I tried to fill this gap and examined all theHebrew influences on spelling, phonology, morphology, syntax, and the vocabulary in the Aramaic literary texts from Qumran. The implications of the findings for determining the status of Hebrew at the time of the writing of the scrolls are presented in this article.By examining the Hebraisms from different angles, stressing stylistic influences from the Hebrew Bible in particular, precise insights are gained as to the standing of Hebrew and Aramaic. The Hebrew influx intoQumran Aramaic is best explained as the influence of one literary language, namely biblical Hebrew, on another, Qumran Aramaic. This issuggested by the origin of the Hebraisms and their semantics. Neither influence of spoken Hebrew of any kind, nor influence of Mishnaic Hebrew is discernible in the corpus. The former contrasts with theAramaic influence on Qumran Hebrew and points to dominance of Aramaic as a spoken language, though the tentativeness of such generalizations from written texts must be kept in mind.