Daniel Sperber

Some seventy years have passed since Prof. Saul Lieberman first published his seminal Greek in Jewish Palestine (1942), and over a hundred years since the appearance of Samuel Krauss’ great “Lehnwörter”, a dictionary- concordance of Greek and Latin loanwords in rabbinic literature (1899). In the ensuing period a wealth of papyrological and epigraphic material has been discovered, greatly enriching our knowledge of Koine Greek. Furthermore, many classic rabbinic texts are now available in critical editions, and newly discovered tracts have been published revealing additional lexical items, thus broadening the boundaries of our knowledge of rabbinic parlance. This study seeks to continue in the paths laid out by the earlier pioneers, adding lexical entries to Krauss’ work, analyzing morphological changes in the process of loaning from one language to another, examining dialectical characteristics, patterns of corruption, and thus explaining many hitherto misunderstood passages in rabbinic literature. In addition, the study points to differing degrees of rabbinic bilingualism, noting greater and lesser concentrations of foreign words in different geographic areas, socio-economic strata and realms of social activity. While this study answers many hitherto unresolved questions, it also poses many new ones, opening up fresh areas for future research.