Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon

FAIN: PW-51346-13

University of Texas, Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)
Jo Ann Hackett (Project Director: July 2012 to December 2016)

Development of an electronic Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon, based on a print dictionary published in 1907. The project would update entries, incorporating the past century's textual discovery and scholarship.

The project we propose under this grant involves the updating, expanding and making accessible of one of the primary English language resources for the study of the Hebrew Bible and its world. This project, the electronic Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, is based on the most widely-used and reliable dictionary for the study of Biblical Hebrew, the Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament of Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and C.A. Briggs, which is now over one hundred years old. A century of discoveries and new analyses is missing from this essential reference, and yet nothing of comparable utility or reliability has appeared to replace it or fill in these gaps. Our project to update this dictionary and make it accessible as a freely-available online resource, with a print-on-demand option that is in wide use here at UT, is ready to move ahead, and with support from NEH, can become a reality in just a few years.

Media Coverage

Brown-Driver-Briggs (Media Coverage)
Publication: Wikipedia
Date: 8/4/2015
Abstract: Reference to project on Wikipedia
URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown–Driver–Briggs

Associated Products

A Compound Etymology for Biblical Hebrew zûlatî ‘except’ (Article)
Title: A Compound Etymology for Biblical Hebrew zûlatî ‘except’
Author: Aren Wilson-Wright
Author: John Huehnergard
Abstract: This paper suggests an alternative derivation for the Biblical Hebrew preposi- tion ??? ?? ??? ‘except’. It does not derive from an alleged verbal root ZWL, but is rather to be compared with Akkadian ša la and Aramaic di la with the same meaning and thus originates from the fusing of three elements: the West Semitic relative particle *du, the Semitic negative particle *la, and the pro- nominal morpheme *-ti. This derivation has better comparative Semitic sup- port than the traditional derivation; it also accounts for a large number of instances of the problematic hireq compaginis.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hbr/summary/v055/55.huehnergard.html
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Hebrew Studies
Publisher: National Association of Professors of Hebrew

The Semitic Background of Arabic faqir ‘poor’ (Article)
Title: The Semitic Background of Arabic faqir ‘poor’
Author: John Huehnergard
Abstract: A recent Comparative Lexical Study of Qur?anic Arabic lists no Semitic cognates for faqir ‘poor’ and faqr ‘poverty.’ The Semitic root *p-q-r, however, is well attested, and its disparate meanings in other Semitic languages shed interesting light on its original semantic range in early Semitic, namely, ‘to want, be wanting,’ and on its later semantic development in Arabic and other languages. Related instances of the Semitic root *b-q-r are also considered, as are the phonological implications of the variation in the initial root consonant.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_221.ahtml
Primary URL Description: Book publisher
Access Model: Academic book publisher
Format: Other
Publisher: Harrassowitz Verlag

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