--- title: "The Development of Hebrew in Antiquity – A Computational Linguistic Study — Baitner 2025" description: "This is a project report on Qumran Hebrew (QH), the language of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and whether it is a literary imitation of Biblical… 1 reference." authors: ["Hallel Baitner", "Dimid Duchovny", "Lee-Ad Gottlieb", "Amir Yorav", "Nachum Dershowitz", "Eshbal Ratzon"] year: 2025 venue: "Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Ancient Language Processing" source: "https://aclanthology.org/2025.alp-1.7/" doi: "10.18653/v1/2025.alp-1.7" licence: "CC BY 4.0 (ACL Anthology)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/baitner-2025-development-hebrew-antiquity-computational-linguistic/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/baitner-2025-development-hebrew-antiquity-computational-linguistic/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2025](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2025/page/4/) / The Development of Hebrew in Antiquity – A Computational Linguistic Study # The Development of Hebrew in Antiquity – A Computational Linguistic Study **Authors:** Hallel Baitner; Dimid Duchovny; Lee-Ad Gottlieb; Amir Yorav; [Nachum Dershowitz](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/nachum-dershowitz/); Eshbal Ratzon · **Year:** 2025 · **Venue:** Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Ancient Language Processing (NAACL 2025), pp. 65–70 **Link:** [aclanthology.org/2025.alp-1.7](https://aclanthology.org/2025.alp-1.7/) · library `aclbulk-2025-baitner-development-hebrew-antiquity-computational-linguistic` · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) (ACL Anthology) [**0** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W4411113482) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 · [Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Ancient Language Processing](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/2025.alp-1/) · [licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) - [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/2025.alp-1.7/) - [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/2025.alp-1.7.pdf) - [DOI 10.18653/v1/2025.alp-1.7](https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.alp-1.7) - [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4411113482) **Authors (6)** 1. [Hallel Baitner](https://openalex.org/A5045940382) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7552-7956) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2087439161) · h 1 · 2 citations · 4 works 2. [Dimid Duchovny](https://openalex.org/A5094360083) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0009-0002-8073-5295) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2294972037) · h 0 · 0 citations · 2 works 3. [Lee-Ad Gottlieb](https://openalex.org/A5057494907) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3355-351X) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/1781936) · h 17 · 1,172 citations · 73 works 4. [Amir Yorav](https://openalex.org/A5117862591) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2365912421) · h 0 · 0 citations · 1 works 5. [Nachum Dershowitz](https://openalex.org/A5039993352) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0363-2735) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/1759551) · h 43 · 8,852 citations · 511 works 6. [Eshbal Ratzon](https://openalex.org/A5053551814) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9960-2615) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/19329422) · h 5 · 56 citations · 44 works Citations and author metrics: OpenAlex, 2026-10-14; authors with the same name are not always told apart. ## What it is about This is a project report on Qumran Hebrew (QH), the language of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and whether it is a literary imitation of Biblical Hebrew or a spoken dialect that continues it. The authors take lemma-level data from Accordance (commercial, not publishable) for the Hebrew Bible, the Mishnah and the scrolls. They represent each book or tractate as a lemma-frequency vector, compare them with cosine similarity after raw-frequency and TF–IDF weighting, and cluster them with Ward linkage. They also compare verb-stem (binyanim) distributions by Euclidean distance, and extract verb valency by looking up to four words after each verb for a prepositional particle, object marker or pronominal suffix. Preliminary results match known groupings (1–2 Samuel, Kings, Chronicles), and place Tamid, Middot and Yoma with the Qumran texts, which fits their early date. Under TF–IDF, Miqsat Ma'ase ha-Torah (4QMMT) is closer to the Mishnah than to other scrolls. The valency tool misses some complements, and the authors say so; the stem analysis is still early. ## For Mova - I1. A valency extractor as a rule: after a verb, look at the next up to four tokens and classify the complement (prepositional particle, object marker, pronominal suffix, direct object). Check it against the UD trees from MACULA with `macula compare`, and count how many complements are missed. - I2. Lemma TF–IDF clustering as a stylistic measure for the `macula` corpora: split the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings into books, cluster them, and check whether the grouping matches the known order. This is a deterministic, testable baseline that needs no model. - I3. Binyanim distribution per text: count the stems of all verbs in a text, normalise by the number of verbs, and compare texts by Euclidean distance. The paper's measure is a small table that Mova can compute from the `hbo` tags. I1 goes into [languages/hbo/06-verb.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/06-verb/) (valency) and is measured by `macula compare` in `tools/macula`. I2 is a measure in `tools/macula` (on the MACULA corpus, with the dictionary builder lemmas) and a dating test for [languages/hbo/10-lexicon.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/10-lexicon/). I3 goes into [languages/hbo/06-verb.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/06-verb/) under binyanim. The data is not publishable, so only the method is carried over; any test must use open Hebrew Bible data. ## Institutions [🎓**Tel Aviv University** Tel Aviv · Israel 54 works · 7,966 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/tel-aviv-university/) Also on the byline: [Afeka College of Engineering](https://ror.org/05dhprc49). Topics[Hebrew & Aramaic](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/hebrew-aramaic/) · [Semitic languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semitic-languages/) ## Cite Cite as Hallel Baitner, Dimid Duchovny, Lee-Ad Gottlieb, Amir Yorav, Nachum Dershowitz and Eshbal Ratzon. 2025. The Development of Hebrew in Antiquity – A Computational Linguistic Study. Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Ancient Language Processing. The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.18653/v1/2025.alp-1.7](https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.alp-1.7) ```bibtex @inproceedings{baitner2025development, title = {{The Development of Hebrew in Antiquity – A Computational Linguistic Study}}, author = {Hallel Baitner, Dimid Duchovny, Lee-Ad Gottlieb, Amir Yorav, Nachum Dershowitz and Eshbal Ratzon}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Ancient Language Processing}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.18653/v1/2025.alp-1.7}, url = {https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.alp-1.7} } ``` - [← previous The Arabo-Tiberian Vocalisation System: An Undocumented Set of Medieval Vowel Signs for the Hebrew Script](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/posegay-2025-arabo-tiberian-vocalisation-system-undocumented/) - [next → The Direct Object Marker /t-/ in Bar-Kosiba Hebrew: A Manifestation of Widespread Vowel Prosthesis in Post-Biblical Hebrew](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/bunis-2025-direct-object-marker-t-bar/) - [↑ back to papers of 2025](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2025/page/4/) ## References 1 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Joseph L. Angel. 2012. Maskil, community, and religious experience in the Songs of the Sage (4Q510– 511). Dead Sea Discoveries, 19:1–27. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Joseph+L%2E+Angel%2E+2012%2E+Maskil%2C+community%2C+and+religious+experience+in+the+Songs+of+the+Sage+%284Q510%E2%80%93+511%29%2E+Dead+Sea+Discoveries%2C+19%3A1%E2%80%9327%2E)