Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim; and the men of Gilead struck Ephraim, because they said, You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim, [and] in the midst of Manasseh.
"Here is graphic evidence that language distinctions had begun to mark the rapidly widening division of the nation." [Note: Merrill, Kingdom of . . ., pp. 172-73. Cf. Daniel I. Block, "The Role of Language in Ancient Israelite Perceptions of National Identity," Journal of Biblical Literature 103:3 (September 1984):339, n. 75.] 