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Hebrew a Dead Language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 43 23 July 2007 at 4:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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So in a sense Ivrit (modern Hebrew) is an artificial language just as Esperanto, with the difference that it has drawn most of its vocabulary from one source, and it has got a country to back it up and produce native users? That a bit of surprise to me, because it would have been more logical just to modernize the variant used in old religious texts, where you can probably even find indications of the vowels.
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| DM12 Newbie United States Joined 6546 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 43 23 July 2007 at 7:50am | IP Logged | |||||
I was under the impression that Modern Hebrew is a modernized variant of Biblical Hebrew, and therefore viewed as a continuation, rather than a different language. I know it has borrowed some features and vocab from other languages (including Turkish and yiddish), but then again, many other languages do the same as they evolve. Edited by DM12 on 23 July 2007 at 8:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| alexptrans Pentaglot Senior Member Israel Joined 6764 days ago 208 posts - 236 votes Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew, Russian*, French, Arabic (Written) Studies: Icelandic | Message 11 of 43 23 July 2007 at 9:17am | IP Logged | |||||
Not exactly. While Hebrew was not spoken natively for about two thousand years, Hebrew writing never stopped. Thousands upon thousands of books were written in Hebrew during those two millennia. Modern Hebrew is basically: Biblical Hebrew morphology and vocabulary + Mishnaic Hebrew syntax (Mishnaic Hebrew was still a spoken language, by the way) + influences from later Hebrew literature. It also has some vocabulary from European languages and Turkish, while the slang comes mostly from Arabic and Yiddish. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6690 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 12 of 43 23 July 2007 at 10:12am | IP Logged | |||||
I noticed that you are a Hebrew speaker. Do you agree with this post:
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| alexptrans Pentaglot Senior Member Israel Joined 6764 days ago 208 posts - 236 votes Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew, Russian*, French, Arabic (Written) Studies: Icelandic | Message 13 of 43 23 July 2007 at 10:21am | IP Logged | |||||
No. Being a native speaker of a Slavic language and a practically native speaker of Hebrew, I do not agree with those linguists who consider it a Slavic language. In fact, most researchers of Hebrew and Semitic languages, both in Israel and elsewhere, do not agree (to put it very mildly) with those linguists. I wish someone would show me how exactly Hebrew is a Slavic language. Does it have core Slavic vocabulary? Does it have seven noun cases? Does it have palatalization? Does it have perfective and imperfective aspect? As for the second paragraph, yes, every language, including Hebrew, will change over two millennia. Modern Hebrew is certainly not the same as Biblical Hebrew, although it is significantly easier for a Hebrew speaker to understand the Old Testament than it is for an English speaker to understand Beowulf. Edited by alexptrans on 23 July 2007 at 10:30am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Roq71 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6593 days ago 63 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Haitian Creole | Message 14 of 43 30 July 2007 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think that the rebirth (I dare not say resurrection) of a Hebrew is amazing.
As far as I know, it is unparalleled in history. Is there another case of a language that was dead (outside of its written and liturgical form) becoming a native language of a nation-state after such a long period of time? Latin of course survives in its liturgical role but I do not consider it a similar case as it is not a living language being taught to children as a primary tongue. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 6999 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 15 of 43 31 July 2007 at 7:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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Does anyone have an idea about how close modern and ancient Hebrew are, as compared with Ancient and modern Greek ? I do not know anything about modern and ancient Greek (nor Hebrew by the way) but I heard they are quite different.
As for the comparison with Latin as a sacred language used by the Catholics, I think it does prove the point Latin is a dead language. No one knows how to pronounce it, just listen to Latin read by English or French speakers, then Italians: not the same language ! Is it even likely that Latin as read by Italians could be close to it's original pronunciation, the memory of which is probably engraved in the rocks and walls of Italy (I hope some physics wizard finds the way to revive sounds from rocks one day ... yeas it's Sceince Fiction) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zorbo Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6248 days ago 7 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, FrenchC2 Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 16 of 43 07 August 2008 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think that most scholars would agree that, in terms of pronunciation, the Yemenite Jews come closest to speaking Classical Hebrew. In their religious services today, they preserve sounds that exist, for example, only in Classical Arabic (and they can also say "peh" which gives trouble to many Arabic speakers). However, as far as I know, this Hebrew was never used in day to day activities.
As I understand it, Modern Israeli Hebrew, is not entirely a Semitic language. It's really a cross between Classical Hebrew, Hebrew words derived from roots to create modern words that did not exist in the Bible, along with a generous dose of Yiddish and European influence (especially in structure) and some local Arabic dialect. Despite there being a large amount of people living in Israel who are either Jews from Arab countries or their descendants as well as local Arabs, who can pronounce the Semitic sounds (for example "ayin", "het", trilled "resh") most of the descendants of the Jews from Arab countries pronounce these sounds as Europeans would - as homonymns - perhaps not wishing to sound too much like Arabs. When I first heard Israelis speaking English, I thought they were Eastern European Jews... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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