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Hebrew a Dead Language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6378 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 43 08 August 2008 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is an interesting article on the revival of Hebrew in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/world/middleeast/08hebrew. html?em You have to remove the space before html in the link to get it to work. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zhiguli Senior Member Canada Joined 6440 days ago 176 posts - 221 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Mandarin | Message 26 of 43 08 August 2008 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||
Hebrew does have a fair number of loan words from Indo-European languages but it's still very much a Semitic language in its grammar and overall structure (and a lot of those IE loan words end up getting chopped up and re-assembled into Hebrew patterns) so I really don't know where people are coming up with this nonsense that it's an IE language. Knowing Hebrew gives you a _big_ advantage in learning Arabic and vice-versa, the grammar is almost the same and there are plenty of common roots. The same can not be said of going from Hebrew to, say, Russian or German. (though going from Russian to Hebrew I couldn't help but notice many calques and set expressions that were like mirror translations from the former to the latter)
It actually takes a whole lot away from it. When Ben-Yehuda was busy reviving the language he had to invent a lot of words for mundane, everyday things as his (first native-speaker) children grew up because those words simply did not exist - they were things that either did not exist when Hebrew ceased to be spoken or just not the kinds of things that would be recorded in sacred texts. And even today there's a feeling that Hebrew has a deficient vocabulary, something that the Israelis I know complain about when looking for that perfect word (that already exists in some other language). There is the Hebrew Academy that comes up with "pure" Hebrew words for things like SMS but people usually don't pay any attention to them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hebrewtext Tetraglot Newbie Israel Joined 5920 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew*, Arabic (Written), English, German | Message 27 of 43 08 September 2008 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hebrew was learnt along the years, each child was sent to a class at the age of 3 to study it, whether in Poland or in Yemen. masses and new books were written, the language had seen "revivals" several times in history, such as in medieval spain.
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| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6551 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 28 of 43 08 September 2008 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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No deader than English. Who here speaks Old English?
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| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6029 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 29 of 43 12 November 2008 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just looking back on this thread I had a giggle. I intend to learn Old English!
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| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6074 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 30 of 43 13 November 2008 at 6:05am | IP Logged | ||
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So what is Yiddish then?
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| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6147 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 31 of 43 13 November 2008 at 6:24am | IP Logged | ||
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| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6029 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 32 of 43 13 November 2008 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||
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In fact, tons of words from many european languages other than German also. And depending on the speaker lived changed how many from each branch.
Jewish alnguages are a very fascinating thing. If it is Yiddish, Ladino, caucasion variants, or any other it is sure to interest me at least. You would probably understand Ladino a lot more gogglehead since it was a variant of Old Spanish. Check it out. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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