Hebrew in the Middle Ages From the tenth century , it was outside of Palestine, among the various Jewish communities in the Diaspora ( / galut) that Hebrew survives until his remarkable revival in the land of Israel ( / Eretz Israel) in the twentieth century.
In everyday life the Jews spoke the language of the country in which they lived, reserving the Hebrew language in worship field. It is in this language that the Jews of the Diaspora prayed three times a day, they read the Torah and studying the comments and is also in Hebrew sages ( / hakhamim) corresponded to different countries. Production areas in Hebrew worship, cultural and professional show the dynamics of the Hebrew language on the long-term history.
Modern Hebrew: Language revival
Eliezer Ben-Yehudah at his desk
The Hebrew has experienced in the twentieth century a modern revival under the leadership of Eliezer Ben Yehudah ( 1858 - 1922 ).
The work of Ben Yehudah finds its origin in the period known as the Haskalah ().
The Haskalah
Haskalah is a philosophical movement influenced by the Enlightenment French, initiated in the late eighteenth century in Germany by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), and that means better integration of Jews in their non-Jewish, by the practice of a "modern" education, involvement in scientific or philosophical debates, and integration into economic circuits of the time.
Part of the movement has also focused on a revival of the use of the Hebrew language. It had become exclusively a religious language used for worship. Supporters of the Haskalah , the maskilim (), at least those interested in this issue, wanted to expand use secular language, and spread the use in Jewish populations.
In 1793, the first Hebrew-language periodical is published by maskilim City Prussian of Koenigsberg : / hameasef ("The Collector"). An important part of the paper is devoted to translations, to philology , literary creation of the modern type and news.
In 1853, Avraham Mapu , the father of the Hebrew novel, published a "biblical story" that will be a great success with readers: The Love of Zion.
Shalom Abramovich , better known under the name of Mendele Moich Sforim (Mendele the bookseller), invented after a detour via the Yiddish Hebrew prose a new blend of Biblical Hebrew and Rabbinic.
Haskalah develops gradually in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in Russia where she encounters hostility from more traditionalist, are less exposed to assimilation in Germany.
It is in Central and Eastern Europe that develops the Hebrew Press: Several newspapers were born in Vienna , in Galicia ( / Halutz, / Hashahar) or in the Russian Empire ( / hamagid, / hamelits). The latter played a key role in the dissemination of ideas "modernization" of literary works and the use of secular Hebrew-specific maskilim.
These were very early confronted with the relative poverty line (8000 words, 500 roots) of the Hebrew language, especially to evoke the modern world. The problem has two origins: on the one hand, Hebrew was a language dating back to antiquity , secondly it was a formal language that specializes in religious matters and that was most used in virtually outside the religious sphere.
Some writers, such as Mendele Moich Sforim , thus began a creative vocabulary, inventing new words based on Hebrew and Arabic roots.
The maskilim and managed to nurture the literary use of the Hebrew language, partly modernized.
Ben Yehuda
It was born in 1858 in a Lithuanian village Eliezer Perlman. His master at the yeshiva (Talmudic school), he learned Hebrew grammar and read in secret, like other students, the story of Avraham Mapu , The Love of Zion. He continued his medical studies in Paris where he had the opportunity to speak Hebrew, and conceived the idea of reviving the use of that language. In 1878 he wrote an article in ha-shahar where he called Jews speak Hebrew.
Supporter of the first Zionist group, the Lovers of Zion , Eliezer Perlman in 1881 chose the surname of Eliezer Ben Yehuda and moved into the city of Jerusalem in Palestine Ottoman. Married the same year, he decided not to contact his wife Deborah in Hebrew. It forbids us to communicate with his son, Ben Zion (which later bore the name of Itamar Ben-Avi), in another language. The maskilim had developed a literary language, but at the initiative of Ben Yehuda initiated himself as the revival of spoken Hebrew.
In 1894, Eliezer Ben Yehuda began writing a dictionary together all the Hebrew terms used in modern Hebrew. To do this, he founded the Hebrew religious (Biblical or Mishnaic), as well as the creative work of the first lexical maskilim. This work remains insufficient, Eliezer Ben Yehuda was the source of many neologisms as "restaurant" ( / mis'adah), "newspaper" ( / iton) or "watch" ( / sha'on). It is also the basis for the use of the Sephardic pronunciation (he considered to be more faithful to the ancient pronunciation) of the Hebrew religion as the basis of the pronunciation of modern Hebrew.
After fifteen years, the first volume of the Thesaurus of ancient and modern Hebrew language was published. The sixth and seventh volumes were published shortly before his death in 1922. It was not until 1959 that the complete set of sixteen volumes was completed.
Objections and accessions
The practice of "vulgar" and the daily "sacred language" ( / leshon Ha qodesh) will lead to the very strong hostility of the Jews more religious. During the twentieth century , most Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), however, gradually will rally to the daily practice of the language "modernized", while retaining the Hebrew religious worship.
Some groups Haredim today, as the Edah Haredit continue to refuse the use of secular Hebrew, reserving a sacred use. Israeli members of the Edah current use and always Yiddish as a spoken language.
Conversely, the Zionist movement quickly defended the use of Hebrew modernized maskilim , especially in the version of Ben Yehuda.
If in Der Judenstaat , Theodor Herzl did not believe in the Hebrew language as uniform of the Jewish state, Zionist organizations that appeared between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century it rallied very quickly. The Hebrew and became an official language of Mandatory Palestine (1922-1948), then to Israel after 1948.
The Academy of the Hebrew Language
The language is officially governed by the Academy of the Hebrew Language ( / HaAkademia LaLashon Haivrit).
Summary
Ben Yehuda is not the sole creator of modern Hebrew. The maskilim its predecessors have contributed. Speakers of Hebrew who followed him have continued to create words, process specific to any living language. But the magnitude of his work of creation and identification of words, it appears inevitable as a founder.
Grammar of the Hebrew
Writing Consonants
Hebrew is written and read from right to left and has a consonantal alphabet ( abjad ) twenty-two letters.
The current writing of Hebrew writing is called square ( / Ktav merouba ') that the sages of the Talmud referring to as an "Assyrian script" ( / Ktav Ashouri).
The sages of the Talmud knew two books of the Hebrew writing known Hebrew ( / Ktav 'ivri - now known as Paleo-Hebrew alphabet ) and Assyrian writing. According to a Talmudic treatise, the people of Israel have abandoned the Samaritan Hebrew script at the time of the Talmud and kept the only Assyrian writing: "Israel has chosen to write the sacred language and Assyrian and left to hediotot
Loading ...