Process of making Hebrew a lingua franca in Israel
Front page of HaZvi newspaper with a sub-headline reading "Newspaper for news, literature and science". HaZvi revolutionized Hebrew newspaper publishing in Jerusalem by introducing secular issues and techniques of modern journalism.
The revival of the Hebrew language took place in Europe and the Southern Levant region toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, through which the language's usage changed from purely the sacred language of Judaism to a spoken and written language used for daily life in Israel. The process began as Jews from diverse regions started arriving and establishing themselves alongside the pre-existing Jewish community of Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century. Arabic-speaking Jews in Palestine and the linguistically diverse newly arrived Jews switched to Hebrew as a lingua franca,[1][2] the historical linguistic common denominator of all the Jewish groups. At the same time, a parallel development in Europe changed Hebrew from primarily a sacred liturgical language into a literary language,[3] which played a key role in the development of nationalist educational programs.[4] Modern Hebrew was one of three official languages of Mandatory Palestine, and after the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, one of two official languages of Israel, along with Modern Arabic. In July 2018, a new law made Hebrew the sole official language of the state of Israel, giving Arabic a "special status".[5]
More than purely a linguistic process, the revival of Hebrew was utilized by Jewish modernization and political movements, led many people to change their names[6] and became a tenet of the ideology associated with settlement and renaming of the land, Zionism[7] and Israeli policy.
The process of Hebrew's return to regular usage is unique; there are no other examples of a natural language without any native speakers subsequently acquiring several million native speakers, and no other examples of a sacred language becoming a national language with millions of native speakers.
The language's revival eventually brought linguistic additions with it. While the initial leaders of the process insisted they were only continuing "from the place where Hebrew's vitality was ended", what was created represented a broader basis of language acceptance; it includes characteristics derived from all periods of Hebrew language, as well as from the non-Hebrew languages used by the long-established European, North African, and Middle Eastern Jewish communities, with Yiddish being predominant.
^Parfitt, Tudor (1972) 'The Use of Hebrew in Palestine 1800–1822.' Journal of Semitic Studies, 17 (2). pp. 237–252.
^Tudor Parfitt; ”The Contribution of the Old Yishuv to the Revival of Hebrew“, Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XXIX, Iss. 2, 1 October 1984, pp. 255–265, https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/XXIX.2.255
^Parfitt, Tudor (1983) ”Ahad Ha-Am's Role in the Revival and Development of Hebrew.” In: Kornberg, J., (ed.), At the crossroads: essays on Ahad Ha-am. New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 12–27.
^Parfitt, Tudor (1995) ”Peretz Smolenskin, the Revival of Hebrew and Jewish Education.” In: Abramson, G. and Parfitt, T., (eds.), Jewish education and learning : published in honour of Dr. David Patterson on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 1–11.
^Halbfinger, David M.; Kershner, Isabel (19 July 2018). "Israeli Law Declares the Country the 'Nation-State of the Jewish People'". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
^"The Hebraization of Surnames". Jewish Agency for Israel. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 7 January 2009.
^Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 442. " Yet in all [of young David Ben-Gurion's] activity, three salient principles remained constant. First, Jews must make it their priority to return to the land; ‘the settlement of the land is the only true Zionism, all else being self-deception, empty verbiage and merely a pastime’. [Quoted in Encyclopaedia Judaica, iv 506.] Second, the structure of the new community must be designed to assist this process within a socialist framework. Third, the cultural binding of the Zionist society must be the Hebrew language.
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TherevivaloftheHebrewlanguage took place in Europe and the Southern Levant region toward the end ofthe 19th century and into the 20th century, through...
century, theHebrewlanguage experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version ofthe ancient language was...
called Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the standard form oftheHebrewlanguage spoken today. Developed as part ofHebrew'srevival in the late 19th century...
The Academy oftheHebrewLanguage (Hebrew: הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית, ha-akademyah la-lashon ha-ivrit) was established by the Israeli government...
"dying" language). There has only been one successful instance of a complete languagerevival, theHebrewlanguage, creating a new generation of native...
Modern Hebrew poetry, poetry written after therevivaloftheHebrewlanguage List ofHebrew-language poets Hebrew literature Israeli literature Jewish literature...
(known as the Radak), Abraham ibn Ezra and Judah ben David Hayyuj. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is the main revivalist ofHebrew as a modern spoken language, although...
particularly since the inception of Zionism in the 19th century. This notion, which was part of what drove the Zionist revivaloftheHebrewlanguage, was further...
successfully once: therevivaloftheHebrewlanguage. Hebrew had survived for millennia since the Babylonian exile as a liturgical language, but not as a...
felt that therevivaloftheHebrewlanguage was a critical part of their endeavours. By the 1920s, Hebrew was already a well-established language in Mandatory...
Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form oftheHebrewlanguage, a language in the Canaanitic branch ofthe Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area...
With the revivalofHebrew as a native language, and especially with the establishment of Israel, the pronunciation ofthe modern language rapidly coalesced...
United States. The movement also fluctuated throughout the 20th and 21st century because oftherevivaloftheHebrewlanguage and the negative associations...
was the daily language. This created a diglossic situation until in 1976, Dimotiki was made the official language. During therevivaloftheHebrew language...
either as a first language or proficiently as a second language. Its standard form, known as Modern Hebrew, is the main medium of life in Israel. Arabic...
a limited extent commerce, it was extinct as a language used in everyday life until its revival. Hebrew was considered impractically archaic or too sacred...
“The Hidden Question” which focuses on relations between Zionists and Arab Palestinians. He was also a major proponent in therevivaloftheHebrew language...
Manx-medium primary school. Therevivalof Manx has been made easier because thelanguage was well recorded, e.g. the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer had been...
Palestine at the time. The Second Aliyah is largely credited with therevivaloftheHebrewlanguage and establishing it as the standard language for Jews...
Greek language question Linguistic purism Similar movements Landsmål, Nynorsk, Riksmål (Norwegian) Modern Standard Arabic RevivaloftheHebrewlanguage Language...
Perlman, birth name of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a Jewish Litvak lexicographer, the driving spirit behind therevivaloftheHebrewlanguage in the modern era. Elio...
in the writing oftheHebrewlanguage and other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. In modern Hebrew, vowels...
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