It's not fully constructed, but it was dead as an everyday language. It became a clerical/liturgical language like how Catholics use Latin. It was like that for centuries while Jews adopted European languages, Arabic, or integrated Hebrew into languages creating things like Yiddish and Ladino. Hebrew got revived as a spoken language in the late 19th century by some of the first Jewish settlers in Ottoman Palestine.
Something I've always found interesting though is how modern Hebrew was revived in order to eliminate Yiddish, but in doing so there's a bunch of Yiddish features of modern Hebrew. I've always wondered how different things might have turned out had Arabic speaking Jews revived Hebrew instead.
But yeah modern Hebrew was Jurassic Park'd back into existence, even including the part of integrating stuff into it's DNA
Not only that, but because religious Jews believe that the Hebrew Bible is the word of god (which makes the language itself holy) the ultra-orthodox position historically was that “modern Hebrew” is heretical. An example of why they think that is along these lines: ancient Hebrew did not have a concept for a “tie game in soccer” so modern Hebrew borrowed a term from the ancient language that essentially referred to a logical stalemate between the rabbis. Using that theological term for a frivolous activity is seen as a deliberate distortion of god’s holy language.
If by “speak Hebrew” to mean “converse in modern Hebrew” that’s exactly what I’m saying. If you mean it to mean “understand the Talmud” then it’s not exactly based but also not that great a personal failing (note, I am not an Orthodox Jew - the rabbis would disagree with that)
not really. just like it was never quite dead, just resting. it was revived consciously, yes, and that involved the usual language renewal shenanigans that lots of other languages have gone through.
the grammar is different from the language of the torah, but it'd be different anyway, that was thousands of years ago. i dunno how much the current grammar was influenced by european languages. i know the traditional ashkenazi pronunciation of hebrew definitely didnt win out in israel.
i know the traditional ashkenazi pronunciation of hebrew definitely didnt win out in israel.
More than that! Ashkenazic Hebrew was deliberately replaced in a fit of auto-antisemitic psychosexual pique by the early Zionist movement looking to dissassociate itself with the "sounds of Yiddish complaint". It's essentially brown-face as white Central European Jewish people do a vague centuries old impression of Jewish dockworkers in Algiers following their exoticization/eroticization by Ben-Yehuda.
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It's not fully constructed, but it was dead as an everyday language. It became a clerical/liturgical language like how Catholics use Latin. It was like that for centuries while Jews adopted European languages, Arabic, or integrated Hebrew into languages creating things like Yiddish and Ladino. Hebrew got revived as a spoken language in the late 19th century by some of the first Jewish settlers in Ottoman Palestine.
Something I've always found interesting though is how modern Hebrew was revived in order to eliminate Yiddish, but in doing so there's a bunch of Yiddish features of modern Hebrew. I've always wondered how different things might have turned out had Arabic speaking Jews revived Hebrew instead.
But yeah modern Hebrew was Jurassic Park'd back into existence, even including the part of integrating stuff into it's DNA
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Not only that, but because religious Jews believe that the Hebrew Bible is the word of god (which makes the language itself holy) the ultra-orthodox position historically was that “modern Hebrew” is heretical. An example of why they think that is along these lines: ancient Hebrew did not have a concept for a “tie game in soccer” so modern Hebrew borrowed a term from the ancient language that essentially referred to a logical stalemate between the rabbis. Using that theological term for a frivolous activity is seen as a deliberate distortion of god’s holy language.
So you are saying that the fact I could never learn to speak Hebrew wasn't a personal failing? It was actually based? Nice!
If by “speak Hebrew” to mean “converse in modern Hebrew” that’s exactly what I’m saying. If you mean it to mean “understand the Talmud” then it’s not exactly based but also not that great a personal failing (note, I am not an Orthodox Jew - the rabbis would disagree with that)
not really. just like it was never quite dead, just resting. it was revived consciously, yes, and that involved the usual language renewal shenanigans that lots of other languages have gone through.
the grammar is different from the language of the torah, but it'd be different anyway, that was thousands of years ago. i dunno how much the current grammar was influenced by european languages. i know the traditional ashkenazi pronunciation of hebrew definitely didnt win out in israel.
More than that! Ashkenazic Hebrew was deliberately replaced in a fit of auto-antisemitic psychosexual pique by the early Zionist movement looking to dissassociate itself with the "sounds of Yiddish complaint". It's essentially brown-face as white Central European Jewish people do a vague centuries old impression of Jewish dockworkers in Algiers following their exoticization/eroticization by Ben-Yehuda.
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