# Hebrew when Israel first started



## panjabigator

When Israel first formed and people relocated there, I assume that no one knew the language then, right?  How were they able to teach the entire country the language?  I take it that it is not identical with the Hebrew people learned in Temple because the current Hebrew is "revamped," right? 
Did they train language teacher very quickly to begin assimilating?


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## cirrus

The use of modern Hebrew predates the creation of the state.  Google Ben Yehuda and Hebrew language and you will find any amount of material. This link would be a  reasonable start. Suffice it to say the decision is still controversial because it is an integral part of the Zionist project.


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## übermönch

panjabigator said:
			
		

> I assume that no one knew the language then, right?


Not really. Hebrew has allways been used in Jewish prayers and things alike. Only concerns about Modern Israeli Hebrew was that it added lots of vocabulary and used the mizrachim pronounciation. People already spoke it in Kibbutzim before the formation of Israel.


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## Nunty

There is a body of "modern" (i.e. not Biblical or Talmudic) Hebrew literature (rabbinic responsa, poetry...) that goes back at least to the Middle Ages. I just saw that a new book on the subject was recently published. In Hebrew, of course.


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## MarcB

Is Yemenite Hebrew closest to modern Hebew? I know it is not exactly the same.


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## OriGinal

panjabigator I dont know why did you think that
but this link might help you understand better: 
*en (.) wikipedia (.) org/wiki/Hebrew_language .*
By the way, not all of the Jewish ppl were exiled,
Jews lived here in Israel for centuries and they used Hebrew as their language.


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## panjabigator

Well, I thought that way because people from all over the world were settling in one place, and they all had their own indigenous tongues.  So I wondered how long did it take for politicians to learn the language and for people to understand them.

I thought the Jews who lived in the region spoke Arabic.  Would they not be Arabs?


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## dekdek

Well if you'd call the jews from Germany Germans, you can call the jews from the arab countries Arabs. Of cours they shared a lot of culture with the Arabic world, so as the europians shared with the western world. In Israel we call the people from the Arabic world "eastern" and the others from central europe "ashkenazim"
There was also a big discussion about how to make a special unique Israely culture in the beggining of Israel. It caused a lot of problems of course when some sides lost their language or special culture.


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## panjabigator

OriGinal said:
			
		

> panjabigator I dont know why did you think that
> but this link might help you understand better:
> *en (.) wikipedia (.) org/wiki/Hebrew_language .*
> By the way, not all of the Jewish ppl were exiled,
> Jews lived here in Israel for centuries and they used Hebrew as their language.



I quote Wikipedia's article on Jews.  I bolded the area that stood out to me.


> Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed _lashon ha-kodesh_, "the holy tongue"), and is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel (the other being Arabic). It was revived by Eliezer ben Yehuda, who arrived in Palestine in 1881 *at a time when no one spoke the Hebrew language*. Diaspora Jews (outside Israel) today speak the local languages of their respective countries. Yiddish is the historic language of many Ashkenazi Jews, and Ladino of many Sephardic Jews.


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## übermönch

dekdek said:
			
		

> Well if you'd call the jews from Germany Germans, you can call the jews from the arab countries Arabs.


Well, Ashkenaz *is* Germany.


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## MarcB

übermönch said:
			
		

> Well, Ashkenaz *is* Germany.


 
*Ashkenazi (Ashkenazim)*
A word that today refers to Jewish people whose origins lie in Eastern Europe and in the religious traditions of medieval German Judaism. Originally, the term referred to Jews who occupied the Askenaz region between Armenia and the upper Euphrates River, but its meaning subsequently expanded to include Jews in northwestern Europe and later in Northern and Eastern Europe, including Russia.
source:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/glossary/term/ashkenazi.html


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## chaya

TO PANJABIGATOR 
Well, Wikipedia is wrong. ( It is wrong in some other fields too). Jews have always lived in Israel - see Balaam's message.

Chaya

To PANJABIGATOR

CORRECTION TO MY MESSAGE--IT SHOULD HAVE READ < SEE oRIGINSL'S MESSAGE >

Sorry Chaya


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## chaya

(Quote Chaya to Cirrus) 

I do not understand " the decision is still contraversial".
Which 'decision' are you referring to?


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## übermönch

MarcB said:
			
		

> *Ashkenazi (Ashkenazim)*
> A word that today refers to Jewish people whose origins lie in Eastern Europe and in the religious traditions of medieval German Judaism. Originally, the term referred to Jews who occupied the Askenaz region between Armenia and the upper Euphrates River, but its meaning subsequently expanded to include Jews in northwestern Europe and later in Northern and Eastern Europe, including Russia.


Well, Sapharad originally also didn't mean Spain. If I'm not wrong it does now. Encyclopedia Britannica says *"Ashkenazi
 (from Hebrew Ashkenaz, “Germany”), plural Ashkenazim, any of the Jews who lived in the Rhineland valley and in neighbouring France before their migration eastward to Slavic lands (e.g., Poland, ..."*.


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## SofiaB

Safarad was southern Armenia but yes now it means Spain and the mediterranian countries. The post by MarcB is more, most correct. If you read it it says *Ashkenazi (Ashkenazim)
*A word that today refers to Jewish people whose origins lie in Eastern Europe and in the religious traditions of medieval German Judaism. Originally, the term referred to Jews who occupied the Askenaz region between Armenia and the upper Euphrates River, but its meaning subsequently expanded to include Jews in northwestern Europe and later in Northern and Eastern Europe, including Russia.
The encylopedia is incomplete but not totally wrong.


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## panjabigator

Is it really is wrong (and I am not all that suprised), you can edit out the incorrect information.  Or, you can go and add some more.


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## cirrus

chaya said:
			
		

> (Quote Chaya to Cirrus)
> 
> I do not understand " the decision is still contraversial".
> Which 'decision' are you referring to?


This is just flagging up the debate about yididsh. Yiddish culture with plays, novels, papers written in Yiddish had a boom before the second world war. Some hoped that after the shoah there might be the prospect of continuing this.  This was not realised.


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## chaya

CIRRUS  How does that relate to  <Hebrew when the State first started>?   I thought we were dscussing Hebrew, not Yiddish.  It still does not clarify which 'decision' you are referring to.  Please explain.


CHAYA


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## cirrus

chaya said:
			
		

> CIRRUS  How does that relate to  <Hebrew when the State first started>?   I thought we were dscussing Hebrew, not Yiddish.  It still does not clarify which 'decision' you are referring to.  Please explain.


What I mean it contributed to the death of hundreds of years of Jewish culture. First the holocaust killed millions of European Jews.  Then when the survivors who had lived from their language got to Israel the officials were determined to stamp out yiddish.  Imagine if you arrived in a country which was meant to be a place where you could safe as a Jew and you find the language you dream, joke and love in was tarred with the brush of being retrograde and not to be encouraged, a sign of oppression.


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## MarcB

übermönch said:
			
		

> Well, Sapharad originally also didn't mean Spain. If I'm not wrong it does now. Encyclopedia Britannica says *"Ashkenazi*
> *(from Hebrew Ashkenaz, “Germany”), plural Ashkenazim, any of the Jews who lived in the Rhineland valley and in neighbouring France before their migration eastward to Slavic lands (e.g., Poland, ..."*.


Sofia repeated my post so you can see it only later became associated to German and eastern Europe so that is the best meaning of the word Ashkenaz. Sapharad has a similar history southern Armenia and later southern Europe and the mediteranean.


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## Outsider

chaya said:
			
		

> TO PANJABIGATOR
> Well, Wikipedia is wrong. ( It is wrong in some other fields too).  Jews have always lived in Israel -  see Balaam's message.


The passage that Panjabigator quoted did not say that Jews did not live in Israel. It said no Hebrew was spoken in Israel at the time. Surely, being a Jew is not the same as speaking Hebrew...


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## JLanguage

Panjabigator, I believe _Revival of a Classical Tongue: Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language _might answer some of your questions. Also good is _The History of the Hebrew Language_ by Angel Sáenz-Badillos.


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## panjabigator

Thank you Jlanguage!  I will look the book up in my library.


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## OriGinal

JLanguage said:
			
		

> Panjabigator, I believe _Revival of a Classical Tongue: Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language _might answer some of your questions. Also good is _The History of the Hebrew Language_ by Angel Sáenz-Badillos.


 
I recommend that you read the second book: _The History of the Hebrew Language._ Thats a very interesting book


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## cirrus

Panjabigator perhaps this Jewish languages research site will give you more info.  http://www.jewish-languages.org/hebrew.html


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## venenum

In our linguistic class Hebrew language was given as an unique example of one and only language in the history that actually completelly died out and that was afterwards successfully revived. 
Is this true, or is it another fairy-tale?


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## aries44

by the way,  the people on the German section of this forum have been extremely helpful for explaining Yiddish words. 

Hebrew was and still is the language of correspondence for Jews around the world continuously since it was stopped being used as a venacular around the time of the temple when Aramaic became the venacular.  In addition, a good deal of the legal literature is in Arabic from the 8th century on.  There is a lot of material in Yiddish but it was not used for scholarly correpondence. 
It is sort of a unique circumstance that a nation revives its ancient language as a venacular, although the basques and gaelics have tried.  However, being a semitic language is quite appropriate to an Arabic speaking area and the languages have many similar words.


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## JLanguage

venenum said:


> In our linguistic class Hebrew language was given as an unique example of one and only language in the history that actually completelly died out and that was afterwards successfully revived.
> Is this true, or is it another fairy-tale?


 
Depends what you mean by "completely died out". Indeed, at the beginning of the revival of Hebrew, there were no native speakers of the language. And now it is the mother tongue of several million Israelis and serves all the needs of a modern language. If that's what you meant, then yes, it is true.


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## venenum

"Completely died out" according to linguistic definition given to us in the mentioned class means a language that no living person speaks any more. 
Was Hebrew something like Latin - a "dead language", rather than completely extinct? ("dead language" meaning a language that is still used, but not for the purpose of communication, but rather for other - scientific, liturgic or similar - purposes)


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## aries44

Well it was a little more than latin since medieval and scholastic latin was just used by scholars.  The average Jew from the time that Hebrew stopped being the venacular two thousand years ago could read Hebrew and prayed in Hebrew.  The two venaculars that developed among the Jews (German-Hebrew, yiddish) and Spanish Hebrew (ladino) contained many Hebrew words.  Still it was an astounding achievement that it was reintroduced as the venacular and became a modern language.


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