Re: [nukkad] Hebrew

[Net Geek <>]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Prune messages that you are forwarding or replying to include 
only the relevant material.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Rawat
          The credit for reviving Hebrew should go to the former Israeli PM David
Bengurion. David was a Polish Jew who grew up speaking Yiddish, a mix of German,
Hebrew and other European languages. Yiddish was considered as the language of Jews
of exile in Europe.

Hebrew was the language of Jews in ancient Israel. Repeated invasions forced the
Jewish populace to flee to all corners of the world. The later generation of Jews
lost their language and adopted the native languages in their new region of
domicile. When the Romans destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, all of the linguistic
materials pertaining to Hebrew were also lost. After being driven out of their
homeland by invaders, the Jews who remained in the Middle East were of the orthodox
variety that closely guarded Hebrew as a language for holy texts, thereby preventing
its development, spread and usage. As a result Jews who migrated as part of early
Aliyas had to use Yiddish or other native tongues for communication with Turkish and
later Arabic as the common language.

When David Bengurion (then David Green) migrated to Palestine as a Zionist, he
understood the need for a common language in tune with their cultural and religious
identity. Yiddish was the obvious choice as a lions share of Jewish immigrants were
from Europe. However the visionary that he was, David didn’t agree to this and else
came up with the idea of Hebrew, the language of the Jewish holy text Torah. The
initial reaction was not encouraging with many of his David’s aides advising him
against it citing the difficulties in developing the language as a means of
communication due to lack of any available linguistic material. The non co-operation
of the orthodox Jews also did not help matters. But David stuck to his guns. A
committee was formed under his initiative to achieve the goal headed by Eliezer Ben
Yehuda, a Rabbi from Jerusalem. 

Thus started the most astonishing saga of reviving an ancient language, which was
then almost dead, all because of the relenting pursuit of one individual. Jewish
intellectuals and academics based mainly in US, Britian and France helped Yehuda
immensely in the form of research inputs as well as materials. In the process the
Hebrew University was established and thrived in Jerusalem. By the time Israel
became independent, a full-fledged modern Hebrew with a well-structured script was
ready, which became the national language of the newly formed Jewish state. However
Yehuda did not live to experience the fruits of his labour. He died of TB before the
Israeli independence. Hebrew in its present form has heavily borrowed words from
Yiddish, Russian, French, Turkish, English and other languages to plug the gap in
vocabulary, which was lost and unable to revive.

=====
Bye,



Netgeek aka Cherian
-------

________________________________________________________________________
Want to sell your car? advertise on Yahoo Autos Classifieds. It's Free!!
       visit http://in.autos.yahoo.com


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, use the form at: http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/#options
This list is archived at: http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/archive.html