"Revival" of Hebrew

Nature of the "Revival" of Hebrew

In the strict sense of the word, language revival refers to the case where a language that lost all the social functions in a speech community revitalizes part or all of them. So the "revival" of Hebrew was not exactly a revival in this sense but a full return to speech since it has never lost its function as a literary and liturgical language in the traditional Jewish communities and what it lost was the function as a spoken language.

Linguistic Situation in Jewish Eastern Europe before the "Revival"

Traditional diglossia inside the Jewish communities
- High variety: Hebrew
- Low variety: Yiddish
Coterritorial national languages of wider communication outside the Jewish communities
- Russian
- Polish
- German
Three possible solutions to the traditional diglossia
- Hebraism
  - High variety: Hebrew
  - Low variety: Hebrew
- Yiddishism
  - High variety: Yiddish
  - Low variety: Yiddish
- Assimilationism
  - High variety: coterritorial national language
  - Low varitey: coterritorial national language

Linguistic Situation in Palestine before the "Revival"

Multilingualism
Non-Jewish languages
- Turkish: official language of the Ottoman Empire, the ruler of Palestine
- (Literary and Palestinian spoken) Arabic: language of the indigenous Arab population in Palestine
- Jewish languages
  - Judezmo: language of (Eastern) Sephardim
  - Yiddish: language of Ashkenazim
- No single predominant lingua franca at the turn of the 19th century in Palestine

Functional Mechanism of the "Revival"

Phase 1
- Ausbau of literary Hebrew with the expansion of its registers to non-religious domains such as literarure in the Haskala period
- Formation of the synthetic style by Mendele, incorporating the historical layers of Hebrew and Aramaic
Phase 2
- Appearance of individuals such as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda using Hebrew as a daily spoken language since 1881
Phase 3
- Appearance of a speech community using Hebrew in all of its functions in a modern society since the Second Aliya

Structural Mechanism of the "Revival"

"Revived" Hebrew as a fusion language
- Substratum: Yiddish
- Intracommunal classical components: Biblical Hebrew, Mishnaic Hebrew, Medieval Hebrew, (Babylonian) Aramaic
- Foreign influences: [languages of the "old world"] Russian, Polish, German; [languages of the "new world"] Arabic, English
Planned and unplanned developments
- Areas of planned developments: vowels, accent of general words, morphology (inflection), "outer forms" of the lexicon
- Areas of unplanned developments: consonants, accent of proper nouns, intonation, syntax, "inner forms" of the lexicon, discourse, paralanguage
Phonology
- Vowels: according to the Sephardic oral tradition
- Consonants: more or less according to the Ashkenazic oral tradition with the exception of lack of distinction between t and s for the last letter of the alphabet
- Accent of general words: according to the Sephardic oral tradition
- Accent of proper nouns (part of personal names and geographical names): according to the Ashkenazic oral tradition
- Intonation: imposition of Yiddish intonation patterns
Morphology (inflection)
- More or less according to Biblical Hebrew
Syntax
- More or less according to Mishanic Hebrew
- Influences of the substratum and other languages of the "old world"
Lexicon
- "Outer forms": relexification of the Yiddish lexicon with elements from the intracommunal classical components
- "Inner forms": many calques from the substratum and other languages of the "old world"
- Ways of expanding lexicon
  - Semantic change of words from the intracommunal classical components
  - New word formation: 1) root-pattern formation; 2) reduplication; 3) affixation (prefixation and suffixation); 4) blending; 5) compounding; 6) acronyming; 7) conversion
  - Borrowing: 1) "International" words of Greek and Latin origin: via Russian and/or Yiddish; 2) Slang: mainly from Yiddish and Arabic
Discourse
- Imposition of Yiddish discourse patterns
- New developments in the "revived" Hebrew
Paralanguage
- Imposition of Yiddish paralanguage
- New developments in the "revived" Hebrew