Cover not available
Part of
Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew: Background, Morpho-lexicon, and Syntax
Edited by Ruth A. Berman
[Studies in Language Companion Series 210] 2020
► pp. 27–40

Chapter 2
Historical overview of Modern Hebrew

| The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The chapter starts by outlining the timeline of the language known as “Hebrew” from ancient times since the 2nd millennium BCE and Biblical times via the period of exile when the language existed in a state of diglossia for nearly two millennia, serving mainly for ritual and religious purposes, and up to its transformation into a modern means of literary and journalistic expression in late 18th century Europe, and its revival as a means of everyday communication, both spoken and written, in late 19th century and early 20th century ‘Eretz Yisrael’ (the land of Israel) or Palestine. The chapter delineates the impact of classical strata on Modern Hebrew and traces processes of modernization and standardization involved in its contemporary evolution.
Article outline
  • 1.Timeline
  • 2.The impact of the historical strata of Hebrew
  • 3.The modernization of Hebrew
  • References
Published online: 18 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.210.03res
References (50)
References
Bachi, Roberto. 1956. A statistical analysis of the revival of Hebrew in Israel. Scripta Hierosolymitana III: 179–247.Google Scholar
Bar-Asher, Moshe. 2009. meħqarim bilšon ħaxamim – kerex ʔalef: mvoʔot wʕiyuney lašon (Studies in Mishnaic Hebrew – Vol. 1: Introductions and Linguistic Investigations). Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute.Google Scholar
Bartal, Israel. 1993. From traditional bilingualism to national monolingualism. In Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile, Lewis Glinert (ed.), 141–150. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Ben-Hayyim, Zeʾev. 1985. haʔaħdut ha-historit šel halašon haʕivrit waħaluqatah litqufot – keycad? (The historical unity of the Hebrew language and its division into periods). Mex̱qarim blašon 1: 3–25.Google Scholar
Berman, Ruth A. 1997. Modern Hebrew. In The Semitic Languages, Robert Hetzron (ed.), 312–333. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Blanc, Haim. 1968. The Israeli koiné as an emergent national standard. In Language Problems of Developing Nations, Joshua A. Fishman, Charles A. Ferguson & Jyotirindra Das Gupta (eds), 237–251. New York NY: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Breuer, Yochanan. 2013. Amoraic Hebrew. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 102–107. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Bunis, David. 2013. Diglossia: Medieval and Modern Hebrew. Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 729–731. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Efrati, Nathan. 2004. milšon yħidim lilšon ʔumah: hadibur haʕivri bʔerec yisraʔel bašanim tarmav-tarpav (1881–1922) (The Evolution of Spoken Hebrew in Pre-State Israel, 1881–1922). Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language.Google Scholar
Eldar, Ilan. 2010. tixnun lašon byisraʔel (Language Planning in Israel). Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language.Google Scholar
Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1981. The emergence of a native Hebrew culture in Palestine, 1882–1948. Studies in Zionism 4: 167–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1993. The role of Russian and Yiddish in the crystallization of Modern Hebrew. In Studies in Jewish Culture in Honour of Chone Shmeruk, Israel Bartal, Ezra Mendelson & Chava Turniansky (eds), 103–118. Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center.Google Scholar
Galili, Lily & Bronfman, Roman. 2013. hamilyon šešinah ʔet hamizraħ hatixon: haʕaliyah hasovyetit lyisraʔel (The Million that Changed the Middle East: The Soviet Immigration to Israel). Israel: Matar Publishing House.Google Scholar
Glinert, Lewis. 2006. The Hasidic tale and the sociolinguistic modernization of the Jews of Eastern Europe. In Studies in Jewish Narrative, Avidav Lipsker & Rela Koshlavsky (eds), 7–36. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press.Google Scholar
Goldenberg, Gideon. 1996. haʕivrit klašon šemit ħayah (Hebrew as a living Semitic language). In Evolution and Revival: Trends in the Development of the Hebrew Language, Joshua Blau (ed.), 148–168. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.Google Scholar
Gonen, Einat. 2013. Normativism. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 2, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 847–852. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Harshav, Benjamin. 1993. Language in Time of Revolution. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Helman, Anat. 2002. ‘Even the dogs in the street bark in Hebrew’: National ideology and everyday culture in Tel-Aviv. Jewish Quarterly Review XCII: 359–382.Google Scholar
Hornkohl, Aaron. 2013. Biblical Hebrew: Periodization. Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 315–325. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Kahn, Lily. 2013a. Maskilic Hebrew. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 2, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 581–585. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
. 2013b. Hasidic Hebrew. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 2, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 173–176). Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
. 2015. A Grammar of the Eastern European Hasidic Hebrew Tale. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Steve & Salamon, Hagar. 2004. Ethiopian Jews in Israel. In Jews in Israel: Contemporary social and cultural patterns, Uzi Rebhun & Chaim Isaac Waxman (eds), 118–148. Hanover NH: Brandeis University Press.Google Scholar
Khan, Geoffrey. 2013. Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic background of Masoretic text. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 304–315. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Kutscher, Eduard Yechezkel. 1982. A History of the Hebrew Language. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press.Google Scholar
Leshem, Elazar & Sicron, Moshe. 2004. The Soviet immigrant community in Israel. In Jews in Israel: Contemporary Social and Cultural Patterns, Uzi Rebhun & Chaim Isaac Waxman (eds), 81–117. Hanover NH: Brandeis University Press.Google Scholar
Lissak, Moshe. 2003. The demographic-social revolution in Israel in the 1950s: The absorption of the great “aliyah”. Journal of Israeli History 22(2): 1–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maman, Aharon. 2013. Tibbonide Hebrew translations of Arabic. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 3, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 765–769. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Morag, Shelomo. 1992. qhilot sfarad whamasoret haħayah šel halašon haʕivrit (The Jewish communities of Spain and the living traditions of the Hebrew language). In Moreshet Sefarad, Haim Beinart (ed.), 81–94. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press.Google Scholar
. 1993. The emergence of Modern Hebrew: Some sociolinguistic perspectives. In Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile, Lewis Glinert (ed.), 208–221. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
. 1999. The revival and the oral legacy of Hebrew: Some observations. In Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Proceedings of the 6th EAJS Congress, Toledo, July 1998, Judith Targarona Borras & Angel Saenz-Badillos (eds). Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Nir, Raphael. 1981. Acceptability and normativism in the use of a revived language. In Angewandte Soziolinguistik, Matthias Hartig (ed.), 89–91. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Rabin, Chaim. 1985a. lšon hamiqraʔ ulšon ħaxamim baʕivrit bat zmanenu (Biblical and Mishnaic elements in Contemporary Hebrew). meħqarim, blašon 1: 273–285.Google Scholar
. 1985b. The continuum of modern literary Hebrew. In The Great Transition: The Recovery of the Lost Centers of Modern Hebrew Literature, Glenda Abramson & Tudor Parfitt (eds), 11–25. Totowa NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.Google Scholar
. 1999. meh haytah tħiyat halašon haʕivrit (What was the revival of the Hebrew language). In Linguistic Studies, Chaim Rabin, Moshe Bar-Asher & Barak Dan (eds), 359–376. Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language.Google Scholar
Reshef, Yael. 2012. The re-emergence of Hebrew as a national language. In Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, Stefan Weninger & Michael P. Streck (eds), 546–554. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 2013. Revival of Hebrew: Sociolinguistic dimension. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 3, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 408–415. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
. 2014. eliʕezer ben yhudah uvney doro (Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his contemporaries). In Studies in Hebrew and Related Fields Presented to Ilan Eldar, Moshe Bar-Asher & Irit Meir (eds), 613–624. Jerusalem: Carmel.Google Scholar
. 2015. haʕivrit bitqufat hamandat (Hebrew in the Mandate Period). Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language.Google Scholar
. 2016. Written Hebrew of the revival generation as a distinct phase in the evolution of Modern Hebrew. Journal of Semitic Studies 61(1): 187–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2019.From written to spoken usage The contribution of pre-revival linguistic habits to the formation of the colloquial register of Modern Hebrew. In Language Contact, Continuity and Change in the Genesis of Modern Hebrew, Edit Doron, Malka Rapoport Hovav, Yael Reshef & Moshe Taube (eds.), 179–200. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Reshef, Yael & Helman, Anat. 2009. Instructing or recruiting? Language and style in 1920s and 1930s Tel Aviv municipal posters. Journal of Jewish Studies 64(1): 157–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rubinstein, Eliezer. 1985. haʕivriyt šelanu whaʕivrit haqdumah (Contemporary Hebrew and Ancient Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defence.Google Scholar
Sáenz-Badillos, Angel. 1993. A History of the Hebrew Language. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmelz, Uziel Oskar. 1989. haʕaliyah hahamonit meʔasyah umicfon ʔafriqah: hebetim demografiyim (The mass immigration from Asia and Africa: Demographic aspects). Pe’amim: Studies in Oriental Jewry 39: 15–63.Google Scholar
Shaked, Gershom. 1985. The great transition. In The Great Transition: The Recovery of the Lost Centers of Modern Hebrew Literature, Glenda Abramson & Tudor Parfitt (eds), 117–125. Totowa NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.Google Scholar
Shapira, Anita. 2005. hatanax whazehut hayisreʔelit (The Bible and Israeli Identity). Jerusalem: Magnes Press.Google Scholar
Shavit, Zohar. 1985. The rise of the literary center in Palestine. In The Great Transition: The Recovery of the Lost Centers of Modern Hebrew Literature, Glenda Abramson & Tudor Parfitt (eds), 126–129. Totowa NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.Google Scholar
Stampfer, Shaul. 1993. What did ‘knowing Hebrew’ mean in Eastern Europe? In Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile, Lewis Glinert (ed.), 129–140. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Zonta, Mauro. 2013. Translations: Medieval period. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 3, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 850–853. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Kuzai, Einat & Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot
2022. Analogical Interference in Constructionalization: The Emergence of the Hebrew Desiderative ba le-X Y. Cognitive Semantics 8:1 ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Shefer, Hagit
2022. Face-saving strategies: The case of Hebrew SAY expressions. Lingua 280 ► pp. 103439 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.