ARTHUR GIBSON

IT CAN BE taken that a language is alive if it is spoken by people and used in regular communication; it is dead when this ceases to be the case. While “alive” and “dead” are metaphors used by linguists, it is a complex affair to define precisely what constitutes a correct application of them to a language. However, it is generally agreed by specialists in Hebrew that Hebrew died about 200 A.D. Insufficient is known of the Jewish period prior to this date to prove the causes of the death of Hebrew.

The same death had come upon other languages in the same Semitic family as that of Hebrew: Assyrian, Babylonian, Edomite, Moabite, Phoenician, and Ugaritic. Hebrew was the last to die, except for the rather different case of Arabic.

True, like Sumerian and Latin, Hebrew was used later than 200 A.D. In almost a linguistic death-rite by being employed as a “secret” liturgical, sometimes legal, and at times scholastic language. From the ninth century onwards it was used spasmodically as a type of private language in some personal letters of Jews; later, it was sometimes employed at special meetings of certain Jewish groups as the correct, formal language This skeleton of a language travelling down history was nevertheless an appropriate form to permit the clothing of Hebrew with the flesh of living communication at the time of its resurrection. If one eliminates Cornish as an example too trivial and artificial a revival to warrant attention, Hebrew is the sole language that has been, has ceased to be, and again has become the common language of a nation.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Hebrew began to be employed more frequently to write poetry and other artistic works in styles imitative of Biblical Hebrew. Later, in Europe, Jews who wrote in Hebrew tended to follow the European movement of Romanticism, which acted as a sop to deflect a rising Jewish nationalism (especially in eastern Europe). But by the early eighteenth century this romanticism had itself become explicitly married to nationalism by many Jews (advertised by such phrases as “Love of Zion”). Such a trend grew in the early nineteenth century, being stimulated by the similar cultural philosophies of Nationalism of the European countries in which the Jews lived. During the 1850’s a philosophy of realism began to influence the Jewish aspirations. It should be noted that these movements of ideas among Jewish society were not only centred on Jewish hopes and status, but were inseparably presented in terms of the possibility of reviving Hebrew as a national language. Realism induced a periodic recurrence of despair, summed up by the poet Judah Leib Gordon (in the 1850’s):

The veil over this Hebrew heart had prevented it from registering a prophecy that answered his question. The poem is as much a lamentation on an ailing nationalistic hope as it is a comment on the inability of many at that time to read the poet’s imitation of Biblical Hebrew. This obliquely referred to the opinion among some Jews that a revived Hebrew could not adequately perform the function required of a modern language.

Howbeit, in the Spring of 1879, a young Russian student studying in Vienna wrote an article that was published in the controversial Hebrew Jewish quarterly Haskahar. For the first time the term “nationalism” here appeared in Hebrew (le’omut; now normally le’umiyut). Significantly, the student’s introduction of it into Hebrew was in the context of an article which argued that the only solution to Jewish problems of language and national identity was the resettlement of the Jews in Israel. Hence the article was a linguistic mirror of future history soon to fulfil prophecy.

In the second half of the nineteenth century various attempts were made to revive Hebrew in Europe. Yet the native European languages of the Jews dominated, and induced collective failure to revive the tongue. The social needs of communication with European society thwarted Hebrew. The Jew was still too much a settled member of Europe to heed nationalism. A scholar devoted to the revival of Hebrew, Ben Yehuda, went to Palestine in 1881, and subsequently performed a key role in the revival of Hebrew. The common language of the Jews who lived in Europe or elsewhere had been the particular language of the country in which they lived. In Israel, Jewish migrants from these countries had no common language except for the “dead” scholastic and liturgical archaic Hebrew. Ben Yehuda was convinced this must be used and modified to become the Jewish common language. He literally set about his task in the market-places, setting the example and encouraging others to follow his practice of speaking Hebrew. Since there were comparatively few Jews in Israel at that time, his arrival coincided with the prime time for passing on his influences to future generations.

Soon after Ben Yehuda’s work in Israel commenced, the anti-semitism of, first, Russia and, then, other countries provoked a growth in the number of Jewish migrants. These Jews, already highly charged with a dislike of civilisations that victimised and spurned them, and often filled with the romantic ideal of a National Home, were in a receptive mood to receive Ben Yehuda’s suggestion of reviving Hebrew—especially as it was associated with the ejection of European languages. By 1886, Ben Yehuda had enabled Hebrew daily papers to be produced. He had also started work on a massive series of Hebrew dictionaries. (Five of these volumes were completed in his lifetime; the last, the seventeenth, was finished in 1959). In 1890 “The Hebrew Language Committee” was formed to guide the emergence of Hebrew as a common language of Jews, and to preserve its Oriental character. (Appropriately, with the creation of the Jewish State in 1948, this Committee was promoted to a National Academy. In 1953 it became subject to the authority of the Knesset).

Various debates and tensions surfaced during this emergence with respect to what Hebrew forms and sounds should be. Was Biblical Hebrew to be the basis of the revival? Or should it be Talmudic Hebrew? Or both? Compared with these two classical options, was mediaeval Hebrew more flexible in adapting to modern demands? There were also the complications of the adulteration of Hebrew by partially merging it with the host European language used by Jews in exile, e.g. Judaeo-German (Yiddish) and Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino). (The former was an influence because many German Jews spoke it and some works of considerable artistic value had been produced in it). Did the pronunciation of Arabic reflect how Hebrew should be spoken? And so could Arabic act as a sounding-board for Hebrew word-forms? Was the Tiberian or Sephardic tradition of pronunciation in Hebrew the right one? Many of these questions are still being debated today; yet the answers given to them by Ben Yehuda and his group of assistants, together with the forced selection of certain options by the growing habits of a Hebrew-speaking community, provided a basis for the revival of Hebrew as a living language.

A census carried out in Israel in May 1961 showed that 25.3 per cent of the Jewish population had Hebrew as their first language (it is certainly much more at the present time), while most Jews were reported to be able to speak some Hebrew.

Hebrew, though nationally dead, had been carried down history as a skeleton housing (in its literatures) the national identity of its bearers. Pride in a cultural heritage and language had, at the ordained time, functioned as a trigger to revive both Israel’s language and State. To contemporary Israel’s great detriment, it collectively attributes the cause of that trigger to its own prowess, and not to God. Here is a mystery: Israel’s Jews had fulfilled their own free-will in reviving language and land; and thus had fulfilled God’s free-will, expressed in Hebrew revelation. In assessing the significance of the revival, sentimentality should not be allowed to mar one’s cognisance of Israeli use of Hebrew. A more important prophecy, spiritually, is yet to be fulfilled: “The remnant of Israel shall not . . . speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth” (Zeph. 3:13). In retrospect, it is evident that the Israeli Jews, characteristically, have given attention to form and not to spirit. They may have revived Hebrew, but have not mastered the meaning of Biblical Hebrew in terms of God’s will.

The identification of a language rests on about four main types of criteria. These are: Form, Sound, Word-Roots, Meaning. Therefore, if it is claimed a language has died, then revived, the question arises “Has it died and revived in respect of all these criteria? Some of them? Or only partially in all of them?” Owing to this topic’s being of little interest, save to linguists, except in its conclusions, an attempt at answering the question may be summarised as follows:

Form: (a) The written alphabet of Hebrew in its printed form has hardly changed at all since the supposed death of Hebrew in 200 A.D.; this printed form is the same as that since about 400 B.C.

(b) The grammar of Israeli Hebrew generally is that mainly of the Old Testament; to a lesser extent features are also drawn from post-Biblical Hebrew.

(c) When foreign nouns are borrowed and absorbed into Israeli Hebrew, they do sometimes stand out as borrowings, but mostly not, e.g. “mivreset” (from “brush”). In short, borrowings are moulded into Hebrew forms, especially with verbs, e.g. “hivris” means “he brushed”, from “brush”. It cannot be objected that this indicates that Israeli Hebrew is different from Biblical Hebrew, because precisely this type of borrowing happened in Biblical Hebrew. A case is in Jonah 1:5 with the term translated “mariner” (mallah); this word is a loan-word from Babylonian, which itself came through from Sumerian. While the number of borrowings in Israeli Hebrew is rather larger than in Biblical Hebrew, this has to be weighed against the limited vocabulary and forms in Biblical Hebrew, and the larger vocabulary required in a modern technological context.

Sound: It is unclear what was the precise detailed nature of certain Biblical Hebrew sounds, although the general nature is known. So it is difficult to completely match Israeli with Biblical Hebrew regarding sound. In any case this is of peripheral concern, since one piece of language can be pronounced in two different ways and yet possess the same meaning. However, in fundamental respects, Hebrew is spoken today as it was prior to 200 B.C. In Old Testament times. True, different types of “t”, “k”, and “s” in Hebrew cannot be distinguished even by some native Israeli Hebrew speakers. But this inability was also current in Biblical Hebrew speakers (“sibboleth”, Judg. 12:6).

Word-Roots: As mentioned above, once a word is absorbed into Hebrew, it cannot normally be distinguished from a native Hebrew term. Large use is also made of Biblical root-words. Some words from ancient Biblical times, that do not occur in the Bible, are sometimes brought into modern use. For example, in the Siloam Inscription “niqba” (tunnel) occurs; it is now used in Israeli Hebrew.

Meaning: No linguist or philosopher of language has yet adequately defined what meaning is; so it is misleading to suppose some definition obtains, then apply it to decide whether Biblical and Israeli Hebrew are alike in meaning. The foregoing three criteria show substantial grounds for concluding that these two eras of Hebrew have strong family-relations. Linguistically speaking, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that on these counts, Hebrew has been revived. Howbeit, a central aspect of meaning in Hebrew is the way it is used. Professor Rosen has observed that it is astonishing how, as Hebrew develops in Israel, its use comes closer to classical (Biblical) Hebrew, than in the earlier years of the twentieth century. Of course, there are many new words in Hebrew today. Equally, thousands are taken from the Bible and from the Talmudic writings. Often, as well, terms are taken from Biblical usage and given a shift of meaning. In Genesis 1:26 the term “selem” (“image”) occurs; Israeli Hebrew now has “silem” for “photograph”. Here there has been change, but with still sufficient connection between the two meanings to portray an identity of type between ancient and modern Hebrew. This state of flux implies, not a language different from that of Biblical Hebrew, but the same type of living Hebrew that responds to the needs of linguistic circumstance just as did ancient Hebrew.

With what success do Israelis use their knowledge of Hebrew to interpret Biblical Hebrew? There is an immense concentration on Biblical research in Israeli universities (just as there are faculties of English in England, so there are faculties of Hebrew in Israel). Israeli scholars often undoubtedly possess a “feel” for Hebrew that many European Semitic linguists lack. One product of this has led Professor Rabin to maintain that a literal type of translation (like that of the AV and RV and, to a lesser extent, the Jerusalem Bible) has much more value linguistically than normally acknowledged. Rabin and others suggest that the literal translation of a text could get a reader nearer to the basic meaning and world-view in it. Certainly, this type of technical and factual research can reflect truth and genius.

Unfortunately, against this, in matters of interpretation and cultural norms there is a wider perspective to Israeli scholarship. The culture that Jews took with them from Europe was often, spiritually, as corrupt as the anti-semitism that pursued them. Its humanistic atheism has not only conditioned leaders like Dayan, but has infected the foundations of Israeli scholarship. A fragment of this culture was the critical apparatus of Teutonic theologians and scholars like Wellhausen and G. Kittel. Indeed, Kittel together with Heidegger advertised the quality of their scholarship when explicitly supporting Hitler’s anti-semitic programme. As Michael Dummett recently remarked, perhaps the anti-semitism of a European informs one about the state of other things in Europe. And intellectually speaking, much of this state of affairs was transported by Jews to Israel.

Some of this atheistic humanism in Israel became attached to Judaism, and was also connected to research into the Hebrew Old Testament. At the level of interpretation, these historically Teutonic influences dominated early twentieth-century Israeli scholarship in Biblical Hebrew studies. Later, Israelis tended to build on this combination. An Israeli teacher of Hebrew, reflecting one approach to the “seed” in the promises to Abraham, suggested its use was pagan insofar as Abraham and his clan (Genesis 14) attack the enemy, plunder, rape the women, and take possession of the land. Hence, “seed” is, it is supposed, a mere cypher for rape, plunder, and possession. Though a rather idiosyncratic, albeit actual, example, it conveys the injection of secularity into Biblical Hebrew texts by some of those who are seen to be the preliminary fulfilment of the promises they distort.

This typical detail of evidence can imply that the revival of Hebrew has produced internal forces at a scholarly level, usually passed into general circulation, which corrupt the revival. The skeleton is clothed a living soul; but not a living spirit. Therefore, the miracle of the restoration of Israel and the revival of Hebrew as a language of religious truth are, as yet, a tragedy in terms of truth and spirit. Since the use of religious language is an index for the true uses of any other types of language, this Israeli approach to the interpretation of Biblical Hebrew is also a mirror of the other uses of Israeli Hebrew: “If they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them”. In this respect, Israeli use of Hebrew is not much different from the previous restoration that led to the birth of Jesus. And in keeping with this prophetic parallel, of which one cannot now speak, the next resurrection of language is awaited :

“The Revival of Hebrew” in Ariel (A Quarterly Review produced by Cultural and Scientific Relations Division, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Special Issue. Number 25 (Winter 1969).

On Learning Biblical Hebrew

J. Weingreen A Practical Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. Oxford (Any printing of Second Edition).

On Language and Meaning

J. Barr The Semantics of Biblical Languages. Oxford, 1961.