I wasn’t having a go at you, but you can’t possibly be serious if you are going to liken what this speech therapist calls “lazy mouth” to the way that an entire nation of people speak? It’s really beside the issue anyway, given that (as noted) we have little to no idea how Biblical Hebrew was even spoken by the average Israelite, and good reason to assume that “Biblical Hebrew” subsumes a number of dialects (both chronological and geographic). Judges 12:6 testifies to a phonological variant, but there is solid evidence to presume grammatical variation as well.

Your definition of purity is an interesting one, as that makes Classical Arabic more pure than Biblical Hebrew. The geographic isolation of the Arabs has been such that, despite Arabic poetry and the literature of the Qur’an being so much later than the composition of the Bible, it testifies to a greater number of proto-Semitic forms than does Biblical Hebrew.

I would never suggest that Hebrew is a descendant of Greek and Persian (although you couldn’t argue that it is an ancestor either) but simply a different language that borrowed a number of Persian and Greek words. That always happens with languages, and it means nothing. Of greater import is the development of morphology (the manner in which words are constructed) and syntax (the manner in which higher units of meaning – clauses, phrases and so on – are constructed). From that perspective, Aramaic would appear to be of greater antiquity than Hebrew, and Akkadian of greater antiquity than Aramaic.

But there’s really no way of knowing. All that we have to go by is the textual evidence. So far as the textual evidence is concerned, whatever you might personally believe about the Bible, the language that it reflects is generally considered to be somewhat later than you might think. One way that a number of people get around that is by deferring to the notion that the Bible was edited over a substantial period and that the language was updated. This might appear to be the case with orthographic issues (ie: related to the spelling of individual words), but it’s a pretty non-kosher idea when it comes to whole units of meaning.

My reply is already too long (and I think we have successfully steered well off topic), but suffice it to say that the preceding paragraph merely represents scholarly consensus and is not necessarily bona fide fact. This touches very heavily upon my research at the moment, and the scholarly consensus is something that I’m rejecting. I don’t personally think it’s possible to date Biblical texts on linguistic grounds, and there’s less linguistic evidence to make things “late” than many scholars assume. But then, as you so rightly suggested, I also don’t believe in the divinity of the Torah, so you’re unlikely to like my general methods even if, in this one instance, you would agree with my conclusion.

I used the phrase “lazy mouth” to describe what I heard and saw among people. After your comments, I did some research and didn’t take too long to find a speech therapist describing a child with a lazy mouth, and that “it is because he doesn’t use his muscles to the fullest capacity when making sounds”. This is similar to what I’ve observed amongst some English speakers – a lack of movement that causes words to be not fully pronounced and blend together into the drawl sometimes described as “strine”.

Wikipedia on the history of English talks about the ancestors of the language, and how it “… developed into a “borrowing” language of great flexibility, resulting in an enormous and varied vocabulary”.

Because you don’t believe in the divinity of the Torah, there’s little point me delving into a discussion of how biblical Hebrew is “lashon hakodesh”, and as such distinct from other languages. However, it’s certainly more of an ancestor to the other languages you mention than a descendant.

Given some languages are derived or borrow from others over time, it’s reasonable to speak of them in the same terms as we speak of family trees and bloodlines. So a “pure” language would be one that is further up the chain (i.e. fewer ancestors), and that has been less “diluted” over time. On that basis, English is definitely more of a mongrel than Hebrew. Of course, I’d be happy to defer to a qualified linguist on the issue.

The same is true with Biblical Hebrew. The influences upon the language were many and varied, with different periods of composition exhibiting different degrees of language contact. Chief among the languages that seem to have influenced the various dialects of Hebrew to which the Bible testifies are Aramaic, Greek and Persian – the latter two of which are non-Semitic. I don’t imagine that you would call Hebrew a mongrel of a language, but I must ask why. Granted that we’ve little to no idea how people pronounced it, what makes you think that it was any more ‘pure’ than English? After all, when it comes to languages, what is ‘purity’?

Indigenous Australians have two big challenges with trying to revive their language: geographic diversity has contributed to a huge number of dialects, and there is a lack of literacy culture. From a language perspective, these are two big differences between theirs and Hebrew/Jews. I think these are insurmountable.

Gedalia & Simon,

English is a mongrel of a language – just look at its many ancestors and the huge number of synonyms. In addition, Australians (and many Americans) suffer from a lazy mouth, and this is what has contributed to the “bogan-speak” employed by Julia Gillard, Kath and Kim, and many others. Schools may teach written skills, but sadly good diction just isn’t taught any more (this is coming from a professional voice artist).

I was questioning Ghilad’s assertion that “…the fact that Jews from all over the world had only Hebrew in common” Yes as prayer but not as spoken, written dynamic language.

I am guessing here, so forgive my ignorance, but i could be wrong but that was why Hebrew needed to be revitalised.

My comments were not intended to be academic. I study Torah for the sake of Torah. Using Torah solely as an eptimological tool undermines its value. The reality is that Hebrew words can have meaning and context due to their shoresh that are lost in any form of translation or adaptation. The Hebrew language brings ideas and values into its construct that often integrate different concepts. This is very hard to achieve with the English language.

With Trope, I think we are arguing the same point, differing over whether the glass is half full, or half empty. I have undertaken plenty of Torah study where the use of trope contributes to understanding the meaning of a pasuk. Sometimes it does confuse or complicate the issue more, but that is part of the beauty of Torah study itself. Whether it is emphasis or punctuation, the “dibbur” of the Torah, in contrast to the “ktiv” can certainly add meaning and insight. Sometimes deriving direction from the text can be difficult without the aid of Trope. Gematria too has a role in assisting to derive context, and on occasions meaning and interpretation. Only if you choose to see it that way.

Rather than give an example of what I mean by monotone Austrlian drool, I can only suggest listening to Julia Gillard for a few minutes. Yes, our Australian English allows us to communicate, but is it a language of classical beauty? Hebrew language can communicate so much more than words.

I’m thinking of this in terms that the Hebrew revivalists had a lot of advantages in comparison which may be the reason that they succeeded in their endeavours. Any thoughts?

Secondly, the use of “trope” (as well as the written vocalisation that accompanies the Biblical Hebrew text) reflects the commentary of the Tiberian scholars who lived from the 7th to the 11th centuries. While it does add a layer of meaning to the text, that layer of meaning is not actually any more a part of the text than is the masoretic apparatus that they added in the margin, and which can be seen in any critical addition of the Tanakh. “Trope”, first and foremost, functioned as punctuation. While much of it was disambiguating, you cannot mistake the punctuation for the text itself, and many Rabbinic scholars over the ages (notably Ibn Ezra) have disagreed with it. In fact, sometimes it’s at its most troublesome where it is disambiguating! Choosing an ambiguous clause over an unambiguous clause – simply on the grounds that the ambiguous reading is of greater antiquity – is not always so easy to do.

Thirdly, would you care to explain what you mean by describing Australian English as “monodimensional, monolithic and monotone drool”?? Being a native speaker of Australian English, I must note that it serves my purposes quite adequately as a vehicle for communication. Are you suggesting that it would be a better language were it tonal, perhaps? Less well-known? Or possessed, maybe, of a fourth dimension?

I also enjoyed Ghil’ad’s article, as I generally do all of Ghil’ad’s articles. I feel, however, that I should point out that all three of Ghil’ad’s examples (calques, phono-semantic matching, and portmanteau blends – the latter term having been coined by Lewis Carroll) are common to all languages, and are not the peculiar product of language revival. It is in Ghil’ad’s fourth example (gakhlilit) that he has attempted to demonstrate something peculiar to “Israeli” (sic). Granted, anybody who wants more information on this should refer to Ghil’ad’s voluminous publications (in particular, Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew), but – even though this has only been a brief article – I have a question about the choice of example given here.

Ghil’ad, you suggest that gakhlilit duplicates a “European mindset”. Just as the Yiddish word for “glow-worm” (as well as the English and the German) combines a word for “glow” with a word for “worm”, so too does the same thing happen with Bialik’s gakhlilit. Could you please point out which part of gakhlilit corresponds to the worm?