Language Contact, Continuity and Change in the Genesis of Modern Hebrew

Language Contact, Continuity and Change in the Genesis of Modern Hebrew
Author: Edit Doron
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2019-09-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027262438

The emergence of Modern Hebrew as a spoken language constitutes a unique event in modern history: a language which for generations only existed in the written mode underwent a process popularly called “revival”, acquiring native speakers and becoming a language spoken for everyday use. Despite the attention it has drawn, this particular case of language-shift, which differs from the better-documented cases of creoles and mixed languages, has not been discussed within the framework of the literature on contact-induced change. The linguistic properties of the process have not been systematically studied, and the status of the emergent language as a (dis)continuous stage of its historical sources has not been evaluated in the context of other known cases of language shift. The present collection presents detailed case studies of the syntactic evolution of Modern Hebrew, alongside general theoretical discussion, with the aim of bringing the case of Hebrew to the attention of language-contact scholars, while bringing the insights of the literature on language contact to help shed light on the case of Hebrew.

Language Contact and the Development of Modern Hebrew

Language Contact and the Development of Modern Hebrew
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2015-11-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004310894

Language Contact and the Development of Modern Hebrew is a first rigorous attempt by scholars of Hebrew to evaluate the syntactic impact of the various languages with which Modern Hebrew was in contact during its formative years. Twenty-four different innovative syntactic constructions of Modern Hebrew are analysed, and shown to originate in previous stages of Hebrew, which, since the third century CE, solely functioned as a scholarly and liturgical language. The syntactic changes in the constructions are traced to the native languages of the first Modern Hebrew learners, and later to further reanalysis by the first generation of native speakers. The contents of this volume was also published as a special double issue of Journal of Jewish Languages, 3: 1-2 (2015). Contributors are: Vera Agranovsky, Chanan Ariel, Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Miri Bar-Ziv, Isaac Bleaman, Nora Boneh, Edit Doron, Keren Dubnov, Itamar Francez, Roey Gafter, Ophira Gamliel, Yehudit Henshke, Uri Horesh, Olga Kagan, Samir Khalaily, Irit Meir, Yishai Neuman, Abed al-Rahman Mar'i, Malka Rappaport Hovav, Yael Reshef, Aynat Rubinstein, Ora Schwarzwald, Nimrod Shatil, Sigal Shlomo, Ivy Sichel, Moshe Taube, Avigail Tsirkin-Sadan, Shira Wigderson, and Yael Ziv.

A History of the Hebrew Language

A History of the Hebrew Language
Author: Angel Sáenz-Badillos
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1996-01-25
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9780521556347

This book is a comprehensive description of Hebrew from its Semitic origins and the earliest settlement of the Israelite tribes in Canaan to the present day.

Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew

Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew
Author: Ruth A. Berman
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 702
Release: 2020-03-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027262063

The goal of the volume is to shed fresh light on Modern Hebrew from perspectives aimed at readers interested in the domains of general linguistics, typology, and Semitic studies. Starting with chapters that provide background information on the evolution and sociolinguistic setting of the language, the bulk of the book is devoted to usage-based studies of the morphology, lexicon, and syntax of current Hebrew. Based primarily on original analyses of authentic spoken and online materials, these studies reflect varied theoretical frames-of-reference that are largely model-neutral in approach. To this end, the book presents a functionally motivated, dynamic approach to actual usage, rather than providing strictly structuralist or formal characterizations of particular linguistic systems. Such a perspective is particularly important in the case of a language undergoing accelerated processes of change, in which the gap between prescriptive dictates of the Hebrew Language Establishment and the actual usage of educated, literate but non-expert speaker-writers of current Hebrew is constantly on the rise.

In the Beginning

In the Beginning
Author: Joel Hoffman
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2006-03
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0814736904

Written in language simple enough for everyone to learn, this sweeping history traces the Hebrew language's development and covers the dramatic story of the rebirth of Hebrew as a modern, spoken language.

Oxford Bibliographies

Oxford Bibliographies
Author: Ilan Stavans
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release:
Genre: Hispanic Americans
ISBN: 9780199913701

"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.

The Revival of Classical Tongue

The Revival of Classical Tongue
Author: Jack Fellman
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 157
Release: 2011-07-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3110879107

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

Advances in Biblical Hebrew Linguistics

Advances in Biblical Hebrew Linguistics
Author: Adina Mosak Moshavi
Publisher: Linguistic Studies in Ancient
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2017
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9781575064819

Based on papers presented at the 16th World Congress of Jewish Studies.

Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew

Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew
Author: Yael Reshef
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2019-11-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498584500

Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew offers a new perspective on the emergence processes of Modern Hebrew and its relationship to earlier forms of Hebrew. Based on a textual examination of select case studies of language use throughout the modernization of Hebrew, this book shows that due to the unconventional sociolinguistic circumstances in the budding speech community, linguistic processes did not necessarily evolve in a linear manner, blurring the distinction between true and apparent historical continuity. The emergent language’s standardization involved the restructuring of linguistic habits that had initially taken root among the first speakers, often leading to a retreat from early contact-induced or non-classical phenomena. Yael Reshef demonstrates that as a result, superficial similarity to earlier forms of Hebrew did not necessarily stem from continuity, and deviation from canonical Hebrew features does not necessarily stem from change.

Revivalistics

Revivalistics
Author: Ghil'ad Zuckermann
Publisher:
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2020
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199812772

In this book, Ghil'ad Zuckermann introduces revivalistics, a new trans-disciplinary field of enquiry surrounding language reclamation, revitalization, and reinvigoration. Applying lessons from the Hebrew revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to contemporary endangered languages, Zuckermann takes readers along a fascinating and multifaceted journey into language revival and provides new insights into language genesis. Beginning with a critical analysis of Israeli-the language resulting from the Hebrew revival-Zuckermann's radical theory contradicts conventional accounts of the Hebrew revival and challenges the family tree model of historical linguistics. Revivalistics demonstrates how grammatical cross-fertilization with the revivalists' mother tongues is inevitable in the case of successful "revival languages." The second part of the book then applies these lessons from the Israeli language to revival movements in Australia and globally, describing the "why" and "how" of revivalistics. With examples from the Barngarla Aboriginal language of South Australia, Zuckermann proposes ethical, aesthetic, and utilitarian reasons for language revival and offers practical methods for reviving languages. Based on years of the author's research, fieldwork, and personal experience with language revivals all over the globe, Revivalistics offers ground-breaking theoretical and pragmatic contributions to the field of language reclamation, revitalization, and reinvigoration.