RLST 362
Dr. Pitts
05/14/2018
The Restoration of the Hebrew Language
The Hebrew language is spoken by over nine million people all over the world, with 8.3
million of them living in Israel alone. As of 2016, 5.3 million speakers learned it as their first
language, which is a magnificent feat, often accredited solely to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (Simons,
2018). However, the fascinating story behind the vernacular illuminates a determined people,
who, despite their constant rejection and persecution from countless societies, remained
vigilant in maintaining the one intangible thing that would ultimately unite them once again in
the Holy Land.
One of the more fascinating and challenging topics that have faced linguists for many
years has been the birth, life, extinction, and rebirth of languages. These processes are natural
and common, and a great deal of data exists to explain how languages form, flourish, and die.
Linguists commonly place languages in three primary categories: living, dead, and extinct. It is
generally accepted at this time, that there are 6,909 living languages spoken around the world,
Hebrew being one of them, but this wasn’t always the case (Linguistic Society, 2012).
Considered by numerous linguists a dead language at one time, Hebrew is now alive and well,
spoken as the mother-tongue of Israel.
A dead language is defined by Cambridge Dictionary (2018) as a language that is no
longer spoken by anyone as their main language. Countless languages have experienced this
fate, and while many argue that Hebrew was dead for almost two millennia, Dr. Jack Fellman of
1
, Bar-Ilan University (1973) claims that the language had, in fact, not perished. Hebrew is
considered by many, a “miracle” language, due to its continued vitality throughout an
extensive, tragic time-period, stemming from the strong-willed, unyielding Jews living in the
Diaspora.
Hebrew was a language spoken by the Judeans for roughly 1300 years, and it wasn’t
until the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., when the Romans defeated them, that the Israelites
transitioned to using the two main lingua francas of the area, Aramaic and Greek (Matthew
Pitts 2014). At this point, while Hebrew died as a spoken language, it left behind two sacred
texts, namely the Bible and the Mishna, which would, over the next two thousand years, keep
the language in use. The 3rd century was filled with numerous examples of Hebrew works of
poetry, in which their authors would create nearly 10,000 new linguistic forms. Beginning
around 500 A.D., Hebrew was the main written language used by Jews in the Diaspora, and by
the tenth century, they began to utilize it for personal communications, books, legal
documents, etc. It was also used in secular situations throughout this period for medicine,
poetry, and scholarly writings on science and philosophy. With these facts taken into
consideration, Fellman argues that Hebrew was not a dead language, but a “half” language,
which he defines as a language used for writing purposes, while another is used as the primary
vernacular, for everyday purposes. Diglossia is now the term used for this linguistic situation,
and it was not an uncommon occurrence in the medieval world (Fellman, 1973).
In the Middle Ages, it was common for the spoken and written languages to be
different; often, the written one was one of a more classical language with connections to the
particular religion that was chiefly practiced by the current people in the region. Written
2
Dr. Pitts
05/14/2018
The Restoration of the Hebrew Language
The Hebrew language is spoken by over nine million people all over the world, with 8.3
million of them living in Israel alone. As of 2016, 5.3 million speakers learned it as their first
language, which is a magnificent feat, often accredited solely to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (Simons,
2018). However, the fascinating story behind the vernacular illuminates a determined people,
who, despite their constant rejection and persecution from countless societies, remained
vigilant in maintaining the one intangible thing that would ultimately unite them once again in
the Holy Land.
One of the more fascinating and challenging topics that have faced linguists for many
years has been the birth, life, extinction, and rebirth of languages. These processes are natural
and common, and a great deal of data exists to explain how languages form, flourish, and die.
Linguists commonly place languages in three primary categories: living, dead, and extinct. It is
generally accepted at this time, that there are 6,909 living languages spoken around the world,
Hebrew being one of them, but this wasn’t always the case (Linguistic Society, 2012).
Considered by numerous linguists a dead language at one time, Hebrew is now alive and well,
spoken as the mother-tongue of Israel.
A dead language is defined by Cambridge Dictionary (2018) as a language that is no
longer spoken by anyone as their main language. Countless languages have experienced this
fate, and while many argue that Hebrew was dead for almost two millennia, Dr. Jack Fellman of
1
, Bar-Ilan University (1973) claims that the language had, in fact, not perished. Hebrew is
considered by many, a “miracle” language, due to its continued vitality throughout an
extensive, tragic time-period, stemming from the strong-willed, unyielding Jews living in the
Diaspora.
Hebrew was a language spoken by the Judeans for roughly 1300 years, and it wasn’t
until the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., when the Romans defeated them, that the Israelites
transitioned to using the two main lingua francas of the area, Aramaic and Greek (Matthew
Pitts 2014). At this point, while Hebrew died as a spoken language, it left behind two sacred
texts, namely the Bible and the Mishna, which would, over the next two thousand years, keep
the language in use. The 3rd century was filled with numerous examples of Hebrew works of
poetry, in which their authors would create nearly 10,000 new linguistic forms. Beginning
around 500 A.D., Hebrew was the main written language used by Jews in the Diaspora, and by
the tenth century, they began to utilize it for personal communications, books, legal
documents, etc. It was also used in secular situations throughout this period for medicine,
poetry, and scholarly writings on science and philosophy. With these facts taken into
consideration, Fellman argues that Hebrew was not a dead language, but a “half” language,
which he defines as a language used for writing purposes, while another is used as the primary
vernacular, for everyday purposes. Diglossia is now the term used for this linguistic situation,
and it was not an uncommon occurrence in the medieval world (Fellman, 1973).
In the Middle Ages, it was common for the spoken and written languages to be
different; often, the written one was one of a more classical language with connections to the
particular religion that was chiefly practiced by the current people in the region. Written
2
