Re: Adding New Words

Mike Adams wrote:
> I know from history, that modern Hebrew is sort of
> a language of lore,
I don't think that's exactly right; Hebrew ceased to be a vernacular
language, but it was never forgotten. It remained the language of
scripture (always read in the original) and religious activity, and I
think it remained in use in other spheres as well, such as writings on
philosophy and the like. I've read that it was also used as a lingua
franca when Jews with different native languages (Yiddish, Ladino, etc.)
would meet. Perhaps someone who knows more about these things than I do
(I'm just a gentile who happened to grow up in a city with a large
Jewish population :-)

The point is, it's not the case that Hebrew lay completely unused for
2000 years and was suddenly resurrected from the grave.

> but also a conlang since it
> was added to to make modern Hebrew, but also it is now a NATLANG
By this token many of the languages of Central & Eastern Europe (Czech,
Slovene, Slovak, etc.) are conlangs also.

> I know I can tell the difference from Hebrew from Arabic,
> they are cousin languages,but Arabic has a more natural flow
> and as well as a natural change , much like Grimms law, how
> some sounds soften and more?...
> What I meant about how Hebrew vs Arabic sounds, was more how
> the language Arabic has done the classic, make thing easier,
> smoother, like they was naturally done. While Hebrew still has
> some of the stiffness of not being made "lazy".
I have to admit I have no idea what you're talking about here! Have you
ever listened to Israelis talk? Hebrew flows every bit as "naturally" as
Arabic does! It’s not "stiff" or "not made lazy" in the slightest.

It is true, however, that the phonology of Modern Hebrew is quite
different from the phonology of Biblical Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew
phonology was much closer to Arabic phonology: Biblical Hebrew, like
Arabic, had phonemic vowel length while Modern Hebrew does not. Biblical
Hebrew, like Arabic, had pharyngeal consonants and a series of
'emphatic' consonants, which are not present in Modern Hebrew. (A good
page about the Hebrew alphabet with pronunciation at different periods
is http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hebrew.htm.)

My assumption (correct me, somebody, if I'm wrong!) is that these
phonological differences are due to the fact that the early pioneers of
the Hebrew revival were European (prior to Aliyah, that is) and thus
their L1s did not have the pharyngeals and emphatics, so this influenced
their pronunciation of Hebrew. So essentially Modern Hebrew is a Semitic
language with a European phonology. :-)

My one quibble with Modern Hebrew is that horrible, extra-scrapey [G]
for /r/, when a nice alveolar tap would have made the language gorgeous.
Damn Germans!! ;-þ

>  Sort of like how something hard for the mouth to say, will over time
> make it less hard... The glottal sounds will soften, cause they take
to
> much effort to say? sort of thing.
> Arabic is less harsh, while Hebrew has alot of harsh sounds.
> Or so to my ears
My reaction is the opposite :) I find Hebrew a "softer" and Arabic more
"harsh", precisely because those "glottal" sounds you mention -- the
pharyngeals, the uvular stops, etc. -- abound in Arabic but are absent
from Hebrew.

Dan Sulani katav:

> What's interesting is how, in borrowing from non-Semitic langs,
> Hebrew speakers sometimes view the consonants as
> a Semitic-type root and build regular verb forms around it.
> For example, |telefon|. The "root" is considered to be
> t-l-f-n and the verb is formed like other verbs:
> |letalfen| = to telephone someone, |tilfanti| = I phoned, and so on.
This reminds me of Maltese (one of my favorite languages!), which gives
some interesting broken plurals to Italian loanwords, e.g. furketta
(fork) > pl. frieket, kamra (room) > pl. kmamar, lupu (wolf) > pl.
lpup... Wonderful stuff! :-)

L'hitraot,

Thomas 

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