Hebrew Language Research Articles

An Insufficient Canon: The Popol Wuj, Book of Mormon, and Other Scriptures

An Insufficient Canon: The Popol Wuj, Book of Mormon, and Other Scriptures

Extracts from the comparative description of linguistic images in the phraseological systems of Hebrew and Yiddish

This work is devoted to the study of the formation of the Hebrew phraseological system from the perspective of the supposed influence of the phraseological system of Yiddish on it. The choice of this Germanic language among the many Jewish languages as an object of research is explained by the fact that for the overwhelming majority of immigrants to their historical homeland, even Yiddish was the spoken language. On the basis of examples collected from Russian, Israeli, German and Polish sources, the article substantiates the theoretical prerequisites for the possible interaction of phraseological systems of both languages and notes cases of its absence. The study was carried out selectively in several thematic groups, a comparative analysis of which made it possible to establish significant interlingual inconsistencies, caused, in particular, by a change in the phraseological image of Hebrew. It was found that the process of independent development of the Hebrew phraseological system without a significant influence on it of the Yiddish system of stable expressions is naturally conditioned by the change of realities, which contributed to the formation of a new nationally mediated phraseological image. The own forces of the Hebrew language were able to give impetus to the formation of a phraseological system that was not subject to significant external linguistic influences. The article proposes further development of the Hebrew phraseological system, including through closer interaction with the Yiddish language.

The Origins of Israeli Deaf Ethnicity

At the first school for deaf children in the Yishuv, established in 1932, teachers used oralist methods developed in Germany to instill the Hebrew language in pupils. Graduates joined a Hebrew-speaking Deaf community that included orally trained Jews returning from Europe. This Deaf elite envisioned an extensive oral education system for children and adults, but the sudden influx of deaf immigrants in the 1950s disrupted their plans. The resulting demographic shift accelerated the development of modern Israeli sign language and an indigenous Deaf culture. By examining the role of the Deaf community in the socially and ethnically diverse context of Palestine and early Israel, this article argues that the Deaf community not only constituted a distinct linguistic minority who enriched the linguistic landscape of Israel, but it also functioned as a cultural minority. Furthermore, this article examines how the Deaf community intersected with other social groups in the highly stratified Israeli society of the 1950s, suggesting that it could be inscribed into the social fabric of Israel as an ethnic minority in its own right.

Plotting Persuasive Progress in Biblical Hebrew Language Learning

Bible Online Learner (https://bibleol.3bmoodle.dk/) claims to deliver a text that can persuade a language learner to practice best online. This corpus-driven learning technology was created as the engine and dashboard to drive learners through four crucial steps in a persuasive technology and design for language learning. The first step is to reduce challenges of learning through instant feedback on practice and to reward the learner with ongoing assessment of progress. The second step is to design for effective and efficient learning by forcing students to follow a specific path through tasks under surveillance of performance. This case is made for learning to read the Hebrew Bible through course material delivered at the My Biblical Hebrew Moodle website (https://mbh.3bmoodle.dk/). The third step is to enhance learning through adaptive tailoring to the need of learners who monitor their own practice. We discuss rich empirical evidence on daily online progression that documents self-directed learning. We have not yet reached the fourth and final step in a persuasive online language learning system, but we believe that it should include social experience from intensive courses, peer-based collaborative learning and enrichment by exposure to a use of modern Hebrew in Israel.

The Linguistic-Textual Markers in the Late Medieval Slavonic Biblical Translations from Jewish Originals

The article raises the question of language items (words or phrases) which could be the markers of a textual relationship between Biblical translations and their originals, on the examples of two East Slavonic texts created presumably in the 15th century in the Ruthenian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The article is based on the data of the edited Slavonic-Russian Pentateuch and two versions of the East Slavonic translation of the Song of Song, from the museum (Russian State Library, Moscow, mid-16th century) and Vilna copies (Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Vilnius, first quarter of the 16th century), including the glossary for both versions from the so-called Zabelin Set, a cluster of Biblical texts translated from Jewish sources into Old Ruthenian from the 17th-century manuscript (State Historical Museum, Moscow). These examples demonstrate the importance of the search for possible intermediary languages for texts, which, by all formal indicators, are the fruit of direct language and literary contacts between Slavs and Jews. There are proposed methods of ascertaining an original language and the language of a possible intermediary through a system of linguistic-textual markers. The weakest linguistic-textual markers are Hebrew loanwords written with Cyrillic script, especially when these are proper names only. Such forms do not exclude the possibility that their source was not the Masoretic Text itself, but translations of the latter made within the framework of the same Jewish tradition, i.e., the Targums (cfr. in particular the ‘Old Yiddish Targum’ and the ‘Judeo-Turkic Targum’). The most reliable linguistic-textual marker turns out to be the presence of words that are not just foreign-language borrowings and not from the Hebrew language, but that also qualify as hapaxes that were not adopted by the language of the book tradition into which the corresponding translation was made. Between these two extreme types of markers there are intermediate steps, which in different ways reveal the presence of an intermediary language and an intermediary text, but as a whole, all the markers speak in favor of the existence of these intermediaries.

Weaving Textual Tapestries: The Role of the Biblical Intertext

In Medieval Iberia, Arabic was perceived as the most communicative, practical, and beautiful language. Forced to contend with this, authors of Hebrew works sought to raise the caliber of the Hebrew language. This paper will explore the use of these Biblical intertexts through an intertextual analysis of Judah Halevi’s poem “Song of Farewell.” These intertexts utilized the contexts of their original stories to convey a deeper meaning to the literary works as well as create additional layered meaning subsequently aiding in the reinvigoration of the Hebrew language.

Al-Qarabah Baina al-Lughah al-Arabiyyah wa al-Lughah al-‘Ibriyyah Lughatain Samitain: Dirasah al-Lughah al-Muqaranah Baina Huruf al-Jar wa מילות יחס ( (Milot Yakhats)

This study aimed to describe the language kinship between Arabic and Hebrew as semitic languages when comparing حروف الجر and מילות יחס (milot yakhats). The question in this study addressed the similarities and differences between حروف الجر in the Arabic language and מילות יחס in the Hebrew language as semitic languages. The data source for the prepositions in the Arabic language rested upon “the Noble Qur’an, and the data source for the מילות יחס in the Hebrew language relied on the book “ תנ”ך (Tanakh). The data analysis was carried out using the comparative language approach. After analyzing the data, this study revealed that there are similarities and differences in the languages’ structures and meanings, indicating that the Arabic language and the Hebrew language are semitic languages. The similarities between حروف الجر in the Arabic language and מילות יחס in the Hebrew language can be found in the use of the noun after prepositions, and meanings if the מילות יחס and the حروف الجر used in the sentence. The differences between حروف الجر in the Arabic language and מילות יחס in the Hebrew language demonstrate that the מילות יחס has many rules in its use, where the word afterwards affects its movement. Such a case does not exist in the Arabic language, and that حروف الجر draws what follows it from the nouns, and this does not exist in the Hebrew language because it have no syntax. Subsequently, ל מילות יחס and حروف الجر have different meanings when used in sentences.

Arabic Language Academies in Israel Versus the Hebrew Language Academy: between Professionalism and Nationalist Politics

This article examines the role of Arabic Language Academies compared to the Hebrew Language Academy in the Israeli context. This is a unique context to examine, since we talk about a single academy constructed for the Jewish majority, and multiple academies for the Arab Palestinian minority within the state of Israel. Language academies are established in order to express national identity, constitute a main component in its culture and serve as a factor contributing to modernisation. The study reveals that the work of the Arabic academies is mainly instrumental, focusing on research and the structural aspects of the language, rather than primarily national, as is the case with more established academies. That means the Arabic Academies are professional bodies that deal with the Arabic language. While this is, of course, an important role, it should not be the principal function of the language academies. In contrast, the HLA deals with the structural aspects of the language, corpus planning, and also status planning, as the defender of the Hebrew language, and making the revitalisation of the language possible, combining both professional and national aspects from its inception.

The Hebrew Motives in Konstantin Kostenechki’s Work “Treatise of Letters” – Cultural and Interpretational Problems

The present article deals with the translations of Hebrew and non Hebrew but presented as Hebrew anthroponyms and oikonyms in the work of Konstantin Konstenechki “Treatise of Letters” dating back to the first decade of the 15th century. Up to this moment excluding Jagić the researchers have not pay significant attention to this part of work and according to common opinion Konstantin did not know Hebrew language. However the careful language and textological analysis indicates that a big part of the translations of names and words loaned from the Old and New Testaments are identical or stay close to the etymologies including in the modern dictionaries and other are result of phonetic comparison to Aramaic. There are also translations influenced by Midrashes and the works of Philo of Alexandria.

Multilingual Literature of the United States

Like the Russian Federation, the United States is a multilingual, multicultural society. A nation of immigrants and indigenous peoples, it has produced a rich body of literature in dozens of languages in addition to English that scholars have only in recent decades begun to pay attention to. Of particular note are texts in Spanish, Yiddish, Chinese, French, Hebrew, German, Arabic, Norwegian, Welsh, Greek, Turkish, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese and numerous American Indian languages. In this paper we observe the most significant texts of multilingual American literature. The corpus of literary works shows us, that despite Americans pervasive and enduring xenolinguaphobia - aversion to other languages - the United States, like other large countries, is a heterogeneous amalgam. Ignoring the variety of works written in languages other than English impoverishes the national culture and handicaps serious readers.

Contextualising the Russian to Hebrew language shift in three generations of Russian Israelis

ABSTRACT The research on language dynamics in the context of migration and integration has been dominated by applied linguists and educators, who described and measured native language attrition and emerging bilingualism among immigrants and their children. In parallel, sociolinguists discussed the role of language ideology/policy of the host society and family language milieu. Adopting a macro sociolinguistic view, the current article explores the social mechanisms of native language attrition across immigrant generations, thus becoming a heritage language. Our empirical data embrace national surveys and qualitative studies among adult immigrants to Israel from the USSR/FSU (Generation 1.0) and their children born before and after migration (Generations 1.5 and 2.0) collected over 20 + years. We show how the Hebrew-only language policy and stigmatising public discourse around Russian/Soviet legacies compelled immigrant adolescents to take distance from their origins. Russian’s absence from the school curriculum caused L1 literacy attrition and its relegation to the status of secret/home language, increasingly passive over time. Generations 1.5 and 2.0 manifest shrinking interest in all things Russian and weak ties with Russia/FSU. Drawing upon the critical sociological perspective, this article illuminates social forces that may facilitate or thwart effective transmission of native languages across immigrant generations.

THE IMAGE OF JERUSALEM IN HEBREW CHILDREN'S LITERATURE: THE PLAY (JERUSALEM TO ME) AS A MODEL

The Zionist movement, in all its stages, relied on Hebrew literature in order to achieve its aggressive and colonial goals. The celebration of Hebrew literature, in its various expressive and poetic forms, was a celebration of describing the conditions of the Jews, and directing them to emigrate to Palestine. Hebrew education books at various school levels described many Zionist concepts and in accordance with smart educational policies. Likewise, Hebrew literature directed at children played an important and vital role that differs from the rest of other literatures, as it carried with it Zionist ideological orientations according to ideological and political ideas and thus succeeded in creating children of a nature. Especially, Jewish writers focused on raising children through literature and focused on important historical issues and special educational trends. All this led to the success of the Zionist project. Zionism began caring for the Jewish child from the beginning, as it issued newspapers for children next to public libraries, and the movement began to revive the Hebrew language and enrich Hebrew children's literature from 1890-1891. Many Hebrew works directed to children have appeared, including story, poetry, and drama. In 1893, the first Hebrew magazine directed at children was published, entitled ( ולם קטן) (a small world). The Zionist movement did not neglect those who direct and take care of children’s literature because the child is the first building block of the state. Therefore, it placed the Jewish child within the framework of its project to accommodate the various Jewish immigrations to Palestine and the production of Hebrew children's literature. With the revival of the Hebrew language at the end of the nineteenth century and the increase of the Zionist presence in Palestine, it became one of the goals of Zionism to make the Hebrew language a language of dialogue between children and to consolidate the values of secular Zionism. One of these methods was to stage theatrical performances in the Hebrew language in front of young children. In this research, I will deal with the play (Jerusalem is mine) by the writer Galia Yei, as this play is concerned with Jewish assimilation in Jerusalem and linking the past with the present. And the Hebrew theater tried to prove the Jewishness of Jerusalem through historical events

COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN TRANSIONS OF THE NOBLE QUR'AN, ‎SURAT AL-DUHA AS AMODEL ‎

Our research provides a kind of treatment that deals ‎with issues related to the Hebrew language in the field ‎of translation and linguistics, where we offer a model ‎for translating Surat Al-Duha by analyzing its verses ‎that were translated into modern Hebrew by relying ‎on three Hebrew translations of some oriental ‎translators who translated the Holy Quran into ‎modern Hebrew And find out about many of the ‎problems in translation by transferring the Arabic ‎text to the Hebrew language‏.‏ As well as clarification of some technical aspects in ‎the approach to equivalencies and stylistic evaluation, ‎where we dealt with translating Surah Al-Duha into ‎modern Hebrew language based on three translations ‎with criticism, analysis and comparison through some ‎translation theories in order to benefit from this study ‎in the analysis of the Hebrew translations of the Holy ‎Quran by many specialists in The field of modern ‎Hebrew, who work in the field of translation from the ‎Hebrew language to the Arabic language. ‎

Validation of the hebrew version of the prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire (PIKQ) during pregnancy.

Pregnancy and delivery have a major effect on pelvic floor disorders. Assessing knowledge regarding pelvic floor disorders in childbearing age women and appropriate interventions will enable women to seek appropriate medical advice once pelvic floor disorders have developed. The purpose of this study was to validate the prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire in the Hebrew language. Translation of the prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire to the Hebrew language according to international recommended guidelines. A study was conducted to validate the questionnaire. The study took place between June to September 2020 in a tertiary medical center in Israel. A total of 240 third trimester pregnant women completed the Hebrew version of the prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire. Construct validity, criterion validity and reliability tests were performed. Factor analysis of the Hebrew version of the prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire demonstrated 12 strong positive factor loadings to one principal factor in the prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire-pelvic organ prolapse domain (FL > 0.3) and 10/12 in the prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire-urinary incontinence domain. The Hebrew prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire was found to have internal consistency, with Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.745 for the urinary incontinence domain and 0.796 for the pelvic organ prolapse domain. The Hebrew version of the prolapse and incontinence knowledge questionnaire is a new, reliable, consistent, and valid instrument to examine the level of knowledge regarding pelvic floor disorders in Hebrew-speaking pregnant women.

The Western Appropriation of Syriac as a “Kabbalistic Language” by Later Christian Kabbalists

Abstract The article demonstrates that the knowledge of the Syriac language in Western Europe first developed amongst Christian scholars with a strong interest in Kabbalah and that they attributed a mystical dimension to the Syriac language that was not associated with it before. After a survey of the first authors that played a significant role in shaping the appropriation of Syriac as a mystical language (Teseo Ambrogio, Postel, Widmanstetter), I show that the newly discovered last work of Christian Knorr von Rosenroth constitutes the climax of that movement. The study of the later reception of Knorr’s work in modern occultism indicates that the Syriac language was eclipsed by the renewed favor of Hebrew language, considered as the magical and mystical language par excellence.

Translation or Divination? Sacred Languages and Bilingualism in Judaism and Lucumí Traditions

I compare the status of a sacred language in two very different religious traditions. In Judaism, the Hebrew language is the language of liturgy, prayer, and the Written Law. The traditional way of reading Torah passages involved translating them into Aramaic, the everyday language of communication in the Middle East in the first half of the first millennium CE. Later, other Jewish languages, such as Yiddish, played a role similar to that of Aramaic in the Talmudic period, constituting a system referred to as the “Traditional Jewish Bilingualism”. Hebrew lexemes had denotations related to the realm of Biblical texts, while Aramaic/Yiddish lexemes had everyday references. Therefore, the act of translation connected the two realms or domains. The Lucumí (Santería) Afro-Cuban religion is a syncretic tradition combining Roman Catholicism with the Ifá tradition, which does not have a corpus of written sacred texts, however, it has its sacred language, the Lucumí (Anagó) language related to the Yoruba language of West Africa. While the Spanish-Lucumí bilingualism plays an important role in Santería rituals, the mechanisms of reference are very different from those of the Hebrew-Yiddish bilingualism in Judaism. In Santería, divinations about the meaning of Lucumí words play a role similar to the translations from Hebrew in Judaism. I further discuss the role of ritual dances in Santería for the transition from the sacred to the secular domain and a function of Hebrew epitaphs to connect the ideal world of Hebrew sacred texts to the everyday life of a Jewish community.

The dialectics of the securitization and desecuritization of African asylum seekers discourse in Israel

ABSTRACT This study engages in an analysis of the media discourse regarding African asylum seekers in Israel, examining how populist and elite Hebrew language news websites utilize securitized and desecuritized discourses to depict asylum seekers in both a period of perceived acute threat (2011–2012) and a period in which the perceived threat has dissipated (2018–2019). Utilizing a Dialectic Discourse Analysis approach, this study aims to disclose how similar discursive resources and societal values can be dialectically employed to advance both securitized and desecuritized migration discourses. Specifically, the study illustrates how paradigmatic lexical choices, collective memory narratives, religious values, and vox populi discourses can be utilized to advance both securitized and desecuritized approaches to asylum seekers, with no significant different between the two periods studied. The study posits that by appropriating central societal values towards each position, the discourse become fixed in opposition, as neither side is able to engage in a constructive dialogue with the opposing side. The discussion suggests a possibility for engaging in a productive discourse which shifts beyond fixed oppositions with respect to asylum seekers and other perceived threats to the ontological security of a society.

An Obstacle in Presenting Academic Equality and the Lack of Personal Prestige in the Academy: The Challenges of the Hebrew Language in the Eyes of Arab-Bedouin Female Students

The present study discusses the challenges of using written and spoken Hebrew by Arab Bedouin female students in specialization Hebrew as a second language, and how Hebrew contributes to their personal and professional life. The study was based on semi-structured interviews. The study indicates that using Hebrew as a second language poses a significant challenge for Arab-Bedouin female students; The challenge is both in the oral and written forms of the language. In addition, the study shows that the Arab Bedouin female students struggle with summarizing the learning material and with academic writing. The study indicates that the Hebrew language constitutes a breach of equality; many female students believed that the achievements of Jewish students were higher than their own because Hebrew is their mother tongue. Additional academic challenges relate to comprehending research articles in Hebrew, which poses the same degree of difficulty as articles written in English. Other challenges include submitting papers in Hebrew and participating in lectures. However, the study also indicates that despite the challenge, the acquisition of the Hebrew language contributes Arab-Bedouin female professionally, by allowing them to have as a prestigious profession in the Israeli education system, and personally, when they are required to use Hebrew outside academia, in employment and other life arenas.

I am grateful to fate for this hour of grace: Children and Motherhood in the Life and Writings of Rosa Lebensbaum

Anna Margolin's innovative poetry has attracted the attention and admiration of Yiddish cultural research centers and literary critics worldwide. However, Rosa Lebensbaum—the real woman behind this pseudonym—has remained hidden for many years under the shadow of her well-known public figure. A family archive, carefully preserved by Rosa Lebensbaum's granddaughter in Israel, now allows the attention to be turned from Anna to Rosa. Private correspondence between Lebensbaum and her family—her divorcé, author Moshe Stavsky, and their son—reveals contradictions and understandings that illuminate new aspects in the poet's writing, as well as in her life and the lives of those around her. Based on this newly presented personal material, this article explores two aspects in the context of the life and writing of Rosa Lebensbaum; the first is personal while the other is cultural-historical. There was, on the one hand, a national, social, and creative renewal inspired by the Zionist movement, encouraging Jews to return to the land of Israel and the Hebrew language; yet, on the other hand, an American Jewish attempt to preserve and maintain the Yiddish culture, the language of exile against which the Jewish Yishuv in pre-state Israel fought vigorously. This clash of culture and languages—its implications and the price that many Jews were required to pay in pre-state Israel and America—form an additional central topic in this research.

The Development of the Hebrew Language amongst Arabs and Jews in Bilingual-Binational Schools in Israel

The current research examined the acquisition of Hebrew as a second language amongst both Arab students and Jewish students, for whom it is their mother tongue, studying in bilingual schools. Their achievements in Hebrew were compared to their peers’ achievements in monolingual schools: Jews were compared to their Jewish peers in Hebrew monolingual schools and Arabs were compared to their peers in Arabic monolingual schools. The students were given various assignments in Hebrew to test words recognition, pseudowords, phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, morphology, syntax judgment, working memory, spelling and reading comprehension. The data was analyzed by one-way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc test. The results that stand out are that Hebrew as a second language does not come at the expense of birth tongue skills amongst Arab students and that the birth tongue of Jewish students was not impaired either. The consequence was that all students “earned” a second language. This study was compared to other similar researches conducted in other countries with spoken languages, and was discussed in the context of meta-linguistics theories, Cummins theory of mutual threshold, the monolingual facilitation theory and the Structural Sensitivity Hypothesis.