Context Of Settlement Research Articles

Language Shift and Maintenance in Israel

The revival of Hebrew as a living language has often been called a modern miracle, a series of events without natural causes. A tiny group of idealists decided about the turn of the century, in a small area now known as Israel, to insist upon the use of Hebrew. In this they were guided by the scholarly example of Eliezer Ben Yehuda who, about 1882, introduced spoken Hebrew into his home and circle of friends. The beginning of modern Hebrew, a fairly clumsy medium at first, was a stubborn act of will without benefit of habit, convenience, or even clergy (religious circles objected to the secularization of the Holy Tongue). By the end of the First World War Hebrew had gained the adherence of the younger generation, and further growth could depend increasingly on the kind of regularities of language acculturation that this paper will be concerned with. Yiddish and German continued to dispute the hegemony of Hebrew with ideological and practical claims of their own, but once Hebrew had become the language of instruction at all levels of schooling in 1913 the outcome was hardly in doubt. The question ceased to be one of what language would be adopted by the Jewish population but became one of how quickly the shift to Hebrew would take place. Equipped with the results of foresighted population surveys, Bachi (1956) skilfully analyzed the growth of Hebrew language use and of the variables that could be correlated with differential rates of growth. The present paper is a brief and modest attempt to update Bachi's admi? rable study by including 1961 census data (which, by the way, were obtained under the directorship of Professor Bachi in his capacity as Government Statistician). We shall place special emphasis on the fate of mother tongues introduced into the country by Jewish immigrants. A small sample of Israelis originating in Rumania will illustrate aspects of shift and maintenance in greater detail. Pre-contact experiences and context of settlement may serve to explain the grosser aspects of language shift and maintenance (after a

Cambodia: The Limits of Diplomacy

For a number of years, the Government of Cambodia has sought the insulation of its territory from local conflicts involving great power rivalry. It has pressed, without success, for an international conference, with great power participation, which would ensure the neutrality and territorial integrity of Cambodia. The absence of any coincidence of interest among those countries most deeply involved in the Vietnam conflict has stood as an obstacle to the convening of such a conference. Until April 1965, objections to such a conference came from the United States but these were withdrawn when it appeared possible to reach discussions on Vietnam by this means. At this juncture there occurred a change in the position of the Vietnamese communists and the Chinese Government. The communists involved in the Vietnam war appeared determined not to be drawn into any negotiations regarding that conflict except on their terms, terms not acceptable to the United States Government. Well before the beginning of 1966, it had become evident that Cambodia was not going to improve its security position through great power agreement outside the context of a Vietnam settlement. But such a settlement appeared to be a long way off; meanwhile, the prospects of the war in Vietnam spilling over the border into Cambodia were steadily increasing. As the year began the Cambodian leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was faced with an acute dilemma. Evidently, he continued to believe that the Vietnam war would result in an eventual Viet Cong victory,1 and he seemed to foresee grave consequences for Cambodia arising out of American attempts to resist such an outcome. As the year drew to a close, moreover, Sihanouk was no nearer to resolving Cambodia's fundamental security problems. From the time that the Viet Cong had first moved on to the offensive in South Vietnam, periodic charges had been made that Cambodian territory was serving as a base area and supply source for the insurgents. After the middle of 1965, when the large scale American military involvement in South Vietnam began, these charges were echoed by the American military, and at the end of the year a State Department spokesman referred to the possibility that American forces might retaliate across the border into Cam-