HEBREW LANGUAGE STATUS AND CORPUS PLANNING Asher Shafrir Tel Aviv University The initial problem faced by those few that sought to revernacularize Hebrew was a complex one in that daily conversational use of Hebrew could not occur unless traditional Jewish multilingualism could be overcome on the one hand, and unless the Hebrew language itself could be modernized and standardized on the other hand. The entire beginning of revernacularization of Hebrew was far from being planned by any public authorized body. It was rather on an individual and sporadic basis. Only later came attempts at organization of some fragmentary "planning", especially in the areas of pronunciation, spelling and lexicon, made by some semi-public bodies. With the official recognition of Hebrew on the part of the British Mandate authorities in 1922 as one of the official languages of Palestine, Hebrew's legal status was similarly fixed. Although Hebrew had to undergo many challenges in later years, nevertheless its status as the national language of Israel was never again in doubt. Hebrew, language planning, language revival, Israel, corpus planning, status planning The development of Modern Hebrew modern life—lacking words for concepts such may be viewed as consisting of three periods, as "tomato", "a match", "serious", "polite", in each of which at least one language and "newspaper" – that some leaders planning "goal" has been sought. The first of questioned the capacity of the language to be these periods is that of "Language Revival" restored. 1890-1914 (Nahir, 1984), in which the revival I will define codification: "the work of the Hebrew language in Palestine at the of a body or an individual who more or less turn of the 20th century took place, and my knowledgeably, decides to give explicit, discussion here will start with this period. usually written, form to the [language] norm... Much of the study of the Revival has focused chosen" (Haugen, 1983). on the status of the language, because the unprecedented transformation of the status of Macro-corpus planning; The Hebrew Hebrew from a language of religion back to a Language Committee vernacular and a national language has been rightly viewed as the product of status Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1857-1922), planning (Nahir, 1998). Much corpus who is the "father" of the revival movement, planning, however, was also involved. understood that the revival of Hebrew was not Restoring the status of the language was only possible without adapting it to modern life. going to succeed if its speakers would have an Therefore, in addition to his own work on the adequate code, most of all a lexicon, to lexicon, he and some friends established in communicate with. Here I will discuss first Jerusalem in 1890 the Hebrew Language the lexical codification work carried out in the Committee, whose major task, other than Revival period, mostly by individuals, "extending the use of the Hebrew language informally, even though a massive amount of and of spoken Hebrew among all sections of lexical codification had been done previously the people" (Rabin, 1973), would be to codify by generations of writers in Hebrew, a Hebrew in order to prepare it for its new language which never actually "died", but, function. A subcommittee was to search for following its demise two millennia ago, existing words through Hebrew literature of continued to be used as a "living written all periods and to create new words where language". Despite these contributions, none existed. however, at the beginning of its revival the In 1912, the Committee decided to Hebrew lexicon was so gravely inadequate for become active in preparing its own critically 499 needed Hebrew terminologies. It first dealt communication problems in their work. Some with 120 terms in arithmetic, some proposed were known literary figures or leaders, but by teachers but mostly drawn from ancient countless lexical items were created by literature. These were words for concepts unidentified individuals, whose creation such as "number", "digit", "addition", nevertheless has since become part of the "subtraction", "multiplication", "division", Hebrew lexicon. We will discuss briefly some "remainder", "sum", etc. The next of the most prolific lexical innovators and the terminology lists were in gymnastics, sowing, methods applied generally in the process of food, and plants. In gymnastics, for example, lexical codification. the published list included words for "right Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, mentioned turn!", "left turn!", "forward!", "(stand) at earlier, was the most prominent and prolific ease!", etc., also currently in general use. codifier of the new Hebrew lexicon. He Many more lists were soon published, dealing compiled the first comprehensive Hebrew with terms for one subject at a time. Until Dictionary, whose impact on the Revival, 2011 the Committee (from 1953 "Academy") however, was rather limited since the first published some 125,000 terms in 230 volume was only published in 1909, when the Glossaries. The last glossary published in Revival was approximately five years from November 2010 is in general biology and completion, and only half the Dictionary was includes 2730 terms such as "symbiosis", completed by the end of the Revival. But "mutation", "instinct", "biota", "hatchling", Ben-Yehuda also made significant etc. (http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/). contributions to Hebrew codification by The Committee also assumed the task writing several school textbooks and of resolving language queries from the public. translating literary works. In all of these he A selection of letters sent to the Committee used the Hebrew words he had discovered or was recently published in the Hebrew created for his newspapers and for his large Academy's Newsletter (Akadem, 7, 1995). Dictionary. His innovations which are still in Today the Academy involves the public in use included words for, "omelet", "salami ", search for new terms. The last task was to "jam", "fashion", "stockings", "gloves ", "fur", propose terms for "compost". The Academy "cauliflower", "cactus", "telegram", published more than a hundred proposals "municipality", "front", "soldier", "invasion", from the public received till end of February "bomb", "maneuver", "exercise", 2011 (http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/). "newspaper", "dictionary" etc. The Committee had its critics too, Itamar Ben-Avi, Ben-Yehuda's oldest who took exception to what they viewed as son, unlike his father, though, he restricted mass production of words, or "a word himself to coining words only as he needed factory". Even Ahad Ha'am, the highly them rather than as a scholarly activity. This influential writer, thought that new words may explain why, having met actual should only be created by writers and only as communicative needs, his innovations were needed. The famed Shuy Agnon (later Nobel accepted by users much more readily than Laureate) called for more effort to draw words were his father's. from existing sources, even though he, like H. N. Bialik, a highly acclaimed Poet other critics of word innovators, eventually Laureate, also created numerous words as he used most of their innovations (Bar-Adon, needed them for his work. According to some 1977). scholars (e.g., Sivan, 1980; Kutscher, 1982), Bialik had a unique ability to introduce new Micro-corpus planning and lexical life into old, even ancient words, filling them codification with "vitality". He particularly favored Most new word creation in the combinations of older words, which he used Revival, then, was the informal product of abundantly in both his poetry and prose. We individuals, mostly in the process of solving can recognize two types in his innovations: 500 new words and new combinations, blends, or /yarkan/, greengrocer', from /yarak/, compounds. His innovations which are in use 'vegetables'. included words for "import", "export", "car", /-ay/, for trade or having certain features "kitchen" etc. (e.g., /xašmalay/, 'electrician', from /xa Many others created new words – šmal/, 'electricity'; /mexonay/, 'mechanic', among them writers, journalists, educators, from /mexona/, 'machine'. translators, publishers and editors – e.g., /-iyya/ (borrowed from Arabic) /naxat/, 'to land', /palaš/, 'to invade', by a (e.g., /sifriyya/, 'library', from /sefer/, leading journalist, /agvaniyya/, 'tomato', 'book'; ; /'iriyya/, 'city hall, municipality', /xamtzan/, 'oxygen' by Y. M. Pines, Ben- from /'ir/, 'city'). Yehuda's friend and colleague, writer and (3) Drawing words from old teacher. A revered poet, Avraham Shlonsky, sources and assigning them new meanings coined countless words as he needed them in /xashmal/, 'electricity'; /mexona/, translating foreign literary works into 'machine'; /totax/, 'cannon') from Biblical Hebrew. Israel's first Foreign Minister, Moshe Hebrew; /'itzumim/, 'sanction'; /tekes/, Sharet, was considered to be the creator of the 'ceremony' from Mishnaic Hebrew now established /darkon/, 'passport', /ašra/, (4) Merging pairs of words 'visa', /etgar/, 'challenge', but he later into single words (e.g., /migdalor/, admitted that he had "ordered" them from 'lighthouse', from /migdal/, 'tower', and someone else. He did create several other /or/, 'light'; /madxom/, 'thermometer', from words, though, e.g., /takrit/, 'incident', from /mad/, 'measure', and /xom/, 'temperature'). /kara/, 'happen', and /šmar-taf/, 'baby-sitter', (5) Adding Aramaic, European from /šamar/, 'watch', and /taf/, 'infants'. and Hebrew prefixes and suffixes (e.g., David Remez, the first Israeli Minister