NOTES ET MÉLANGES Moshe FLORENTIN Tel-Aviv University and the Academy of the Hebrew Language THE REGULATION OF MODERN HEBREW AND THE PROBLEM OF UNIFICATION 1. Prolog: the “invisible hand” and regulation I was deeply occupied with my thoughts and ideas related to this paper at the end of 2007 when I found myself shocked by the sudden outburst of the global financial and economic crisis at that time. Without trying to find farfetched analogies between economics and linguistics, I kept returning to the thought of what one may call “language capitalism” and several kinds of mechanism of regulation in civilized democratic societies. Can the “invisible hand”1 really always lead the compound markets to their optimal condition? I do not intend to share with the reader my poor economic knowledge, yet I found it rather interesting to consider the fraught question of language regu- lation in light of that yet-continuing world crisis. Certainly, vigorous acts of increased supervision of banks in the USA are a reality which should cause second thoughts, at any rate among those who are traditionally and consistently against any kind of regulation. There are parallels with language. 2. Is there any need for an academy of language? Can it be effective? Let me then raise the first question of my paper, which unfortunately seems to be characterized by an embarrassing lack of answers: “Do we need any kind of language regulation?” In other words: “Is there any need for an academy of language?” 1. As it is well known, the expression was first coined by the eighteenth century economist Adam Smith in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, London, 1759, Part IV, chapter 1. Revue des études juives, 171 (3-4), juillet-décembre 2012, pp. 381-401. doi: 10.2143/REJ.171.3.2184710 995711_REJ_2012/3-4_05_Florentin.indd5711_REJ_2012/3-4_05_Florentin.indd 381381 55/12/12/12/12 113:523:52 382 THE REGULATION OF MODERN HEBREW The special case of Hebrew The question of language regulation is compound, as is the variety of language itself. And though any spoken living language has its varieties one should bear in mind the special case of Hebrew: a written language that came back almost overnight to be spoken by thousands, indeed millions of non-native speakers immigrating to Israel and by their descendants born in that country during the last one hundred years2. Informal variety of language — the confusion of numerals in Hebrew It seems that no serious person would admit any kind of official inter- ference in one of the many spoken, informal varieties of language. Thus, the Academy of the Hebrew Language, for instance, does not make any effort to repair colloquial phenomena such as the chaos in the domain of numerals in modern vernacular Hebrew. Indeed, quite commonly-made mistakes such שנים sne sqalim and שני שקלים ste seqel, “two shekels”, instead of שתי שקל snem ‘asar, “twelve שנים עשר snem ‘esre, “twelve”, instead of עשרה stem ‘esre, “twelve (fem.)”, drive to despair many שתים עשרה masc.)” or) who consider themselves well educated. This “barbaric” confusion of gen- der — accompanied by “savage” innovations of new forms3 — in the whole system of cardinal numbers is due to their anomaly in Hebrew and the other Semitic languages: the whole system is twofold, each number being charac- terized by two forms, masculine and feminine, while the masculine bears ַי ְל ָדּה slosa, “three”, (masc.) versus ְשׁ ָלוֹשׁה .of the feminine, e.g -ה the suffix yalda, “girl” (fem.).4 This anomaly has caused the same confusion in other spoken Semitic languages, each usually preferring to use only the short form, i.e. the feminine one.5 Note that this “ugly” phenomenon assailed the purity of Hebrew from the very beginning of its revival. In 1930, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the right-wing revisionist Zionist leader, wrote in his booklet entitled The Hebrew Pronunciation referring to what he called “the trouble of the numerals”: “one can hardly find a person who strictly differs between 2. See J. BLAU, The Renaissance of Modern Hebrew and Modern Standard Arabic, Berkeley, 1981. smona ‘esre, “eighteen”, a mix of the masculine numeral smona שמונה עשרה Such as .3 . ְש ֶמוֹנה ֶע ְשֵרה and the feminine smone ‘esre ְש ָמוֹנה ָע ָשר asar‘ 4. See e.g., P. JOÜON, T. MURAOKA, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, Roma, 1996, §100 d (henceforth, JOÜON-MURAOKA). 5. Thus, in the Arabic dialect of Jerusalem only the short form of the cardinal numerals 3-10 is used, e.g. talat iwlad, “three boys”, instead of talate. See A. LEVIN, A Grammar of the Arabic Dialect of Jerusalem (Hebrew), Jerusalem, 1994, p. 62. 995711_REJ_2012/3-4_05_Florentin.indd5711_REJ_2012/3-4_05_Florentin.indd 382382 55/12/12/12/12 113:523:52 THE REGULATION OF MODERN HEBREW 383 masculine and feminine numbers in his fluent speaking”.6 It was probably his desperation which led him to suggest the substitution of all the numerals by letters so that, instead of the endless confusion described above, he pro- denoting 12, bypassing the whole problem of ,י״ב posed for example just distinction between masculine and feminine. Moreover, this confusion can be found in more than a few Rabbinic Hebrew (and Samaritan) texts com- posed during the medieval ages.7 Indeed most of these texts hardly deserve the title “canonic”, yet the phenomenon is not alien to pre-Modern Hebrew. Even the Biblical scribes occasionally faltered — though very rarely — and and the three wives of his“ , ְוּש ֶֹלשת ְנ ֵשי ָב ָניו one can find written about Noah 8. ְוּשֹלש ְנ ֵשי ָב ָניו sons” (Gen. 7:13), instead of Regulating the formal variety of language By adducing these historical facts I am not trying to legitimize this phe- nomenon. My aim is to emphasize the point that the Academy of the Hebrew Language does not strive to shape the character of all the varieties of Modern Hebrew. Its only task, in this respect, is to establish and fix the cultural, official, formal aspect of our language. I personally am not of the opinion that one should, or can, regulate the vernacular Hebrew (or spoken forms of any other language). In other words, this linguistic education is the task, perhaps one of the most important tasks, of schools rather than of academies of language. Assuming that the Academy, or any other regulator, should leave aside all varieties of spoken language and concentrate on the “language of culture”, we then have to ask ourselves whether one should establish an official institute the purpose of which is to do this. After all, many civilized countries have no such academy for regulating their national languages. 6. See Z. JABOTINSKY, Ha-miv†a ha-‘ivri [The Hebrew Pronunciation], Tel Aviv, 1930, p. 37. 7. For the whole phenomenon, see e.g. Z. BETZER, “Ha-lashon ha-rabbanit shel yemei ha-benayim” [Rabbinic Language in the Middle Ages], in Peraqim be-toldot ha-lashon ha- ‘ivrit: ha-Ìativah ha-benayimit [History of the Hebrew Language: The Medieval Division], Tel-Aviv, 2001, p. 87. The Latin phrase Bis dat, qui cito dat was translated by the Jewish אם תרצה להיטיב מתנתך תן מהרה כי :(Italian scholar and poet Leon of Modena (1571-1648 If you want to improve your gift, give it promptly, since twice“ ,שני (!) פעמים יתן הנותן מהרה with the feminine noun שני gives he who gives promptly”. He used the masculine form .שתי instead of פעמים 8. For more exceptions, see JOÜON-MURAOKA, §100 d, n. 1. Note that the anomaly is even in ת four”, shows as a rule the feminine“ ,ארבע more complex since feminine forms such as (.and the four (animals, fem“ , ְוּפ ֵני ֶנ ֶשר ְל ַאְר ַבּ ְע ָתּן .e.g ,ארבען rather than ארבעתן :their inflection had the face of an eagle” (Ezek. 1:10). 995711_REJ_2012/3-4_05_Florentin.indd5711_REJ_2012/3-4_05_Florentin.indd 383383 55/12/12/12/12 113:523:52 384 THE REGULATION OF MODERN HEBREW The effectiveness of the Regulator The first point which must be discussed is the effectiveness of the regu- lator and its actual ability to force its regulations. After all, there is an essential difference between the regulations of a language academy and the regulations of, say, the inspector of the banks or the stock exchange. Indeed, the decisions of the Academy of the Hebrew Language are beneficiaries of the prestige of an official law, approved by the Israeli Parliament in 1953.9 Yet, the Academy is in no way a “language police” and no one can or desires to enforce its decisions legally.10 Writers, journalists, poets and still more than these, the “ordinary person in the street” are those who shape the cha- racter of a language by using it naturally. They are, if I may again use the economic term, “the invisible hand” which directs the forces of the market. The effectiveness of powerful elites Is it really so simple? Let us have a glance at the history of Hebrew and extract therefrom some relevant cases which show how arbitrary and artifi- cial choices made by powerful elites can significantly affect a whole struc- ture of a given language. The case of the Sephardic pronunciation and Va‘ad ha-lashon The pronunciation of Modern Hebrew consists of five vowels: i, e, a, o, u. As known, the punctuation signs qameÒ and pataÌ are both pronounced a and the two punctuation signs Òere and segol are both pronounced e: -sefer, “book”. This is one of the most pro ֵס ֶפר ;”savar, “broke ָש ַבר .e.g minent characteristics of what we generally call “the Sephardic pronuncia- tion”, which was used in reading the Bible by Jews in medieval Spain, and whose provenance is traced to ancient times in Palestine.