Every once in a while I hear someone talk about
how Modern Hebrew is not really true to its origins, that it has become a
"European language" or some such thing. Though linguists can list many
differences between Modern and Mishnaic Hebrew (its last spoken form before
Modern Hebrew) I think that this is misleading, to say the least. Yes, Modern
Hebrew has a large number of borrowed words, but the vast majority of them (I'd
say something like 95%) are neo-Greco-Latin terms which can be said to be as
foreign to English as they are to Hebrew. None of this takes into account the
overall impression Mishnaic Hebrew gives to the Modern Hebrew reader: It seems
old-fashioned, but not too different, and not hard at all to understand. I'd say
it's comparable to reading a 17th or 18th century text in English. And what
gives it its old-fashioned feel is not grammar, and not even vocabulary (very
much) but more than anything else, its style. Take the first sentence of the
Mishna:
מֵאֵימָתַי קוֹרִין אֶת שְׁמַע בְּעַרְבִית
מִשָּׁעָה שֶׁהַכֹּהֲנִים נִכְנָסִים לֶאֱכֹל בִּתְרוּמָתָן
עַד סוֹף הָאַשְׁמוּרָה הָרִאשׁוֹנָה דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר
וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים עַד חֲצוֹת
רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל אוֹמֵר עַד שֶׁיַּעֲלֶה עַמּוּד הַשַּׁחַר
Me'eymatay qorin et shma` b`aravit
Misha`a shehakohanim nikhnasim le'ekhol bitrumatan
`Ad sof ha'ashmora harishona divrey rabi eli`ezer
Vahakhamim omrim `ad hasot
Raban gamli'el omer `ad sheya`ale `amud hashahar
From when do they read 'Hear O Israel' in the evening?
From the hour that the priests go in to eat of their contributions
Until the end of the first shift, according to Rabbi Eliezer
And wise men say until midnight
Rabbi Gamliel says, until the the column of dawn goes up
If this text were written today it would probably be something like this:
According to rabbinic tradition, 'Hear O Israel' is read in the evening from the hour that the priests go in to eat their contributions, until midnight. However, according to Rabbi Eliezer, it is only until the end of the first shift, while according to Rabbi Gamliel it can be read until the column of dawn comes up.
I'm having trouble putting to words this difference in style. Can anyone help me out?
Posted by David Boxenhorn at April 4, 2005 09:17 PMIn English, it feels like the difference between poetry and prose. But I am not an expert in literary styles, and furthermore comparing English translations, even if done by an expert, would be inauthentic. One would have to compare a modern Hebrew version to the Mishnaic Hebrew, which I'm even less able to do, sadly.
Posted by: savtadotty at April 4, 2005 09:44 PM PermalinkI considered writing it in Hebrew, but I realized that the point I'm getting at comes through equally well in English.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at April 4, 2005 10:10 PM PermalinkHebrew's alive and thriving, though plagued by the same anti-grammar as most in the modern world. I thought you'd like.. http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2005/04/108-playing-with-words-and-letters.html
Posted by: muse at April 5, 2005 05:34 AM PermalinkThe people that say that Hebrew has become a European language refer to lost consonant sounds. For convenience sake, one can say that Modern Hebrew has taken vowels from the Mizrahim, the consontants from the Ashkenazim:
Vowels:
Kamatz: Nearly always 'a', while Ashkenazim read it often as 'o'.
Tsere: They ashkenazi 'ei' sound is dying out, and is replaced by a flat 'e'.
e.g.: Shalom Alekhem (Modern Hebrew) vs. Sholem Aleikhem (Yiddish)
Consontants - Hebrew lost the consonants that Yiddish-speakers couldn't pronouce
'Het: I love the yemenite het, but it's on the way out, pronounced like khaf.
'Ain: Ditto, pronounced like alef.
Qof, Tet: Already dead, pronounced like kaf and tav.
Resh: The modern resh is like Yiddish, almost as guttural as french 'r', not like the original which was pronounced in the front of the mouth.
Unemphasized gimel, dalet, and tav: Used to be pronounced respectively as 'gh' (that weird half-g half-r sound arabs can make), soft 'th' (as in 'that') and hard 'th' (as in 'think').
Vav: Used to be pronounced as 'w' - a sound that doesn't exist in Yiddish.
Tsadi: The 'ts' sound is a yiddishism. Used to sound closer to 's'.
Also, this isn't an ashkenazi thing, but lots of people nowadays drop their aitches. So add heh to the list.
All in all, the language has changed quite a bit.
Posted by: Danny at April 5, 2005 08:34 PM PermalinkOh, yeah, and about your question: it's a very rhetorical style, introducing a question that is then answered, with three different variants, presented one after another, each variant extending the previous one.
Obviously, a text meant to be read out loud.
Posted by: Danny at April 5, 2005 08:47 PM PermalinkWow I learned a lot that I didn't know both from the post and Danny's detailed comment. My curiosity is peaked -- how did Tet and Qof used to sound before they pretty much died out as independent sounds? I find resh, particularly when it comes at the end of a word, to be extremely difficult to pronounce (does the Yiddish pronounciation of r deviate greatly from German, because resh is not pronounced at all like a germanic r)?
Thanks guys for some interesting things to think about!
Posted by: katie-yael at April 6, 2005 06:50 AM PermalinkAll languages go thru such shifts; one could even say that they are the sign of a living language.
As for the difference between the texts, I would say, as a geek, that they look like the same data structured to be parsed by different compilers.
Posted by: triticale at April 7, 2005 01:34 AM Permalink