Revived Languages

Dan   Monday, April 25, 2005, 01:03 GMT
Does anybody know the success rates of Revived languages, like Hebrew? How much do they differ from the original?
Dan   Monday, April 25, 2005, 01:05 GMT
*How much do the revived languages differ from the original?
JB   Monday, April 25, 2005, 05:50 GMT
Since there is no contiguous varient of spoken Ancient Hebrew and since nobody today lived during the time when the original was spoken, one can only speculate.
Brennus   Monday, April 25, 2005, 06:00 GMT
Dan,

Hebrew is an exception. Overall, the track record hasn't been very good. Attempts to revive Catalan have been only modestly successful while attempts to revive Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Cornish and even Nynorsk (pronounced new-noshk - a purer form of Norwegian) and Dalmatian (a Romance language in Croatia) have been abysmal.
Bilbo   Monday, April 25, 2005, 06:01 GMT
Forgive me for being ignorant, but who speaks Hebrew? Is it spoken by all Israelis, or is it just spoken for ceremonial purposes?
JB   Monday, April 25, 2005, 06:10 GMT
Bilbo,
It is spoken by all Israelis. Many Jews speak it as a second language. Most Jews, however, only know it for ceremonial purposes.
Someone   Monday, April 25, 2005, 06:10 GMT
It's the main language spoken in Israel.
Brennus   Monday, April 25, 2005, 06:14 GMT
I've seen news video of Israeli soldiers speaking Hebrew to each other while battling Arabs in the streets of Lebanon, so I'm sure it's for real there.
Ori   Monday, April 25, 2005, 08:51 GMT
Hebrew is spoken in Israel to the same extent that Spanish, say, is in Spain.

Everyone here speaks Hebrew, unless he is either a new immigrant or an extremely apathetic Russian \ French \ American (in that order). It is the native language of virtually everyone who was born here (myself included).

As to the question of Dan - well, Modern Hebrew is actually a bit different from Biblical, Mishnaic or Medieval Hebrew. Though an average Hebrew speaker can relatively easily understand the old language.

By the way, if you want to hear how it sounds, here is a direct link to Israel Radio 2 ("reshet bet shel kol israel"):

mms://s67wm.castup.net/990310001-52.wmv

(copy and paste in the address bar)
Adam   Monday, April 25, 2005, 09:05 GMT
Is it possible to revive languages? If it is, then why aren't ALL languages revived?
Kirk   Monday, April 25, 2005, 09:16 GMT
Modern Hebrew is alive and well, and is the native language of millions of people, so it's probably the best story of a comeback for a language. It has a unique sound, one that sounds somewhat exotic to me because I don't hear Hebrew on a regular basis. In fact, the only time I can remember hearing it being spoken in person was when I met two Israeli tourists at a youth hostel in Argentina.
JJM   Monday, April 25, 2005, 09:40 GMT
"Is it possible to revive languages?"

Yes, it is - as shown by the example of Hebrew in Israel.

BUT the key to successfully reviving any language is simply this:

How useful will this language be to the everyday life and advancement of the person who learns it?
Deborah   Monday, April 25, 2005, 22:11 GMT
This link is to an interesting page I came across. There's discussion about why the Hebrew revival was so successful, as well as second-generation speaker phenomena and other interesting topics:

http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/073043.php
greg   Tuesday, April 26, 2005, 12:50 GMT
Deborah : interesting link. So, reviving endangered languages is doable. A question : how do you write vowels in Hebrew ?
Ori   Tuesday, April 26, 2005, 15:19 GMT
Deborah,

Thank you for the link. It was very interesting indeed.


Greg,

There are 4 letters called "imot hakria" (literally: mothers of reading), which can sometimes act as consonants (namely: h, v, y, and a pause that is usually transliterated as an apostrophe) and sometimes as long vowels (one stands for 'a' and 'e', one for 'o' and 'u', one for 'i', and one for either any vowel at the beginning of a word or for a second vowel in sequence). The placement of those letters usually let us know what their role is. Short vowels are written under and over the letters.

This writing system is used in both Modern and Old Hebrew. In modern Hebrew, however, the difference between short and long vowels remains only in writing but not in pronunciation. Moreover, the short vowels under and above the letters (known as "nikud") are normally omitted. They are used primarily in the holy scripts, children's books, and when they are necessary to avoid ambiguity.