One of the Academy’s more prominent committees is charged with considering new Hebrew terms for general use (as opposed to professional terms). Here the initiative tends to come from members of the public who seek a Hebrew alternative to a foreign word or term commonly used in everyday speech; often they suggest a specific Hebrew equivalent.
It is difficult to formulate a rule for whether to keep a borrowed foreign term or to replace it with a Hebrew one. The decision depends on many factors, such as how rooted the term already is in everyday speech, whether it is easily pronounceable for Hebrew speakers, whether it has spawned derivative words in Hebrew, whether it holds cultural value (e.g., the name of a traditional ethnic dish), and whether a convenient, catchy, and appropriate Hebrew equivalent can be found.
If the committee members decide that the term warrants a Hebrew equivalent, they try to find a solution within the existing Hebrew lexicon. They may “recycle” a word that has fallen out of use, sometimes changing its meaning slightly. For example, the Hebrew term for an open-air museum, מוּזֵאוֹן קָטוּר, uses the word קָטוּר to express “open-air”; in the word’s one appearance in the Bible (Ezek. 46:22) it modifies the word חָצֵר (‘court’) and may mean ‘enclosed.’
When coining a new Hebrew word, the Academy typically derives it from a root (shoresh), feeding the root into an appropriate word-pattern (mishkal), as in the word hedbek, from the root d-b-k, for the French word “collage.” Hebrew speakers, familiar with the verb hidbik (‘to glue’) from this root, can tell immediately from the word-pattern that hedbek is a noun and surmise that it is connected to gluing.
A new Hebrew word that enters the language through this very deliberate process faces an uncertain fate, raising an intriguing question: is it possible to predict whether a new coinage will catch on and enter the mainstream? Some factors that may affect the outcome include the ease with which speakers perceive the root of the word and grasp its meaning; the level of entrenchment of the foreign word being replaced; and the brevity and simplicity of the Hebrew term. The mass media may contribute decisively to the quick absorption of a word; professionals can also raise a word’s chances by including it in their lexicons. The experience of the last 100+ years of coining new Hebrew terms shows that occasionally a word may catch on only after a decade or more. For example, the now-commonplace word מֵידָע (‘information’) was coined in 1959 as a psychological term and entered more general usage only in the 1990s.
Hebrew Word vs. Foreign Word
We are often asked why the Academy has not created Hebrew replacements for words such as technologia (‘technology’), televizia (‘television’), autobus (‘bus’), and, of course, academia (‘academy’). In fact, the dictionaries of the Academy of the Hebrew Language contain many foreign words, such as electronica (‘electronics’), meteorologia (‘meteorology’), psychologia (‘psychology’).
Like the establishment of new words, it is challenging to determine when to retain a borrowed foreign term or replace it with a Hebrew word. There is also the basic ideological question: Should one aspire to replace every foreign word with a Hebrew alternative?
Some believe that we should question that the Academy has chosen to not propose alternatives to various foreign words. For these people, it is imperative for the Academy to find Hebrew alternatives to strengthen the status of Hebrew and its independence. On the other hand, there are those who champion the absorption of foreign words into Hebrew; they believe it is beneficial to connect Hebrew speakers to the global culture. Those who believe the latter believe that hundreds of words in Hebrew have already been borrowed -in earlier periods from other places, beginning in biblical times, such as the originally Akkadian ikkar (“farmer”) and hechal (“palace”). In rabbinic times Hebrew borrowed many words from Greek, Latin and Aramaic, e.g., partsuf (“face”), Sanhedrin (“council of leaders”), sandal (“sandál”), kirkas (“circus”) and ilan (“tree”). In the Middle Ages, under the influence of Arabic, we find words such as merkaz (“center”) and ofek (“horizon”).
Balance is important to the process of deciding whether to create a Hebrew alternative or use an adapted foreign word. The Academy seeks the middle ground: each term is discussed individually and the decision whether to create a new Hebrew term is made accordingly.
Hebrew Language Stamp
The Israeli Philatelic Society and the Academy of the Hebrew Language have joined forces in issuing a new stamp dedicated to the Hebrew language.
The Israeli government has decided to honor the Hebrew language by issuing a stamp that highlights the uniqueness of Hebrew: its continued existence – even after it ceased to be a widely spoken language, the treasures that were added to its vocabulary throughout the ages, and its revival as the everyday language of Israel.
Biblical Hebrew provides the most basic words, such as adam (man), yom (day) and mafteah (key), as well as many abstract terms such as ahavah (brotherhood), deror (liberty), and emet (truth). It is represented on the stamp by an ostracon dating from the 7th century BCE and inscribed in ancient Hebrew script. The seedling’s root that derives from it (third from left) features the words: mishpaha (family), ahava (brotherhood), nefesh (soul, spirit), mafteah (key), tsedek (justice), merkava (chariot), deror (liberty), kazav (untruth), ra’am (thunder) and kefir (lion cub).
Mishnaic Hebrew added an abundance of synonyms such as Ilan (tree), Hazar (Shabbat), and also words that were not known from the Bible such as Keveret and Gesher. Quite a bit of this abundance was drawn from contact with Aramaic. The Mishnaic Hebrew is represented on the stamp by a parchment scroll featuring a Mishnaic passage, reflecting the Hebrew that was spoken in Eretz Israel in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. The seedling’s root that draws on this level of the language (represented by the parchment) rises to the right of the biblical root and features the words: keneset (assembly, parliament), ilan (tree), gesher (bridge), tinok (child, baby), lakoah (customer), kavveret (beehive) and hotem (nose).
From Medieval Hebrew we inherited abstract words such as eichut (quality), as well as several terms borrowed directly from Arabic, such as ta’arikh (date). New words created in Medieval Hebrew poetry are also in use in Modern Hebrew, such as ma’as (action, deed) and mivhan (test).
Medieval Hebrew is represented on the stamp by bound codices with bindings typical of the period. The root rising out of them (second from left) features the words: eichut (quality), kammut (quantity), shlemut (completeness), ta’arich (date), ofek </em (horizon), koter (diameter), lachan (melody), hashva’a (comparison) and mivchan (test).
Modern Period – Hebrew has faced the ongoing challenge of adapting to modernity while trying to preserve the ancient spirit of the language starting with the re-emergence of modern Hebrew literature in the mid-18th century onward, and especially since Hebrew’s revival as a spoken tongue in the early 20th century. New terms to accommodate modern society and technology had to be wrested from old roots and paradigms. Some of these innovations were created by individuals on their own initiative, while others originated from institutions – the Hebrew Language Committee and its successor, the Academy of the Hebrew Language.
Modern Hebrew is represented on the stamp by a computer keyboard, today’s alternative to the book. The roots deriving from it (on the far left and right) feature new words: havaya (experience), hamtsan (oxygen), misron (text message, SMS), adivut (courtesy), monit (taxi), mahshev (computer), taklitor (CD), midgannim (cereals),mir’ash (sensation), nevita (germination) - the word that appears on the stem.
The phrase at the bottom of the stamp, “Ancient Language in a New Reality,” was coined by Professor Ze’ev Ben-Ḥayyim, a prominent Hebrew linguist and one of the founders of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, serving as its president from 1973 to 1980. This phrase is taken from the title of his 1953 article, in which he discussed the special character of Modern Hebrew. According to Ben-Ḥayyim, “the unique characteristic of Hebrew is not changes in meanings of words (as is typical of every language)… but rather its uniqueness lies in the fact that nothing was lost… thus our language has… multiple layers alongside each another and not atop one another as in the case of other languages that have continued to exist over time”. The Modern Hebrew language is forever a work in progress, a vigorous new idiom growing out of ancient roots.