SDLC 105 Journal #8 - Knowing a Language's History, Language Research, Pres. Prep., etc.

[Rachel Poplack]

Hebrew has a very long history. Ancient forms of the language date back almost six thousand years, and the exact form of Hebrew that I am using to read and write has been around since the 6th century BCE. This is crazy. Jesus and I wrote the same Hebrew! Just kidding but really. Hebrew has such a rich history. It began as a "proto-Canaanite" script, which was very similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. Basically, there were little pictures that represented the same letters that exist today. So the alphabet had the same nature and sounds, it was just written very differently. As the Ancient Israelites interacted with different groups in the Middle East, the Ancient Hebrew script changed slightly, and settled on the Ancient Biblical Hebrew several centuries before Jesus. I think this is a fascinating concept. While written Hebrew had died out by this time (with the destruction of the second temple), prayers were said in the same language 2500 years ago that I say now. That is crazy. I think this has an impact on my language learning experience because it makes me more connected to my experience. Sometimes, things happen in my religious life that really make me feel so connected to my faith - and that is one of the reasons that being Jewish is special, because with being connected to my faith comes being connected to this study of Hebrew. My mind is really blown right now with the things I have learned about how old Hebrew is as a language, and how remarkably little it has changed. It also makes me sad though. Yiddish, the mixture of Hebrew and German that was developed in Europe during the Middle Ages, pretty much died out because of the Holocaust (also as a result of the resurrection/creation of Modern Hebrew by Ben Yehuda at the end of the 19th century). The fact that the annihilation of a group of people caused the destruction of a language makes me feel even more certain that it is my job to continue learning Hebrew. Even though Hebrew has a whole country dedicated to it, I just feel that I need to make sure there are people who do not live in Israel and who are still interested in this language, its history, and its cultural components. It feels very important to me.