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Linguist to speak on the “hybridity” of the Israeli language

September 12, 2006

Dr Ghil'ad ZuckermannAn eminent Israeli linguist will argue that the language spoken in Israel today is a composite of several languages, rather than a revival of biblical Hebrew, when he gives a talk at the University of New England on Friday, September 15.

According to Dr Ghil'ad Zuckermann (pictured) the Israeli language is a comparatively young language that combines elements of Hebrew and Yiddish, as well as other languages such as Russian and Polish. Thus, Dr Zuckermann argues, the term “Israeli” is clearly a more appropriate name for the language than “Israeli Hebrew”, “Modern Hebrew” or “Hebrew”.

“Although revivalists have engaged in a campaign for linguistic purity, the language they created often mirrors the very hybridity and cultural differences they sought to erase,” Dr Zuckermann said.

“The study of Israeli casts light on the dynamics between language and culture in general and in particular into the role of language as a source of collective self-perception. When one revives a language, even at best one should expect to end up with a hybrid. Israeli is a hybridic layered language, only partially engineered. Whatever we choose to call it, we should acknowledge, and celebrate, its complexity.”

Dr Zuckermann has been a Gulbenkian Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, and a fellow at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. He has held other research posts in the US, Italy and Japan, and has taught at universities in Israel, Singapore, the UK and the US. His numerous publications – in English, Israeli, Italian, Yiddish, Spanish, German and Russian – include the books Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew, published in 2003, and Hebrew as Myth, published in 2006.

The talk will begin at 1pm in Seminar Room 2 of the Psychology Building. For more information contact Dr Elizabeth Ellis on (02) 6773 3639.

Posted by Leon Braun at September 12, 2006 02:05 PM