Micro-corpus codification in the Hebrew Revival

Moshe Nahir

 Department of Linguistics (University of Manitoba, Canada)

nahir@cc.umanitoba.ca

Abstract:

In this paper, the author discusses the lexical codification work carried
out in the Modern Hebrew Revival period. The development of Modern
Hebrew may be viewed as consisting of three periods, in each of which
at least one language planning "goal" has been sought. The first of these
periods is that of "Language Revival" (1890-1914) in which the revival
of that language in Palestine took place. At the beginning of its revival
the Hebrew lexicon was so gravely inadequate for modern life—lacking
words for concepts such as "tomato", "serious", and "newspaper"—that
some leaders questioned the capacity of the language to be restored.
Therefore, much corpus planning had to be done to fill that vast lexical
gap. This aspect of the Revival was achieved through the cumulative
efforts of educators, writers, translators, etc., as well as countless
language-conscious individuals. This was carried out in various ways,
retrieving old words and roots, creating new words from old words and
roots, combining existing words, filling in pattern with root "fillers",
borrowing words and roots, etc. All this arduous, seemingly endless
campaign eventually paid off, and Hebrew is now a modern language,
standardized and "normalized" in every respect.

1. Introduction
The development of Modern Hebrew may be viewed as consisting of three
periods, in each of which at least one language planning "goal" has been
sought. The first of these periods is that of "Language Revival" (1890-1914;
Nahir, 1978; 1984), in which the revival of the Hebrew language in Palestine
(now Israel) at the turn of the 20th century took place, and my discussion
here will deal with this period. Much of the study of the Revival has focused
on the status of the language, because the unprecedented transformation of
the status of Hebrew from a language of religion back to a vernacular and a
national language has been rightly viewed as the product of status planning
(Nahir, 1998). Much corpus planning, however, was also involved. Restoring
the status of the language was only going to succeed if its speakers would
have an adequate code, most of all a lexicon, to communicate with. Here I
will discuss the lexical codification work carried out in the Revival period,
mostly by individuals, informally, even though a massive amount of lexical
codification had been done previously by generations of writers in Hebrew, a
language which never actually "died", but, following its demise two
millennia ago, continued to be used as a "living written language". Despite
these contributions, however, at the beginning of its revival the Hebrew
lexicon was so gravely inadequate for modern life—lacking words for
concepts such as "tomato", "a match", "serious", "polite", and "newspaper"—
that some leaders questioned the capacity of the language to be restored.

I will define codification after Einar Haugen: "the work of a body or an

individual who more or less knowledgeably, decides to give explicit, usually
written, form to the [language] norm... chosen" (1983:271).

2. Macro-corpus planning. The Hebrew Language Committee

Predictably, the greatest obstacle to the adequacy of Hebrew as a full-fledged

vernacular was the acute shortage of words, especially in the areas of daily
modern life and in specialized areas such as science and technology. The
best known and probably one of the greatest contributors to the solution of
this problem was Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1857-1922), who for many years was
considered the "father" of the revival movement, until recently it has been
realized that he had a significant impact on the language, but that was limited
to its corpus.

Ben-Yehuda understood that the revival of Hebrew was not possible without
adapting it to modern life. Therefore, in addition to his own work on the
lexicon, to be discussed later, he and some friends established in Jerusalem
in 1890 the Hebrew Language Committee, whose major task, other than
spreading the spoken use of the language, would be to codify Hebrew in
order to prepare it for its new function. A subcommittee was to search for
existing words through Hebrew literature of all periods and to create new
words where none existed. The Committee's major lexical sources would be:
(1) primary sources—the Bible, Talmud, and later texts, especially of the
Spanish period—, (2) words created by the Committee from existing roots,
(3) words borrowed from Arabic, and (4) Hebrew words found in newly
discovered archeological finds.

Less than a year after it was established, however, the Committee disbanded,
though much of its work was continued by individuals, including Ben-
Yehuda. As David Yelin, a colleague, later reported, the enterprise had
become irreversible: "Even in those years the spoken language kept on
expanding and new words were constantly established by scholars and sages,
teachers and physicians, who needed the words for their writing... and who
would then publish them. Many of them entered the spoken language, for
they were needed. But these innovations were all haphazard, created by
individuals and without a consensus" (Yelin, 1912; cited in Ben-Asher,
1977).

Thirteen years later, in 1903, a new Language Committee was formed by the
newly established Hebrew Teachers Union, which recognized that
innovations made by teachers, on an ad hoc basis, confused students moving
between schools and even classrooms. An important function of the restored
Committee, which retained the earlier policies, would be to assess and select
words proposed by professionals, to whom it would turn for terminology lists
in foreign languages in their respective areas.

The Committee also assumed the task of resolving language queries from the
public. A selection of letters sent to the Committee was recently published in
the Hebrew Academy's Newsletter (Akadem, 7, 1995). In one, a kindergarten
teacher requested help on terms of children's games and handicraft, and
enclosed a list of her own proposals. In another, a school principal sent the
Committee questions and proposals for terms in geometry. In still another, a
gymnastics teacher sent his proposals and requested the Committee's
comments and approval. A bank manager asked for terms for banking, and a
group of Kibbutz members who could not agree on the "correct" form of a
Hebrew expression requested the Committee's arbitration.

In 1912, the Committee decided to become active in preparing its own

critically needed Hebrew terminologies. It first dealt with 150 terms in
arithmetic, some proposed by teachers but mostly drawn from ancient
literature. These were words for concepts such as "number", "digit",
"addition", "subtraction", "multiplication", "division", "remainder", "sum",
etc. Ten were created by the Committee, of which seven were accepted and
are still in use. The next terminology lists were in gymnastics, sowing, food,
and plants. In gymnastics, for example, the published list included words for
"right turn!", "left turn!", "forward!", "(stand) at ease!", etc., also currently in
general use.

Many more lists were soon published, dealing with terms for one subject at a
time. They were viewed by professionals in the respective fields, and then
brought for final approval by the Committee, prior to publication. In these
lists, French and German translations were given next to each Hebrew term,
with a notation indicating which of the eligible sources it had been drawn
from.

The Committee had its critics too, who took exception to what they viewed
as mass production of words, or "a word factory". Even Ahad Ha'am, the
highly influential writer, thought that new words should only be created by
writers and only as needed. The famed Shuy Agnon (later Nobel Laureate)
called for more effort to draw words from existing sources, even though he,
like other critics of word innovators, eventually used most of their
innovations (Bar-Adon, 1977). One group objected to using words from the
Bible if they did not survive in Mishnaic Hebrew, since they were "dead" by
definition. This was rejected, and most of the approximately 800 biblical
words in this group were actually revived. Another group claimed that giving
biblical words or roots new meanings would cause the loss of their original
meanings and later the misinterpretation of the Bible. This has, in fact,
occurred in a significant number of words, e.g., /ratson/, 'pleasure', became
'will, wish'.

3. Micro-corpus planning. Informal lexical codification

The Language Committee's accomplishments were in fact rather limited.

First, it focused largely on specialized terminologies required by
professionals, scientists, and technicians, yet mostly even these terms,
particularly the ones that were eventually accepted, were actually created by
the respective users in the field, construction engineers, auto mechanics,
librarians, office workers, etc., not by the Committee. Similarly, the lexical
needs of the general public were mostly met by individuals—writers, public
figures, and others, altogether outside the Committee (see Nahir, 1974). Most
of the Committee's real function was considering terms created by the
"public" and approving or disapproving them. Second, the Committee's role
in the language revival was rather marginal as it did not exist until 1903,
when the Revival was already well under way (Fellman, 1973).

Therefore, in a recent study (Nahir, 1998) I have suggested that in the

absence of a central authority during at least half of the Revival period, it
should be seen as a case of "micro-language planning", where potential users
constituted "language planning agents" active in "language planning cells",
such as a newspaper editor's office. I referred there to status planning in the
Revival, but it is equally valid for the concurrent lexical codification, most of
which was carried out by individuals, even when the Language Committee
was in existence, mostly as a by-product of their main work. In fact, "non-
deliberate" innovations, according to David Yelin, a founding member of the
Committee, were accepted at a higher rate: "[They] are natural and are
accepted by the public" (Yelin, 1912; cited in Ben-Asher, 1977).

The drive to meet the need for thousands of new words was significantly
advanced by the Semitic-type morphology of Hebrew which proved highly
conducive to coining new words from existing roots. All Hebrew verbs and
most nouns and adjectives are derived from both a "root" and a "pattern".
Roots are fitted into one or more of about seventy verb, noun, or adjective
patterns existing in Modern Hebrew, often with added prefixes, suffixes or
infixes. Any root can be fitted into any pattern in which it did not exist
before, thereby creating a new word. All a word coiner needs to do is use
existing roots and fit them into existing but as yet unused patterns. This
typical feature multiplies the number of potential Hebrew words "waiting" to
be created if and when the need arises. It also helps learners of Hebrew, since
they can predict the meaning of an unknown word based on their
acquaintance with its root and the pattern the root is fitted into. It follows
that words deriving from a given root usually belong to the same or related
semantic fields. Thus
Hebrew has at least 32 words
deriving from the root /x.v.r./, fitted into various
patterns, all having the general meaning of
"association", e.g., /xaver/, 'friend'; /xevra/,
'company'; /xibur/, 'composition', and even
/maxberet/, 'notebook' (see Sivan, 1980). There are
at least 35 words deriving from /p.k.d./, of which
24 were created in Modern Hebrew, e.g., /tifked/,
'to function'; /poked/, 'census taker'; /mifkada/,
'military headquarters'; /hafkada/, 'deposit'; /pakid/,
'office worker'.
Most new word creation in the Revival, then, was the informal product of
individuals, mostly in the process of solving communication problems in
their work. Some were known literary figures or leaders, but countless
lexical items were created by unidentified individuals, whose creation
nevertheless has since become part of the Hebrew lexicon. We will discuss
briefly some of the most prolific lexical innovators and the methods applied
generally in the process of lexical codification.

3.1. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, mentioned earlier, was the most prominent and
prolific codifier of the new Hebrew lexicon. Soon after arriving in
Palestine as a young man in 1884, he published a newspaper, first as a
weekly newspaper and later as a daily newspaper. The lexicon he used
consisted either of words that existed in contemporary Hebrew literature
or words which he drew from the Bible and other texts of the past two
millennia, in addition to a number of words of his own creation, though
only some of these were accepted in usage. Ben-Yehuda also compiled
the first comprehensive Hebrew Dictionary, whose impact on the
Revival, however, was rather limited since the first volume was only
published in 1909, when the Revival was approximately five years from
completion, and only half the Dictionary was completed by the end of the
Revival. But Ben-Yehuda also made significant contributions to Hebrew
codification by writing several school textbooks, translating literary
works, and compiling several Russian-Hebrew dictionaries. In all of
these he used the Hebrew words he had discovered or created for his
newspapers and for his large Dictionary. His innovations which are still
in use included words for "ice-cream", "omelette", "salami",
"hamburger", "jam", "fashion", "bra", "gloves", "green house",
"cauliflower", "cactus", "telegram", "an iron", "revolver", "front",
"soldier", "invasion", "bomb", "manoeuver", "exercise", etc.

Ben-Yehuda was successful in coining single words for concepts to

replace the multi-word phrases produced by others, e.g., the equivalent of
an elevator was "that which goes up and down", a pen, "a writing tool
which we never have to dip [in ink]", a glove, "housing for the hand" or
"shoe for the hand", a kitchen, "the cooking room". He was less
successful, incidentally, when early in his career, in order to meet the
pressing need for words, he suggested that new roots should be
"invented" ex nihilo, then used as real ones. This was universally rejected
and never brought up again.

Ben-Yehuda may be seen to have followed certain criteria in his lexical

work:

(1) His major source was the Bible, from which he drew dormant
words, often assigning them new meanings (e.g., /kidma/,
'progress', from biblical Hebrew "east"), and roots (e.g.,
/ma'abada/, 'laboratory' from the root of biblical Hebrew /avad/, 'to
work'), including ones he derived from biblical personal names
(/ahad/, 'a.h.d', from Ohad, Ehud, cognate of Arabic "hawada",
'treat with kindness').

(2) From the Mishnah he drew words, which he also used either
with their original or new meanings, and roots to create new words
(e.g., /mimxata/, 'handkerchief', from Mishnaic Hebrew "m.x.t.",
'removing soot').

(3) He frequently drew on words and roots in Aramaic, in which

some parts of the Bible and other Jewish texts were written, and
shaped them into Hebrew patterns (such as /dayal/, 'steward', from
Aramaic /dayala/, 'attendant, servant').
 (4) As a last resort, he turned to Arabic (e.g., /adiv/, 'polite', Arabic
/adib/, 'good mannered'), from which he also borrowed a feature of
Arabic morphology, the suffix /-iya/ for creating nouns from other
nouns (e.g., /yamiya/, 'navy', from /yam/, 'sea'; /iriya/, 'city
council', from /ir/, 'city').

While he drew from old texts thousands of words, the number of words
Ben-Yehuda actually created was much smaller, and only a fraction were
verbs. Of a total of 281 words he coined, 229 were nouns, 32 adjectives,
and 20 verbs. It is increasingly accepted, therefore, that his major
contribution to the Hebrew lexicon was his function as a retriever of a
large number of words from old sources. Also, despite the small number
of words he created, those he did met acute lexical needs.

3.2. Itamar Ben-Avi

Itamar Ben-Avi, Ben-Yehuda's oldest son (Ben-Avi, "son of my father",
may also be read, since he spells Avi as an acronym, as "son of Eliezer
Ben-Yehuda"), was a journalist and a writer like his father, and he too
was often faced in his writing with concepts and objects for which
Hebrew words did not exist. For some, foreign loans filled the gaps, but,
probably due to his father's influence, he often created his own words,
which amounted to thousands. Unlike his father, though, he restricted
himself to coining words only as he needed them rather than as a
scholarly activity. This may explain why, having met actual
communicative needs, his innovations were accepted by users much
more readily than were his father's.

Ben-Avi's favourite methods of coining words were: (1) Blending two

existing words to create a third one. One typical blend consisted of /al/,
'not, non-', + noun, e.g., /al-xut/, 'wireless, radio communication' (/xut/,
'wire'). (2) Creating verbs from existing nouns or adjectives, e.g., /siben/,
'to soap', from /sabon/, 'soap'. (3) He was a pioneer in creating slang
words, some lasting for decades, e.g., /mezupat/, 'lousy, rotten' (Arabic
/zift/). All in all, Ben-Avi's contributions included words for many basic
concepts, such as "car", "airplane", "flammable", "independent", and
"pickpocket".

3.3. H. N. Bialik

H. N. Bialik, a highly acclaimed Poet Laureate, also created numerous

words as he needed them for his work. He once wrote to a colleague that
"the new words I coined - I did not create them deliberately, for their
own sake, but they were created by themselves, while I was writing, and
when they were needed" (cited in Veiss, 1982). Still, he was concerned
that with innovations uncontrolled, the newly revived language might be
overwhelmed. If new creations came into the language in too large
numbers, they would "weaken" it and "disfigure" its appearance. A
language is a living organism which develops very slowly, from within.
He was also worried about the effects of borrowing. The "grammatical
mechanism" of Hebrew, he asserted, did not allow its development
through borrowing from foreign sources: "There is a need to construct
new words... in the spirit of the language" (Ibid.). But above all, it was
the old sources which had to be tapped to fill lexical gaps. According to
some scholars (e.g., Sivan, 1980; Kutscher, 1982), Bialik had a unique
ability to introduce new life into old, even ancient words, filling them
with "vitality". He particularly favoured combinations of older words,
which he used abundantly in both his poetry and prose. We can recognize
two types in his innovations: new words and new combinations, blends,
or compounds. Some of his innovations include:

(1) New words such as for "import" (/ycvu/ from /ba/, 'come'), and
"camera" (/matslema/ from biblical Hebrew /tselem/, 'image').

(2) New combinations: (a) old, existing combinations to which he

assigned new meanings, mostly removing from them their
metaphorical value and using them literally (e.g., his /ayin yafa/, 'a
pretty eye', vs. Talmudic Hebrew, "generosity"); (b) new
combinations which are similar to old ones, which he modified
slightly and assigned them new meanings, e.g., his /ycmey
šimurim/, 'sleepless days', fashioned after biblical /leyl šimurim/, 'a
sleepless night'.

3.4. Other identifiable lexical innovators

Many others created new words—among them writers, journalists,
educators, translators, publishers and editors—e.g., /naxat/, 'to land',
/palaš/, 'to invade', by a leading journalist. A revered poet, Avraham
Shlonsky, coined countless words as he needed them in translating
foreign literary works into Hebrew. Israel's first Foreign
Minister, Moshe Sharet, was considered to be the
creator of the now established /darkon/, 'passport',
and /ašra/, 'visa', but he later admitted that he had "ordered" them
from someone else. He did create several other words, though, e.g.,
/takrit/, 'incident', from /kara/, 'happen', and /šmar-taf/, 'baby-sitter',
from /šamar/, 'watch', and /taf/, 'infants'. David Remez, the first Israeli
Minister of Transportation, created the still used /monit/, 'taxi', from
 /mana/, 'to count'.

4. Methods of lexical codification in the Hebrew Revival

Some of the major methods used in lexical codification may now be
summarized:

(1) Drawing words from old texts for use with their original
meanings.

(2) Drawing words from old sources and assigning them new
meanings (/xashmal/, 'electricity'; /mexona/, 'machine', from biblical
Hebrew "foundation", "basis", "stand"; /kidma/, 'progress', from
biblical Hebrew "eastern or front side"; /totax/, from biblical Hebrew
"bayonet").

(3) Deriving roots from old sources and using them to create new
words.

(4) Using words drawn as above but as different parts of speech

(verb>noun>adjective, etc.).

(5) Reduction of expressions into single words while keeping their

meanings (/klavlav/, 'small dog', for /kelev katan/; /milon/,
'dictionary', for /sefer milim/).

(6) Borrowing from European languages, particularly from Yiddish

(especially colloquialisms, /menadned/, 'nag'; /shprits/, 'spray';
/mashvits/, 'boast'; /epes/, 'something'; /fargen/, 'be happy with
someone'; /kumzits/, 'sitting and singing around a bonfire'; /shnorer/,
'one who lives off others'), Russian (including suffixes, e.g., /-chik/
diminutive; /-nik/, 'one who belongs to a given group') and German,
and from Arabic (including colloquialisms, e.g., /adiv/, 'polite';
/nadir/, 'rare'; /mabsut/, 'happy', 'content'; /chizbat/, 'exaggerated
tale'; /xabibi/, 'my pal, buddy, mate'; /zift/, 'trash, no-good'; /kef/, 'fun')
and Aramaic. Usually borrowed words went through a Hebraization
process.

(7) Loan-translation (e.g., /gibuy/, 'backing'; /kisuy/, 'coverage'; /gan-

yeladim/, 'kindergarten'; /ituy/, 'timing'; /yisum/, 'application'; /saraf
gšarim/, 'burn bridges'; /soxet dma'ot/, 'tear jerker').

(8) Popular etymology (e.g., /matne'a/, 'starter', from the root / no'a/).
 (9) Adding suffixes or infixes to create words of different patterns
from existing words. Some of the major ones are:
/-ya/ (borrowed from Arabic) (e.g., /sifriya/, 'library', from /sefer/,
'book'; /mitriya/, 'umbrella', from /matar/, 'rain'; /irya/, 'city hall,
municipality', from /ir/, 'city');
/-on/ (e.g., /aviron/, 'airplane', from /avir/, 'air', + /on/; /ša'on/, 'a
watch', from /ša'a/, 'an hour'; /iton/, 'newspaper', from /et/, 'time';
/yarxon/, 'a monthly', from /yerax/, 'month');
/-an/, for profession, occupation or having certain characteristics (e.g.,
/ta'asyan/, 'industrialist', from /ta'asiya/, 'industry'; /kov'an/, 'hat
maker', from /kova/, 'hat'; /batlan/, 'a loafer', from /batala/, 'idleness');
/-ay/, for trade or having certain features (e.g., /xašmelay/,
'electrician', from /xa šmal/, 'electricity'; /mexonay/, 'mechanic',
from /mexona/, 'machine'; /turay/, 'a private (soldier)', from /tur/,
'column');
the pattern /CaCaC/, for profession or trade (e.g., /sapar/, 'barber';
/tabax/, 'cook');
the pattern /CaCeCet/, for diseases (e.g., /šaxefet/, 'TB'; /nazelet/, 'a
cold');
the pattern /maCCeC/, for tools, etc. (e.g., /masmer/, 'a nail';
/mavreg/, 'screwdriver'; /matspen/, 'compass').

(10) Using one of a small number of consonants as prefixes to create

new words from existing roots, e.g., initial /t-/ (/tizmoret/,
'orchestra'; /titsroxet/, 'consumption'; /taklit/, '(music) record'; /tnu'a/,
'movement, traffic') and initial /mi-/ (/miskal/, 'weight'; /mivrak/,
'cable, telegram'; /midgam/, 'sample'; /miršam/, 'prescription';
/mišmar/, 'guard (post)').

(11) Merging pairs of words into single words (e.g., /migdalor/,

'lighthouse', from /migdal/, 'tower', and /or/, 'light'; /madxom/,
'thermometre', from /mad/, 'measure', and /xom/, 'temperature';
/re'ino'a/, 'cinema', from /re'i/, 'sight', and /no'a/, 'movement').

5. Conclusion
The revivers of Hebrew at the turn of the 20th century had two monumental
tasks. One involved the status of the language and called for bringing about
a shift in Palestine's Jewish community from the use of the dominant Yiddish
to Hebrew. The other involved the corpus of the language and called for its
codification to allow its potential speakers to communicate freely in a
modern world. A number of codification areas were involved, including the
choice and harmonization between the different phonological systems.
Decisions also had to be made on the unification of spelling and related
issues. But crucial as these issues were in the process, they could not
compare with the task of filling the vast lexical gap that existed in Hebrew.
Like the shift to Hebrew, this aspect of the Revival was also achieved within
2.5 decades through the cumulative efforts of the "language planning agents"
in the field—educators, writers, poets, translators, editors, etc.—as well as
countless language-conscious individuals in and out of the technological
occupations. This was carried out in various ways, retrieving old words and
roots, creating new words from old words and roots, loan-translations,
combining existing words, blending, filling in pattern with root "fillers",
borrowing words and roots, etc. All this arduous, seemingly endless
campaign eventually paid off, and Hebrew is now a modern language,
standardized and "normalized" in every respect. When the Revival was
completed about 1914, the drive has shifted to ensure that it keeps up with
new developments in the modern world. As in all other developed, "mature"
languages, codification in pursuit of lexical modernization is an ongoing
process.