Revival of Modern Hebrew Began - Oct. 13, 1881

The revival of modern Hebrew began on this day in 1881, when Eliezer Ben-Yehuda began speaking it exclusively among friends and family.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff you
Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
the past one day at a time with a quick
look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it's October.

(00:22):
The modern revival of the Hebrew language began on this
day in eighty one, when Eliazer ben Yehuda decided that
among his friends and family, it was the only language
that he was going to speak. So it's a bit
of a misconception that Hebrew was a dead language or
wasn't being used at all. Before this point. It was
really common for Jews and a lot of the world

(00:43):
to learn Hebrew, but it was really more as a
written language and mostly used for religious texts and for study.
A lot of people could speak some Hebrew, but maybe
not very fluently, almost never as a first language. It's estimated, though,
that when Ben Jehuda started this work, more than half
of Jewish men and boys could understand things like the

(01:05):
Torah and daily prayers in Hebrew, and about could read
a typical book that was written Hebrew. Sometimes Jewish communities
are also using Hebrew to communicate about other matters or
to communicate with other Jews when they didn't have another
common language that they could use to communicate. E Liaiser
ben Yehuda was born in Lithuania in eighteen fifty eight

(01:25):
and his family wanted him to be a rabbi. That first,
he really excelled in the studies that were needed for that,
but he gradually decided he wanted to become a doctor.
While he was pursuing his medical studies, Bulgaria was fighting
for independence from the Ottoman Empire, and that led the
Russian Empire to declare war on the Ottoman Empire in
eighteen seventy seven. Benya Huda was really inspired by this

(01:48):
and from other independent struggles, and the idea of a
people coming together to form a nation and a national
identity in their ancestral homeland really appealed to him. He
started to believe that Jews should do the same, that
Jews should have a homeland and a common language and
a common national identity. So in eighteen eighty one he
moved to Jerusalem with plans to revive the Hebrew language,

(02:12):
and it was once he got there that he made
that decision that it was the only language that he
would speak with his friends and family. He had a
son in eighteen eighty two, and he persuaded his wife
to raise their child only in Hebrew, including keeping him
in their home so that he wouldn't be exposed to
other languages. In eighteen eighty four, Benjahuda established a newspaper

(02:32):
to help spread the popularity of this language. To do this,
he was having to coin new words and print a
glossary at the back, encouraging readers to keep this glossary
for their future reference. As he added new words to
the language. One of the words he needed to coin
for his newspaper was the word newspaper, which didn't exist
in Hebrew before this. And raising his son in Hebrew

(02:55):
also meant coming up with Hebrew words for all kinds
of everyday objects, from am it's a bicycle. Another big
focus for him was teaching Hebrew in schools, because if
children were speaking Hebrew, then their families would be learning
it too, and these children would grow up into natural,
fluent Hebrew speakers. Over time, he started compiling all these

(03:16):
new words that he was coining into a dictionary, and
the Hebrew Language Council was established in eighteen ninety. Later
it became the Hebrew Language Academy. Although interest in and
knowledge of Hebrew really started to spread, Benya Huda was
not without his critics. Some Orthodox Jews considered his work
to be heretical because Hebrew was considered to be a

(03:37):
holy language and not something that was supposed to be
used for just day to day casual conversation. This was
complicated by the fact that he had become quite secular,
and he was really approaching this as something of a
national identity more than a religious identity. He was trying
to fit in with his Orthodox neighbors, but it was
clear to them that he didn't quite belong. When Benya

(03:59):
Huda's first wife, Vora, died of tuberculosis, he remarried her sister, Himda,
and she became really instrumental in helping him with this work.
She and his son finished the dictionary that he had
started after Eliezer Benya Whoda's death in at the age
of sixty four. That same year, British authorities, who at
that time had colonial control of Palestine, recognized Hebrew as

(04:23):
the official language of jeeves living in Palestine. So, as
I noted earlier, it's not as though Hebrew was a
dead language before all this happened, But to quote Cecil Roth,
before ben Ya Huda, Jews could speak Hebrew. After him,
they did. Thanks to Eves jeff Cope for her research
work on this podcast, and to Tari Harrison for all

(04:45):
of her audio work on the show. You can subscribe
to the Stay in History Class on Apple podcast It's
Google Podcasts and wherever else you get your podcasts, and
you can tune in tomorrow for a Royal Trial