Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Read shall you all read this article

which explains the origins of a Jewish linguistic quirk. (Hint: I just expressed myself in said quirky manner.) It doesn't say anything earth-shattering; I kind of suspected its main point all along, but it's nice to hear an expert say it.

12 comments:

  1. Is there supposed to be a link?

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  2. There is supposed to be, but e doesn't know that you can't put a hyperlink in the title of a post.

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  3. my bad. I didn't try to put it in the title. I just forgot about it entirely. The link will be up in a minute.

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  4. Yah. E may hold forth, but link forth does he not!

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  5. Interesting, nice to know where it comes from.

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  6. Some Chareidim in America don't believe Modern Hebrew is לשון הקודש because of petty reasons like "sometimes Arabic words are used", when in the meantime those same Ashkenazim have infused Hebrew with their Yidishisms! I say the language has become far more sullied by them than by Arabic (though it's stillלשון הקודש).

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  7. I slightly reconsidered my last comment, considering that, notwithstanding what it says in the article, that type of linguistic usage is relativly common in the bible as well..

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  8. Out of context but, physiognomy was the word I was searching for in regards of subway people-watching.
    "Also called anthroposcopy. the art of determining character or personal characteristics from the form or features of the body, esp. of the face."

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  9. Shriki: it was very common in the bible. Just the form of the infinitive is from Yiddish.

    Any spoken language will change over time and be affected by its neighbors. So it's silly to try to freeze lashon kodesh at some point in the past. Even the Tana'im's Hebrew wasn't straight biblical hebrew and was affected by foreign languages. The word snahedrin, for example, is greek.

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  10. Sara: very impressive. Now you have an official word to describe your commuting pasttime.

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  11. e: Yes, that's pretty much the way I feel about it. All I was saying is that the Charedim who don't "believe in (the holiness of modern) Hebrew" are usually the same ones who create the very "problems" with Hebrew that they talk about. (One obvious example is going from saying things like "הולך אני" to the European "אני הולך"). So instead of adding words to it they Europeanized it's grammar (something which might not be so evil, but should be according to their logic).

    But, yeah, you worded it nicely; double wording is quite common in the bible obviously, but the infinitive form is a European thing..

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Forth shall ye all hold.