Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "wesley4christ " <wesley4christ AT blackplanet.com>
> This Rabbi seems to be dealing with Biblical Hebrew.  I was not sure at
first.


My feeling is that he's dealing with "Loshon Haqodesh" - "The Holy Tongue".
This is an artificial construct of Biblical, Mishnaic, Medieval and some
Modern Hebrew used in the ultra-Orthodox world for study and prayer. At
first, there was huge Orthodox religious oposition to the renawal of Hebrew
as a modern, secular language. 70 years later, MOST (not all) ultra-Orthodox
(at least those living in Israel) do use Modern Hebrew in their daily
lives - at least in their contact with the "outside world". The way they
"excuse" this "transgession" to themselves is by thinking of Modern Ivrit as
a separate language from "Loshon Haqodesh" (always in the Ashkenazi
pronounciation), which they then do not "defile" by "modernization". But
this "Loshon Haqodesh" is also not Biblical Hebrew - it's more like what you
will find in prayer books - a mixture.

Yigal