Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 10/29/07, Isaac Fried wrote:
> Yitzhak,
>
> Your statement to the effect that "Modern spoken Hebrew is a hybrid
> language" is not only baseless and senseless, but is also an outright
> religiously motivated sectarian diatribe. It provides good indication as to
> the quality and sincerely of everything else you say, here and elsewhere.

You can read the following on these issues:
http://biblical-studies.ca/blog/wp/2006/11/30/hebrew-or-israeli-linguistics-and-zionism/
Abba, Why was Prof. Higgins Trying to teach Eliza to speak like our
cleaning lady:
http://www.zuckermann.org/pdf/abba.pdf
Israeli as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Language:
http://www.zuckermann.org/pdf/multiple-causation.pdf

Now, I don't know if I accept Zuckerman's analysis of Modern Hebrew 
completely,
and I definitely feel that he is mistaken on many details regarding
Biblical Hebrew,
but it is clear that Modern Hebrew is not simply a continuation of Mishnaic
Hebrew, but also has a lot of debt to Yiddish.

There is also a chapter on Israeli Hebrew in The Semitic Languages, ed.
Hetzron, 1997 by Ruth Berman.

Yitzhak Sapir