hebrew the eternal language

[...]... passed, as the 17 > 18 Home | TOC | Index Hebrew: The Eternal Language goatherd opened the door of the lonely hut to serve the children their daily portion of milk, they cried out “Bekos!” and held out their hands The goatherd reported this to the king, and upon investigation the king discovered that bekos was the Phrygian word for bread He thereupon concluded that the Phrygians were the first... ONE How the Language Began to Be Spoken > Home | TOC | Index > Home | TOC | Index CHAPTER ONE HEBREW AND THE LANGUAGES OF MANKIND Ancient Attempts to Identify the Original Language How many languages are there in the world? How did these languages arise? Did they evolve from one primeval language, or are they to be traced to several basic languages? What was this primeval language, ... 2.23).1 In no other language besides Hebrew, the rabbis argued, do we find the terms for man and woman derived from the same root The Hebrew language, it is therefore to be assumed according to them, was created simultaneously with the world and was the language employed by God in his conversations with Adam and Eve.2 When Abraham was born, all > Home | TOC | Index Hebrew and the Languages of... doubts on the subject Hebrew the Mother of Languages There was, indeed, a time when Jews as well as Christians believed that all the languages of mankind derived from Hebrew, the language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden This is, of course, to be inferred from the biblical accounts Thus Eve was called Hawwah “because she was the mother of all living” (hai, Genesis 3.20) Similarly, the woman... It was only after the fiasco of the Tower of Babel, according to the biblical tradition, that the Lord did there confound the languages of the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11.9) Thus, says rabbinic tradition, evolved the languages of mankind, numbering seventy-two (or seventy), twentytwo of which were spoken by the descendants of... their literary sources in Hebrew They preserved the language and the language preserved them Hebrew as the Language of Judaism In sum, Judaism may be defined as the ongoing historical experience of the Jewish people, in which are compounded religious, national and cultural elements This unique historical experience has been articulated in distinctive words and idioms of the Hebrew language, with which it... in their traditional patterns of life, they were sensitive to the inadequacy of the vernacular in expressing and conveying the emotionally charged meaning > Home | TOC | Index The Role of Hebrew in Jewish Life 7 of certain Hebrew words They therefore persisted either in retaining the original words and expressions, or in investing the Hebraic mental pattern or idiom with the garb of the. .. non-Jews Among the theses offered by the first class of Harvard graduates in 1642 was one entitled Hebrea est Linguarum Mater (Hebrew is the mother of the languages) Non-Jewish sources resorted to all sorts of whimsical etymologies to prove that the origin of European languages is to be found in Hebrew. 4 In his introduction to the Pentateuch, Moses Mendelssohn restates the view of the primacy of Hebrew and... turn rooted in the Hebrew language It is inconceivable that any of the > 10 Home | TOC | Index Hebrew: The Eternal Language traditional Jewish prayers, in translation, could evoke the same historical associations, cultural allusions and national memories, as they do in the original Hebrew Because Jews of old wanted those associations they continued to pray in Hebrew and study their literary... another language, they become devitalized and almost meaningless Such words are not mere linguistic units; they are cultural deposits But they cannot be transmitted in isolation They take on their meaning and gain in richness of association and connotation only through the context of experience In the past some Hebrew words and expressions survived in the vernacular of the people long after the Hebrew language .