Ghil‘ad Zuckermann: A New Vision for Israeli Hebrew

A New Vision for Israeli Hebrew: Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel’s Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language

Ghil‘ad Zuckermann

ABSTRACT

A language is an abstract ensemble of idiolects – as well as sociolects, dialects etc. – rather than an entity per se. It is more like a species than an organism. Still, the genetic classification of Israeli Hebrew as a consistent entity has preoccupied linguists since the language emerged about 100 years ago. As a consequence, Israeli Hebrew affords insights into the politics and evolution not only of language, but also of linguistics. I maintain that the language spoken in Israel today is a semi-engineered Semito-European hybrid language. Whatever we choose to call it, we should acknowledge, and celebrate, its complexity. >>> Veja mais em Zuckermann, Ghil'ad 2006. 'A New Vision for "Israeli Hebrew": Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language'. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 5.1: 57-71.

About Ghil'ad Zuckermann:
Ghil'ad Zuckermann is an Associate Professor and ARC Discovery Fellow at The University of Queensland, Australia.

He has been Gulbenkian Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, and has been affiliated with the Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Studies, University of Cambridge.

After studying at the United World College of the Adriatic (Collegio del Mondo Unito dell'Adriatico; Duino, Trieste) and performing several years of military service, he was selected for the Adi Lautman Interdisciplinary Programme for Outstanding Students of Tel Aviv University, where he studied philosophy, psychology, classics, literature, law and mathematics, and specialized in linguistics, receiving his M.A. (97%, summa cum laude) from the Department of Linguistics in 1997. As Scatcherd European Scholar of the University of Oxford and Denise Skinner Graduate Scholar of St Hugh's College, Oxford, he gained his D.Phil., entitled 'Camouflaged Borrowing: "Folk-Etymological Nativization" in the Service of Puristic Language Engineering', in 2000.

He has published in English, Israeli ('Ivrit'), Italian, Yiddish, Spanish, German and Russian. His book Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew came out with Palgrave Macmillan in 2003, and Israelit Safa Yafa (Israeli a Beautiful Language - Hebrew as Myth) is in press (2007) with Am Oved. He is currently preparing three further volumes: (1) Language Genesis and Multiple Causation, (2) Language, Religion and Identity, and (3) Language Academies.

Prof. Zuckermann has taught various undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Cambridge (Faculty of Oriental Studies), National University of Singapore, University of Miami, University of Haifa and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

He has been research fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation's Study and Conference Center (Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy), Research Centre for Linguistic Typology (RCLT) (Institute for Advanced Study, La Trobe University), Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (University of Texas at Austin) and Kokuritu Kokugo Kenkyuuzyo (National Language Research Institute, Tokyo). He has held a range of fellowships and scholarships, including a British Academy Research Grant, Memorial Foundation of Jewish Culture Postdoctoral Fellowship, Harold Hyam Wingate Scholarship, British Chevening Scholarship and Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Scholarship.

He has delivered keynote speeches, other conference papers and invited public lectures in Adelaide, Ann Arbor (Michigan), Armidale, Atlanta (Georgia), Auckland (NZ), Austin (Texas), Bangkok, Beer Sheva, Beijing, Bellagio, Bergamo, Berkeley (California), Bloomington (Indiana), Boston (Massachusetts), Boulder (Colorado), Brisbane, Cambridge, Christchurch (NZ), Dunedin (NZ), Gainesville (Florida), Haifa, Hamilton (NZ), Hong Kong, Honolulu, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Jinan (China), Kfar Saba, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Miami (Florida), Moscow, Munich, Nanjing (China), New Brunswick (New Jersey), New York City, Orlando (Florida), Oxford, Princeton (New Jersey), Roehampton (UK), San Diego (California), Santiago de Cuba, Shanghai, Singapore, Stanford (California), Sydney, Tampa (Florida), Tel Aviv, Tempe (Arizona), Tianjin (China), Tiv`on, Tucson (Arizona), Tokyo, Vilnius and Wellington (NZ).

Dr Zuckermann is a member of the Philological Society, Linguistic Society of America (LSA), Centre for Research on Language Change (CRLC), European Association for Lexicography (EURALEX), Association for Jewish Studies (AJS), European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS), Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society (IALS), Australasian Association for Lexicography (AUSTRALEX), Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquee (AILA), National Association of Professors of Hebrew (NAPH), Australian Linguistic Society (ALS), Australian Association of Jewish Studies (AAJS), Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (SPCL), Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics (SAAL), Cambridge Institute of Language Research (CILR).

Assoc. Prof. Zuckermann has been an invited speaker on various TV and radio programmes in Israel (e.g. Channel 2) and Australia (e.g. four ABC Lingua Franca programmes, various SBS interviews in Israeli, Yiddish, Italian and English), and has featured in many newspaper articles in the USA (e.g. The Forward) and Israel (e.g. Maariv, YNet).

In 1993-6 he taught preparatory courses for various psychometric examinations and co-authored several books in this field. Other interests include opera (in particular Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti and Mozart), film, photography, poetry, constrained literature, paleo-anthropology and human migration, cultural immersion through travel, and world politics.