extracts

Benjamin Harshav. Language in time of revolution. (Stanford University Press 1993). 334 p.

1. The great expansion of original imaginative literature in Hebrew — so called
   «Renaissance Period» of Hebrew literature(1882-1914) — occured in Russia when the Haskala broke down, that is, after Ben-Yehuda had gone off to the
   remote Ottoman province of Palestine. Hence, even though he invented many words and classified
   old words by the thousands, his writings seemed antiquated and rhetorical, his
   newspapers old-fashioned, and his speech sounded like babbling to his
   visitor: papers old-fashioned, and his speech sounded like babbling to
   his visitor; who had experienced the revival of Hebrew literature in
   Europe. (122)
   
2. footnote 59. Bialik himself wrote a series of quasi-folk songs, using the
   motifs of Yiddish folk songs harnessing
   them to Russian meters. He wrote about it: "I am now enamored of the
   genre of the folk poetry. The Hebrew language never tried it and there is
   in it a special favour: folk songs in a language
   that is not spoken [in 1910! That is what the greatest
   Hebrew poet thought of the "revival" of spoken Hebrew — B.H.]; it is only
   regrettable that our reading [in the Ashkenazi accent] is distoned, which
   brings about a poetic meter strange to the ears of the reader and
   grammarian. This fault will prevent the poems from spreading in
   Eretz-Israel and becoming full-fledged folk-songs, sung aloud
   [that is what he thought of their intellectual level]" (Bialik
   1990:447). (132)
   
3. The image of the cavalry of a galloping donkey may signal daring,
   a return to nature, or the uninhibited behavior of a free child, but
   not quite a sign of the revival of the language. (136)
   
4. Indeed, Ben-Gurion
   and Ben-Tsvi even edited a journal in Yiddish, 0nfang ("The Beginning"), but
   there was opposition to Yiddish and it closed after two issues. In
   1908, this party [Poaley Tsiyon] too decided to switch to Hebrew. (138)
   
5. Even in 1910, when David Ben-Gurion lectured in Hebrew at a conference of
   Poaley Tsiyon, the entire audience left the hall in protest, exept for his
   friend (the future president of Israel) Ytzhak Ben-Tsvi and Ben-Tsvi's girlfriend
   Rachel Yanayit. (138)
   
6. Thus the relations between a frame language and embedded language
   were doubly reversed: In Diaspora, Hebrew had been embedded within the frame of
   Yiddish speech and now it became the frame, with Yiddish
   (especially at home) still embedded in it (143) (что в галуте идиш был рамочным языком, а иврит был в него уложен, а в палестине - с принудительным говорением и делопроизводством на иврите - ситуация перевернулась)
   
7. n 1912, the new Hebrew Language Committee demanded that the national
   bank and other institutions insist on speaking only Hebrew with their
   customers (Eisenstadt 1967:73); and in 1913, Yehoash reports that the
   official language in the Anglo-Palestine Bank
   was indeed Hebrew: a special announcement was osted, requesting the
   public to speak Hebrew, the forms to be filled out were in Hebrew, and so on (143).
   
8. The Hebrew they spoke united the children of th Hebrew city. That is, here too, a
   horizontal age stratum embraced the new language as its own, creating
   a second wave of severance, and distinguishing them from their
   Diaspora-born parents. (144) (т.е. морим сознательно строили такую схему, которая как бы кастрировала язык, потому что группы состояли из ячеек горизонтальных связей были построены так, чтобы не возникло стратификации т.о. избегалась малейшая возможность саморазвития языка
   в палестине тоже самое происходило по неизбежности — т.е. приехало одно поколение - один страт)
   
9. (Its one-word names of Diaspora Hebrew
   newspapers, Ha-Melitz, Ha-Magid, Ha-Shaxar, Ha-Shiloax, or the
   Eretz-Israeli Ha-Aretz — was a plurisignifying term, meaning:
   "[concrete] thing," etc. (148)
   

Вообще, Харшав страшный путаник. Но смешнее всего, что утверждая будто иврит оевропеился на уровне макросинтаксиса, Харшав и сам не замечает, что английский, которым он пишет сам, насквозь проивричен — от артиклей до построения фразы.