Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew

Israeli Hebrew is a spoken language, 'reinvented' over the course of the twentieth century. It has responded to the social demands of the newly emerging state, as well as to escalating globalization, with a vigorously developing lexicon, enriched by contact with multiple foreign languages. In this detailed and rigorous study, the author provides a principled classification of neologisms, their semantic fields and the roles of source languages, along with a sociolinguistic study of purists' and ordinary native speakers' attitudes towards lexical enrichment. His analysis of the tension between linguistic creativity and the preservation of a distinct langauge identity takes the discussion beyond the case of Israeli Hebrew, through innovative comparisons with other languages. At the beginning of the third millennium, our world is characterized by worldwide communication and the vast distribution of technological and talknological devices. The mobility of the word respects no borders and the extent of that mobility may not be paralleled even in future (less heterogeneous) generations. The study of the modes and dynamics of language contact could hardly be more timely.