Language Shift & Maintenance[1]

Jhilila 1 Mohammed Jhilila Prof. Abdeljabbar Elmediouni Socilinguistics 20/06/2008

Language Shift and Language Maintainance in Israel By: John E. Hofman & Haya Fisherman

Enhanced by Eliezer Ben Yehuda, a tiny group of Jewish Idealists started their plan to revive Hebrew, which extinguished for centuries because of the Diaspora of the Jewish communities in different countries around the world. Considered as a modern miracle, Hebrew is now widely used among the Jewish population in Israel, which to the nearest past was considered as impossible. The impossibility was due to the rejection that was led by the religious circles in Israel. In this article, the authors concern themselves with the language acculturation of the Jewish immigrants to Israel. They concern themselves on the other hand on the linguistic shift and maintenance conducted by these immigrants by reading the case of a Romanian social group. Their study, as they mentioned it in the beginning, is based on the principles of Professor Bachi and aims at modernizing his views. For the authors (International Migration Review, 1971), there are different and multiple types of languages that were used by the pre-contact immigrants while living in Diaspora. For them, the social, economic and demographic contexts dictated a certain linguistic behaviour on the first settlers in Israel. Wittingly, they highlight the motives that led to the revival of Hebrew. These drives ranged values associated motives, what is related to the belief and ideological, as well as functional ones, instrumental. For them, the former drives preceded the latter. Instrumentality, in this respect, is itself a means to an end which were, in the early beginnings, individualistic.

Jhilila 2 The symbolic value of Hebrew decreased because, in the beginnings of the Israeli community, language served as a unifying means. In this article, the authors pigeon-hole that language Shift or Language maintenance are fuelled more by pragmatic finalities, economic and social encroachment, and to a lesser degree by social affiliation. The Data Based on two census one held on November 1948 the other on June 1961. The population studied was asked to classify the language or languages used in their daily basis in the order of use. The study resulted in finding that: •

Hebrew as an only language 100%

•

Hebrew as a main language 75%

•

Hebrew as an additional language 25%

•

Hebrew as a non-spoken 0%

The author draws the attention of the non-reliability of the census of 1948 which was modified for the sake of national purposes and which was batteried by patriotic drives. The 1961 census for them is more reliable than the precedent one. The 1961 census is itself not wholeheartedly reliable, since it was operated by the government and the interview was introduced in the mother tongue, which could have pushed the respondents to over-report about the use of Hebrew. The Shift to Hebrew The increase of Hebrew speakers was substantially remarkable during the British Mandate, when the Israeli ideologies spread and flourished. Between the Turkish period and the British mandate the number of the Jewish immigrants to Israel doubled, but the rate drop was not a big one; from 71,3% in 1948 to 60,9% in 1954. During that era, Hebrew was already introduced in the institutions especially those of instruction and education. In 1961, the rate increased and was estimated to be 73,6% of the Israeli people speak Hebrew as their

Jhilila 3 first language. For Bachi, Hebrew represented a crucial charge to either stay in or leave Israel. Age in its turn played a big role in the acquisition of Hebrew; for the authors, a working man needed from 10 to 15 years to learn Hebrew. The immigrants’ country of exit influenced the exposure to Hebrew as well; those for example coming from England and German (Fisherman ed., 347) had lesser tendency to shift to Hebrew because they were deeply attached to their cultures and because they had little Zionist preparations. The immense reimbursement guaranteed to Hebrew speaking population in Israel made language shift huge even among the German Jewish group. For the non-Jewish Hebrew speakers, the drives were more instrumental and economically fuelled; the contact with the Jewish mainstream pushed this group, which consists mostly of male peasants, to opt for Hebrew. Their descendents, on the other hand, had to learn Hebrew as a second language at schools which made the drop of the mother tongue prominent. Pre-contact variables Bachi’s work showed that the length of the stay in Israel results in the rise of the use of Hebrew. However, before the installation in Israel, Jews used to speak different variables and different languages. Education, from him, served in promoting Hebrew and propagating in among the population. It was believed that to have had no education was better than to have had a non-Hebrew education. Thus education served in eradicating illiteracy- most of the illiterate were originally from Africa- as well as in augmenting Hebrew speakers. Education or non-education is dictated by the continent of birth for Bachi. Those who had opportunities or access to education were Europe-born Jews while the African ones had little if not none. For fisherman ed., the context variables also played a crucial role in the shift to Hebrew; for them, the more compact the settlements were the less the population learns Hebrew. The density of the settlement, especially of the German Jews, entailed identity fetishism. Kibbutzim is also more deterrent to Hebrew use in the rural areas than in industrialised ones

Jhilila 4 while Moshavim, those coming from North Africa, discouraged peasants from Hebrew learning as well, reported the assessment of the census of 1961. Those living in cities used to read newspapers which are issued in easy Hebrew. The circulation of Maariv newspapers reached a weekly figure of 30.477 in 1950 which mounted to 156.623 in 1969. The arte of the circulation of non-Hebrew papers also increased but in a lower rate. Language Maintenance The Jews, for the authors, who came to settle in Palestine first then in Israel were deprived of their Jewish culture and countries of origins. This alienation led to the strong and swift of language use from a number of languages to Hebrew. However, the first forerunners did not show this linguistic loyalty as their followers. The press that was issued in the early years of the Israeli State rated 20% which was a marker of inertia towards the integration into the Jewish culture, but later one Hebrew was adopted as the authors say with no sentiment (353). The languages that prevailed in the 1916 census read as follows: Yiddish, dzudezmo, Arabic and German. This is mainly due to the adjacency to the Arab world and the hardship the German Jews experienced. Yet, the hatred of Arabic among the Sephardic helped in the drop of that language and the shift to Hebrew. Influxing from Balkan countries, Bulgarians Hungarians and polish maintained their first tongue while they learnt English or French for materialistic purposes. Retentiveness Retentiveness as defined by the two sociolinguists has three meanings: 1- it refers to the external strength of the language; 2- the internal power of the language and its use within the speech community; 3- and the extent of the maintenance of the aforementioned, internal and external, powers. In the 1948 census, Bulgarian, Hungarian Turkish and Yiddish were the strongest internal languages which were maintained by their users as an index of their cultural pride. Starting from 1961, none of the abovementioned languages had the same power. The

Jhilila 5 general loss of internal power was marked by non-paternal drop. As Yiddish, English French and Dzudezmo started winning external command. The loss of the internal, however slow, shows the groups readiness to switch from a language to another, which is due to the precontact era. Those who used to speak French, mainly from North African origins, found that other languages were empowered than their original language that’s why the shift took place. Yet, the collective gatherings of groups that used the same language helped in the “resurrection” of some languages. Yiddish, for example, is said to have already extinguished in the eastern European countries, but its literature flourished when Yiddish speaking groups immigrated to Israel. The political decisions had also their influence on the linguistic level of these communities. The majority of schools in Israel fostered English learning, Arabic and French were also included but non-profitable, because of the historical attachment of Israel with both U.S.A and Britain. Shift & Maintenance Among Rumanians As stated by the researchers, Rumanian was classified as the third most used language in Israel in 1961 -the first two ones were Yiddish and Arabic. News programmes were broadcast and papers were edited in Rumanian. Yet, being in the know of other languages, resulted in language oscillation. Many Rumanians speak Yiddish besides German; the average shows that most Rumanian Jews used to speak two to three languages. The Shift to Hebrew The Rumanians who immigrated to Israel in its early years had little knowledge of Hebrew because of the communist rise among the eastern European countries. 30% of these immigrants learnt Hebrew systematically, while 60% learnt it through contact. The second generation of the Rumanian immigrants learnt Hebrew because of the advantages provided to those speaking Hebrew. The governmental decisions and the individual interests met on the necessity to learn Hebrew, which came into the immigrants private lives through necessity.

Jhilila 6 What the authors found is that there persisted an interference of Rumanian into Hebrew and vice versa. The public institutions like schools administrations were referred to in Hebrew even in family talks. By and large, the shift was also punctuated by maintenance. The elder Rumanians maintained their first tongue, while Rumanian was used among families. This language maintenance is a kind of cultural affiliation and identity security. Their young descendents responded in Rumanian because Hebrew was not spoken in the everyday talks. An interview of 95 persons shows that: 80 know Rumanian well. 15 know reduced Rumanian. 42 talk only Rumanian at home with their families. 39 interviewees read and write Rumanian, and 28 among them speak Rumanian though they were born in Israel. The circulation of Rumanian literature is also a marker of Rumanian maintenance. Among the interviewed population only 11% read Hebrew literature, while 40 % read Rumanian novels. To bring this analysis to an end, I need to mention that Hebrew resurrection and renaissance remain one of the most remarkable successes of the Israeli State. The notion that Israel’s identity is dating back to centuries is a forged idea since it is being constructed. Most immigrants to Israel had other identities, the ones they acquired during the Diaspora, than what they are now.