[Multilingual Monday] "Shel" Shock
Modern Israeli Hebrew is a curious creature, to be certain. Simplified and "purified" by a Russian, it is the only example of a successfully revived language. That being said, the changes made move it further from Semitic languages and closer to Western languages, and these changes have made a few people in the linguistics field even question the language's "Semitic" classification (Paul Wexler has claimed, foe example, that the language is "Judeo-Sorbian," and other theories claim it to be a creole language).
One of the pieces of "evidence" is the formation of the genitive. In Biblical Hebrew -- and other languages like standard Arabic -- will modify the noun and attach any necessary pronoun suffixes. An example would be אהבה, ahava, "love", which, in its "construct" form, becomes אהבת, ahavat (as do most nouns ending in ה with the ending vowel /a/. This form then gets used in things like אהבת ישראל, Ahavat Israel, "Love of Israel," or get pronoun endings, as seen in אהבתי, ahavati, "my love".
The more common formation, though, is to use של, which requires no noun changing whatsoever; this means that our last example, "my love," would be more commonly rendered as האהבה שלי, haahava sheli, "the love of mine," or "my love." The other forms are still used, particularly in poetry, songs, titles, turns of phrase, or in the names of several everyday items (עוגת גבינה, ugat gvina, "cheesecake"). But for general possession, shel is far more common.
While this might be a sign of westernization in Hebrew, this construction also exists in nearly every major Arabic dialect -- see the Egyptian Arabic البيت بيتا الملك, elbeyt bitaa elmalik, "The house of the king," where bitaa is the equivalent of Hebrew shel. This is very different from بيت الملك, baytu al-maliki, the standard equivalent, where the last word uses a genitive "case". Indeed, from Morocco to Syria, different "of" words exist. Several reasons for this have been explained, and one has been that languages that existed in these areas before Arabic had these certain grammatical features and still linger in the local dialects.
I'd love opinions on this or on the formation of the genitive, or hell, whatever strikes your fancy!
One of the pieces of "evidence" is the formation of the genitive. In Biblical Hebrew -- and other languages like standard Arabic -- will modify the noun and attach any necessary pronoun suffixes. An example would be אהבה, ahava, "love", which, in its "construct" form, becomes אהבת, ahavat (as do most nouns ending in ה with the ending vowel /a/. This form then gets used in things like אהבת ישראל, Ahavat Israel, "Love of Israel," or get pronoun endings, as seen in אהבתי, ahavati, "my love".
The more common formation, though, is to use של, which requires no noun changing whatsoever; this means that our last example, "my love," would be more commonly rendered as האהבה שלי, haahava sheli, "the love of mine," or "my love." The other forms are still used, particularly in poetry, songs, titles, turns of phrase, or in the names of several everyday items (עוגת גבינה, ugat gvina, "cheesecake"). But for general possession, shel is far more common.
While this might be a sign of westernization in Hebrew, this construction also exists in nearly every major Arabic dialect -- see the Egyptian Arabic البيت بيتا الملك, elbeyt bitaa elmalik, "The house of the king," where bitaa is the equivalent of Hebrew shel. This is very different from بيت الملك, baytu al-maliki, the standard equivalent, where the last word uses a genitive "case". Indeed, from Morocco to Syria, different "of" words exist. Several reasons for this have been explained, and one has been that languages that existed in these areas before Arabic had these certain grammatical features and still linger in the local dialects.
I'd love opinions on this or on the formation of the genitive, or hell, whatever strikes your fancy!