Hebrew Revitalization

Recently, many linguists have paid much attention to language revitalization. Crystal (2000) claims that language revitalization should seek help from positive language attitude of minority groups, political and economic status and the educational support. Throughout linguistic literature many attempts have been made toward language revitalization such as Cornish, Welsh, Irish and Maori but with little achievements. However, Hebrew revitalization witnesses the possibility of a successful language revitalization movement. The author thinks that Hebrew revitalization is a topic which deserves further discussion and proves that it is a combination of various factors and also points out the key role of education is attached little attentions in the previous studies.Within the framework of sociolinguistics and based on previous studies, this paper explores reasons and key factor contribute to Hebrew revitalization. It points out two basic conditions for Hebrew revitalization: multilingual sociolinguistic context and both restricted use of written and spoken code. Hebrew revitalization is the objective requirement of awakening of Jewish national ideology which aims at returning to old land and establishing independent state. In this course, strong national ideology, need of a common language for communication, Hebrew as a scared language, the revival of written Hebrew in literature together with language planning activities of enthusiasts and revivalists are all factors contributing to its success. Therefore, on the one hand, Hebrew revitalization is the result of a combination of various factors such as socio-culture, national ideology, politics, communicative need, religion and literature. On the other hand, the author considers that education plays a key role in the revival process. The establishment of modern school extends the subjects and contents of the traditional religious education and a more secularized educational forms developed. The struggles for making Hebrew as the instruction language make it possible for students to acquire Hebrew as the second language and also develop a positive attitude toward Hebrew language. Furthermore, the opening of preparatory programs in French model produces children with necessary spoken Hebrew knowledge for entering elementary and secondary school. By teaching in Hebrew the second language speaker produced and the language was brought to both private and public domains which accordingly realizes the intergenerational transmission. Therefore, education takes effect both in increasing number of speakers and in developing their attitude which ensure the effective implementation of revitalization process.