According to Midrashic lore—as per Genesis 11:1—the first language on soil was Hebrew,spoken by everyone, everywhere. And then, and as the text goes on to describe,humanity screwed everything up by conspiring with each other to build a giant tower to ascend to the heavens and fight God. Naturally, the man upstairs was none too pleased by this, or therefore smote mankind with a variety of different dialects so that no one could understand the other in the ensuing babble. An incident famously known as the episode of the tower of Babel.
Given that backdrop,it’s entirely ironic that so many words Hebrew words spoken in Israel are backwards-engineered English ones, an irony currently being rectified by the Academy of Hebrew Language (which, and with equal irony,is named the Academiya). But what makes this use of English loan words in contemporary Hebrew so thoroughly and hilariously meta is that English is literally littered with loan words and concepts borrowed from Hebrew. Here are a few:Continue reading "That English You're Speaking? It's Hebrew. (Well, Some of it)" at...
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