The period of transition

The transition from Mediaeval to Modern or Israeli Hebrew (IH) came about slowly, over several decades. According to some experts, a new phase of the language had already begun in the sixteenth century. Among its earliest manifestations were A. dei Rossi's Me'or Einayim (1574), the first Hebrew play by J. Sommo (1527–92), and the first Yiddish–Hebrew dictionary by Elijah Levita (1468–1549). Hebrew continued to be used in writing, and attempts were made to adapt it to modern needs. The eighteenth century saw the first examples of Hebrew newspapers, in connexion with which I. Lampronti (1679–1756) at Ferrara and, from 1750, M. Mendelssohn at Dessau were pioneers. From 1784 until 1829 the quarterly review Ha-Me'assef appeared fairly regularly. Edited by the ‘Society of Friends of the Hebrew Language’, it received contributions from important figures of the Haskalah. The first regular weekly, Ha-Maggid, began publication in Russia in 1856.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Haskalah made a significant impact on the language. The new ‘illuminati’ or maskilim viewed Rabbinic Hebrew with disdain, believing it to be full of Aramaisms and replete with grammatical errors, and they lamented the sorry state of Hebrew in the diaspora. According to them, the blame lay with the payṭanim, the influence of Arabic in mediaeval philosophy, the use of the ‘corrupt’ Yiddish language, and with the inadequacies of Hebrew itself in comparison with other languages.