By Tim Franks
BBC News, Jerusalem
LANGUAGE LESSONS
English is a wonderfully rich language, boasting a far bigger vocabulary than perhaps all of its rivals, but on one score, Hebrew wins.
English has no convincing adjectival noun from "pathetic". The Oxford English Dictionary offers "pathetics", in the plural. I have never heard it used. Hebrew, in its logical, newly constructed way, has Israel upgrades ties with Germany ...
Czech Christian Democrats vow to attract Christians ... - by contrast - "Patatiot".
How do I know this? Because it is there, on page two of last Tuesday's Yediot Ahranot newspaper. It was the word which several of the papers reported was used by the current Labour Party leader and Minister of Defence, Ehud Barak, to describe the former Labour Party leader and Minister of Defence, Amir Peretz, at a Labour Party meeting in the Knesset.
So score one for the precision and vitality of the Hebrew language, as used in the Israeli parliament. But one powerful political figure is uneasy about the state of Hebrew.
Oved Yehezkel is the cabinet secretary, the official who acts as the lynchpin between ministers, between the government and the Knesset, and between the government and the president. He wants MKs (members of the Knesset) to attend Hebrew classes.
"Hebrew is not an easy language," he told me in his room in the Prime Minister's Office. "My idea is to take the MKs to a higher level, to make them an example to the population."
Oved Yehezkel wants to use the current guardians of the flame at the Academy of the Hebrew Language to spread the word among MKs.
RHINOCEROS ON TOAST
The Academy - much like the Academie Francaise - is the official body charged with creating new words, and ruling on spelling and grammar.
The Academy has particular demands. Hebrew may have existed for thousands of years, but it did so within the world of liturgy and exegesis. It has only recently become the language of daily life.
The Israeli writer Amos Oz recalls in his memoir that his Uncle Joseph "had invented and given us several simple everyday words…..including 'pencil', 'iceberg', 'shirt', 'greenhouse', 'toast'….'sensual', 'crane' and 'rhinoceros'."
The Cabinet Secretary is exercised about the spread of English and Arabic words into Hebrew. "Ahla" (great!) and "Yalla" (let's go) are two of the words he cites - words which seem to pepper all Hebrew conversation.
Language, Yehezkel insists, should have a "holiness" in culture. Now, at his behest, the Hebrew Academy will, within one or two months, build a programme of language courses which they will bring to the Knesset, to instruct MKs.
Oved Yehezkel does not offer details as to how the courses will work, other than "we will use emails and computers and phones".
Nor, he says, will there be compulsion.
I suggest that it is difficult to imagine politicians acknowledging that they have a deficient grasp of language.
But Yehezkel, an imposing figure with significant eyebrows, informs me that "all the MKs who have talked to me about my idea think that it's wonderful".
He ends our conversation with words laced with intent. "Believe me, I know how to create motivation in the parliament. A huge number of members of parliament will take those lessons."
Members of the Knesset have been warned.
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(BBC)
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