The Contribution of Hebrew to Other Languages

Thematic Great Book devoted to the imprint of Hebrew on the world's languages. Three main paths: (1) biblical diffusion — through the Septuagint (Greek), the Vulgate (Latin), and then the vernacular translations — which introduced a vast religious lexicon and Hebraisms (amen, hallelujah, hosanna, sabbath, jubilee, messiah, seraph, cherub, manna, Eden, Babel, leviathan, shibboleth), as well as nearly all the given names of biblical origin (John, Mary, Joseph, Daniel, Gabriel…); (2) transmission through the Jewish languages — Yiddish feeding into German and the Slavic languages, Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) into Spanish, down to slang and colloquial registers; (3) the revival of modern Hebrew (Eliezer Ben-Yehuda) and its contemporary reciprocal borrowings. History register, with rigor: distinguishing the established borrowing from folk etymology, and never claiming what belongs to other linguistic traditions.