Flowers Have No Names

Benjamin HARSHAV

Ireneusz PIEKARSKI

John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin , Poland

Abstract

The article examines the historical relationship between the Jewish people and the Hebrew language and the process that led to the revival of the language within their culture. The author examines the Diaspora of the Jewish people and their retention of three private languages that they used while in Europe. These languages were Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish. Lithuanian intellectual Eliezer Ben-Yehuda played a major part in the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. Also discussed are the efforts of French philanthropist Baron Edmond James de Rothschild to construct Zionist settlements in Palestine.

 

The present article is a Polish translation of Benjamin Harshav’s essay “Flowers Have No Names,” originally published in Natural History 118, no 1 (2009): 24-29.

Keywords:

Hebrew revival, great Jewish language war, modern Jewish revolution, language and identity, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda