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Hebrew had not been anyone's everyday spoken language for centuries. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda raised his son hearing nothing else, coined thousands of words for things the old texts never mentioned, and lived to hear it spoken in the street.

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858–1922)

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Hebrew had survived in prayer, scholarship and letters, but not as a mother tongue. Ben-Yehuda's son, born in 1882, is generally described as the first native speaker in generations — an upbringing so isolating that the boy reportedly did not speak until he was four. Ben-Yehuda compiled a dictionary and invented vocabulary for ice cream, bicycle, newspaper, tomato. Reviving a language this way remains essentially unrepeated: it is now the daily language of millions.

Türkçe

Aynı kart, başka bir dilde.

İbranice yüzyıllardır kimsenin gündelik konuşma dili değildi. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda oğlunu başka hiçbir dil duymadan büyüttü, eski metinlerin hiç anmadığı şeyler için binlerce sözcük türetti ve dili sokakta konuşulurken duyacak kadar yaşadı.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922)

İbranice duada, ilimde ve mektupta yaşamıştı, ama ana dil olarak değil. Ben-Yehuda'nın 1882'de doğan oğlu, genellikle kuşaklar sonra ilk ana dili konuşan kişi diye anılır — çocuğun dört yaşına dek konuşmadığı aktarılacak kadar yalıtılmış bir yetiştirilme. Ben-Yehuda bir sözlük derledi ve dondurma, bisiklet, gazete, domates için sözcükler üretti. Bir dili böyle diriltmek esasen yinelenmemiştir: Bugün milyonların gündelik dili.

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Background reading: Eliezer Ben-YehudaAttribution and context are revised when stronger evidence appears. Corrections are welcome through the editorial page.
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