Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar

? , This cab, who ordered it? , So this builder, I see that he ripped you offIsraelispellingThis is particularly common in sentences of ‘having’ and ‘containing’:besides: The farm manager has many enemiesit is equally common to say or write: The farm manager has (lit. he has) many enemiesSimilarly: This chapter has (lit. there are in it) ten sections108 Israeli spellingFor students writing Hebrew or using any kind of dictionary, the habits ofIsraeli spelling are a severe headache.In a nutshell, Hebrew writers followed two separate spelling standardsuntil the nineteenth century. Biblical Hebrew had been sparing in its useof vowel letters, hence it has more commonly than ,rather than and so on, though there were no hard and fast rules.This was the ongoing practice of Hebrew poets. By contrast, post-BiblicalHebrew made very full use of vowel letters, and this practice was followedby most prose writers and copyists through the ages.Came the nineteenth century, and many Maskilim (‘modern-minded’intellectuals) insisted on reverting to Biblical spelling, especially teachers.And when the quasi-official Vaad Halashon determined the spelling rulesfor schools in Eretz Yisrael early in the twentieth century, it actuallyinsisted on Biblical spelling even where no nikkud was being used: rather than , rather than , rather than .165