Can a language be revived in any significant way?

[Starbeam]

Hey there! Sorry i post once in an almost never, i had and still have many hobbies and obligations that prevent me from spending more time on language forums. I've been wondering if language revival is possible in the slightest. This is not about probability, that's another matter; but whether any language can be revived to at least not resemble the language spoken before reviving another.

To get this out of the way, i support the efforts of language revival and revitalization even if it leads to relexification at best.

Still, an exact revival is obviously 100% impossible. I don't believe each and every native notion or quirk of a language can be glossed down and recorded before their obsolescence. However, i am wondering about whether languages like Modern Hebrew are just relexified dialects of languages like Yiddish. That former differences in communication will be virtually completely withered by the time a revival happens and no future influence on the language's development has anything to do with the language attempted to be learned.

I recall an academic named of Danny Kalev stating as much. The PDF i read on this subject was quasi-convincing, but it was supervised by Paul Wexler (who's had some quackish takes) and i'm not a native or particularly fluent speaker of Hebrew, so i should be careful. I bring up Hebrew, because of the various revitalized languages, i know the most about it personally.

I have no clue what to think in any which way. I'd like to believe that some of the language's culture can carry on when a language has to be revived, but i can't formulate reasoning in my head for it. Still, i'm not a professional, so i come to yall who might know a bit more for some help or information.

If by any chance i'm getting something wrong or have been frameworking it mistakenly, let me know. Due to financial constraints and disability things, i can't participate in a proper academic setting or teach myself outside webpages (i don't know how to torrent).

Thank you for reading.

[Estav]

I think there are very different circumstances for different languages. With Hebrew, something that makes “revival” seem like a possibility is that even though it passed out of ordinary usage, it was never forgotten and never passed out of all use. It continued to be studied as a language of religious texts. Likewise, Latin or Sanskrit have that kind of situation that could serve as a basis for some kind of revival that I would expect to be more than just a “relex”. It would be very different if the only sources available for a language revival attempt were just a grammar and dictionary compiled by a non-native speaker.

Regardless of the level of success at reviving the grammar and lexical structure of the source language, I’m skeptical of the idea that a “relexified dialect” of one of the modern languages spoken by the revivers is all that plausible an outcome of a revival attempt. I wonder how rigorous that concept is. At the very least, by the time the revival has monolingual speakers, it would seem to have developed into a separate thing. There’s some hypothesis I think that Yiddish is a “relexified” Slavic language—does that mean modern Hebrew is Slavic? This kind of thinking seems kind of silly to me, although I’m not an expert on language contact.

[zompist]

I think the answer is "Yes, sure", so long as you give up the assumption, or worry, that there's some sort of Platonic essence of a language that must be revived for the revival to "count" somehow.

Labels for languages are human artefacts and have no Platonic definitions. For convenience, we call the language of (say) modern and ancient Greece "Greek" even though it has changed significantly. There's no principled reason we don't similarly call Italian "Modern Latin"; it's just convenient to have separate labels for each Romance language. Medieval and classical Latin differed in many ways; similarly the Classical Chinese of Confucius (-5C), Zhu Xi (12C), or Lin Shu (19C). (To be clear, I'm not talking about the development of Mandarin-- these were all writers who thought they were writing Old Chinese, wenyan.)

If you learn modern Hebrew, you are not going to pronounce it like a Judahite of the 8th century BCE; you're not going to use words or syntax the same way; you won't share the same worldview or cultural assumptions. And so what? The same is true of a Babylonian exile in -550, an Alexandrine scholar of 200, or a rabbi in Poland in 1700. Languages change and linguists reject the idea that one variety of a language is the "only real one."

By the way, by this point the largest number of language revivals is among Native Americans. The revivers understand very well that much has been lost; there may or may not even be native speakers left. A good deal of reconstruction, even conlanging, is necessary.

[Starbeam]

Platonic? I'm not a student of philosophy, so please refresh me on that one if ya can.

In any case, i absolutely am in support of Indigenous people reviving their languages even from piecemeal sources. I'm less bitter at anything, and more worried that it will become some form of remade English or Spanish or Yiddish, etc.. Language change is inevitable, but i worry that i'm learning Yiddish with different words (in the Hebrew example). I won't stop learning or consider it the same language though. Again, i should be clear i'm not chastizing the idea of language revitalization; but wondering if it makes anything all that different from the language of speakers who first revived it. I'm not really concerned on whether it's alike enough like the revived language per se.

[Darren]

The fact that modern Hebrew has triliteral roots means that it is more than a relexification of Yiddish. Although it was simplified/regularised from Biblical Hebrew and there was syntactic change in the direction of Indo-European, it's definitely not a relex. But as Estav said, Hebrew was still used and very well-documented, so it's an outlier. With revitalised indigenous languages, there's generally a trained linguist writing the grammar who would know not to relexify their native language. Also, there is often a push in the other direction, away from the majority language - with Cornish in the UK, there is a controversy over whether they use Middle Cornish or Early Modern Cornish as the basis for the revived language in a conscious attempt by some to be less like English.

[zompist]

A Platonic essence is a sort of permanent, unchanging form of a concept. In language, it would be the idea that only some particular form of the language is "the real language".

What would be your concern if, say, Hebrew really was a "relexification" of Yiddish? What do you think would be wrong or lost?

Note that something Jews have kept for centuries is the ability to read Biblical Hebrew (and the Talmud, etc). Do you think that would be possible if they were learning "relexified Yiddish"?

[Richard W]

The fact that modern Hebrew has triliteral roots means that it is more than a relexification of Yiddish.

By this, do you mean that its templatic morphology is healthy, whereas ablaut is moribund in English?

As I don't know Yiddish, has Yiddish borrowed any templatic morphology from Hebrew?

[Darren]

The fact that modern Hebrew has triliteral roots means that it is more than a relexification of Yiddish.

By this, do you mean that its templatic morphology is healthy, whereas ablaut is moribund in English?

I mean that if it was a relex, then the grammar would be the same as Yiddish, while in reality it's completely different. Grammatically, Yiddish is very clearly Germanic, and Hebrew very clearly Semitic.

As I don't know Yiddish, has Yiddish borrowed any templatic morphology from Hebrew?

I'm not sure either, but I think it only borrowed it for (not all) Hebrew loan-words.

[Richard W]

Note that something Jews have kept for centuries is the ability to read Biblical Hebrew (and the Talmud, etc). Do you think that would be possible if they were learning "relexified Yiddish"?

Why not? A lot of a language learning is at the level of word substitution, and there's a fair amount of Hebrew in Yiddish. Biblical Hebrew inflection is a bit more complex, but object/possessive suffixes are not a difficult addition for reading.

[Richard W]

I mean that if it was a relex, then the grammar would be the same as Yiddish, while in reality it's completely different. Grammatically, Yiddish is very clearly Germanic, and Hebrew very clearly Semitic.

Are you referring to the inflections? Latin loans in German take Latin case endings, though using foreign verbal inflections in loan words is a bit extreme.

[Darren]

I mean that if it was a relex, then the grammar would be the same as Yiddish, while in reality it's completely different. Grammatically, Yiddish is very clearly Germanic, and Hebrew very clearly Semitic.

Are you referring to the inflections? Latin loans in German take Latin case endings, though using foreign verbal inflections in loan words is a bit extreme.

Yes, inflections. Yiddish has had a lot of influence from Hebrew, and there are enough loanwords that they can be treated differently - not exactly the same as Hebrew though. Native words are inflected normally, so it's not a relex.

However, I've read that there was one linguist (I can't remember who) who claimed that modern Hebrew was part of three or four language families at the same time. That might be going a bit too far. I have no experience in this field, other people on the board would know more about it.

[Starbeam]

I think you have a point about there being no real concern here, Zompist. I apologize for even coming off dismissive of the ordeal. I should also state i'm a Jew who favors Hebrew over Yiddish (not that Yiddish should die out), so i've had experience with at least a little bit of both thruout my life.

[Richard W]

I mean that if it was a relex, then the grammar would be the same as Yiddish, while in reality it's completely different. Grammatically, Yiddish is very clearly Germanic, and Hebrew very clearly Semitic.

Are you referring to the inflections? Latin loans in German take Latin case endings, though using foreign verbal inflections in loan words is a bit extreme.

Yes, inflections. Yiddish has had a lot of influence from Hebrew, and there are enough loanwords that they can be treated differently - not exactly the same as Hebrew though. Native words are inflected normally, so it's not a relex.

I was suggesting that relexifying Yiddish to yield Ivrit is not inconsistent with Ivrit using Biblical Hebrew inflections. Whatever one may think of the quality of a revival, one would expect things like core inflections to be mostly revived if they were in any way similar to what is in the early speakers' L1.

I queried the triliteralism as Ivrit textbooks I've seen very much downplay the basic triliteral form, the 'qal', but rather emphasise the pi'el and its generalisation to quadriliterals. The mV- prefix looks fossilised, and the qaṭṭal agent nouns also look like being fossils. However, when I queried the robustness of templatic morphology on this forum, I was assured that it was alive and well in Ivrit. The examples given were very persuasive.

Of course, if derivational morphology is sufficiently transparent, it should be able to recreate itself from vocabulary, even if one generation of speakers had never mastered the morphology.

[Kuchigakatai]

I mean that if it was a relex, then the grammar would be the same as Yiddish, while in reality it's completely different. Grammatically, Yiddish is very clearly Germanic, and Hebrew very clearly Semitic.

Are you referring to the inflections? Latin loans in German take Latin case endings, though using foreign verbal inflections in loan words is a bit extreme.

I vaguely remember being told, likely by someone here, that the thing of inflecting German nouns straightforwardly borrowed from Latin as in Latin was a thing only a minority of people ever did, in and around the 19th century.

I do know that Modern German never bothers anymore, always using the Germanic endings: der/den/dem Professor, des Professors, plural die/den/der Professoren 'male professor'; das/dem Kruzifix, des Kruzifixes, plural die/den/der Kruzifixe. Like English, it sometimes borrows the Latin nominative plural for the plural, but then doesn't inflect it: der/den/dem/des Abakus, plural die/den/der Abaki (or alternatively die/den/der Abakusse).

In ancient Latin texts, borrowings from Greek are sometimes found with Greek endings, especially in the nominative and accusative singular (and also the genitive singular in feminine nouns), and especially in human and place proper names. The Greek dative endings are never borrowed though, and Greek endings in feminine common nouns at all are very rare. In common nouns, there is also a very positive correlation between how learned and uncommon a concept is and how often it appears with Greek endings, so a lot of the Greek ending usage is likely unnatural, e.g. -chordos in Greek compounds (hexachordos, acrochordos) only appears with the Greek acc. sg. ending -chordon in Latin, the more common emys emydos emyda (a freshwater turtle, probably the endemic pond turtle) also appears with the native endings emys emydis emydem, rhētōr rhētorem 'rhetorician' is basically nativized in the pattern of words like pār paris 'pair' (accusative rhētora pl. rhētoras are attested but rarely), and nauta 'sailor' is so heavily nativized from Greek ναύτης that the forms with Greek endings *nautēs *nautēn are not attested at all.

Latin often retains the alternation of the Greek nominative and oblique stems:
- Cleōn Cleōnis (an ancient Greek rival of Pericles) (non-native nom. -ōn)
- canōn canonis 'rod ruler, a rule' (non-native nom. -ōn, with oblique vowel shortening)
- Automedōn Automedontis (Achilles' charioteer in the Iliad) (non-native nom. -n with oblique -nt-)

It did help that Latin was also Indo-European and had similar native alternations. Some of these alternations came very naturally, like Styx Stygis (the great river of Hades) with native strix strigis 'groove, furrow', or Colchis Colchidis (a kingdom in today's Georgia) with native palūs palūdis 'swamp'. For the ones above, you could compare them with similar but not identical alternations:
- for Cleōn: nom. -ō with oblique -ōn in words like religiō religiōnis 'reverence for the divine; carefulness about taboos'
- for canōn: vowel shortening in pār paris 'pair'
- for Automedōn: -ns-/-nt- in dēns dentis 'tooth'
...but here too there was a correlation between being uncommon and retaining the Greek stem as a learned feature. Compare those examples with the fully nativized polypus polypī (various sea animals, incl. octopuses and anemones) instead of *polypūs *polypodis/*polypodos < πολύπους πολύποδος (this is hilariously ironic in light of the English controversy about "octopi"), Platō (a famous philosopher, gen. Platōnis) instead of nominative *Platōn < Πλάτων, and dracō dracōnis 'dragon' instead of *dracōn *dracontis/*dracontos < δράκων δράκοντος.

Of course, if derivational morphology is sufficiently transparent, it should be able to recreate itself from vocabulary, even if one generation of speakers had never mastered the morphology.

Yng once remarked he sometimes couldn't believe how natural the Latin derivational morphology felt, since he basically already knew it purely via analogy through the English lexicon.

I have also seen Mandarin speakers discussing the grammar of Classical Chinese, or defending their choices when trying to write in CC, purely by quoting Mandarin four-character proverbs that are in regular use, since those Chinese proverbs are fossilized CC sentences...

[WeepingElf]

I mean that if it was a relex, then the grammar would be the same as Yiddish, while in reality it's completely different. Grammatically, Yiddish is very clearly Germanic, and Hebrew very clearly Semitic.

Are you referring to the inflections? Latin loans in German take Latin case endings, though using foreign verbal inflections in loan words is a bit extreme.

I vaguely remember being told, likely by someone here, that the thing of inflecting German nouns straightforwardly borrowed from Latin as in Latin was a thing only a minority of people ever did, in and around the 19th century.

I do know that Modern German never bothers anymore, always using the Germanic endings: der/den/dem Professor, des Professors, plural die/den/der Professoren 'male professor'; das/dem Kruzifix, des Kruzifixes, plural die/den/der Kruzifixe. Like English, it sometimes borrows the Latin nominative plural for the plural, but then doesn't inflect it: der/den/dem/des Abakus, plural die/den/der Abaki (or alternatively die/den/der Abakusse).

I can confirm this. In the 19th century (and perhaps earlier), it was customary among German speakers who knew Latin to inflect Latin loanwords as in Latin, forming sentences like

Jeden Tag ging der Professor mit den Studentibus in die Mensam.
'Every day, the professor went to the dining hall with the students.'

But today, such usages are not even heard on university campuses anymore. And they never were customary among people who hadn't learned Latin - and those of course were by far the majority! From this, it is quite clear why such forms never really became part of the German language.

[hwhatting]

There are a couple of surviving instances of this phenomenon, e.g. using Christi, Jesu as genitives for Christus, Jesus. But outside of fixed expressions like Christi Himmelfahrt "Ascension" and Herz Jesu "Sacred Heart", the usage of these genitive forms is limited to literary and academic language.