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There was no such thing as a "local language" there. They spoke a very wide variety of language - one article collected 40 different languages spoken there. Ma
by ars 4y ago
There was no such thing as a "local language" there. They spoke a very wide variety of language - one article collected 40 different languages spoken there.
Mandatory Palestine was not a country at that time, and had nothing unifying it.
The reason all those migrants switched to Hebrew is that it was the only common tongue among all of them.
Why in the world would they pick a European language? If anything maybe Yiddish, but as you write there were lots of people from Arab countries who didn't speak it.
But everyone knew Hebrew. It's really the only language that made sense. And it was not extinct, everyone knew it. Maybe it wasn't their cradle language, but everyone could make themselves understood in it.
You have this weird subtext that the place was Arab and Jews came in - that's not accurate at all, Jews never left Israel (Palestine). The migrants joined existing Jews.
- watwut 4y agoThe migrants moved there with explicit plan to create dominance. The dominance did nit happened through kumbaya happy agreement of everyone that one language is known by all.
- ars 4y agoThat's BS. They moved there because it was their homeland.
- watwut 4y agoThey moved there after hundreds of years of not living there. It was homeland of someone else and they made it their own. But the process was not friendly. Anti-semitism in those other places was also very real .. but the homeland itself was a new place for massive amount of those people and peoples got pushed out.
- ars 4y agoThat's a rewriting of history. There were always Jews there, and they didn't push anyone out - the land was very sparsely inhabited. The incoming Jews bought land like anyone would when they move someplace. The Arabs responded with massacres, instead of just living near their new neighbors. If they had not done that history would be quite different.
- guywithahat 4y agoWhiel there were always some Jews, most of the Jews living there moved there after 1900, as many of the surrounding Kingdoms (particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia) had become increasingly antisemitic and forced them out. Israel's current location wasn't even the only place considered, they also looked at a place in Africa, and this was possible because most people were immigrating there and it wasn't a generational homeland.