Hebrew series, installment: Milon ha-lashon ha-ivrit ha-yeshana ve-ha-hadasha מלון הלשון העברית הישנה והחדשה, vol. 1, Jerusalem and Berlin, 1908.
download the MP4 · the credits as text
The Videos session made this film in motion/films/modern-hebrew from the research package below. The final render, motion/out/modern-hebrew.mp4, plays here from its web copy.
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Text: Ezekiel 1:4 from Tanach with Nikkud (tanach.us, via Sefaria), public domain. Type: Frank Ruhl Libre, Source Serif 4 and Noto Serif (Greek), SIL Open Font License 1.1. Voices: ElevenLabs (Clara, narrator; Tomer, Hebrew reader). Music: ElevenLabs Music API. Effects: ElevenLabs sound generation.
| Time | Voiceover | Visual | Caption (on screen, not spoken) | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:04 | (silent) | Globe, pin on Jaffa | 32.05° N, 34.75° E · Jaffa · 1881 | Make: own render |
| 0:04–0:13 | "In the autumn of 1881, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his wife Devora landed at Jaffa. He had resolved to speak only Hebrew. Jews read and wrote Hebrew, and since about the second century it had been no one's mother tongue." | PEF Map of Western Palestine, Sheet XIII, push in on Jaffa. Dissolve to the 1905 portrait of Ben-Yehuda; the memoir line אני מדבר עברית, ורק עברית types on beside it. Then Devora's portrait, held small | Eliezer Ben-Yehuda אליעזר בן־יהודה, 1858–1922 · Devora Ben-Yehuda דבורה בן־יהודה, died 1891 · "אני מדבר עברית, ורק עברית" (I speak Hebrew, and only Hebrew), his memoir, HaToren, 1917–18 · Map of Western Palestine, Sheet XIII, 1879 | commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Reignier_Conder,_Map_of_Western_Palestine_in_26_sheets_from_the_surveys_conducted_for_the_Committee_of_the_Palestine_Exploration_Fund_13_(FL199398518_2368494).jpg · commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eliezer_Ben-Yehuda.1905.jpg · commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deborah_Ben_Yehuda.jpg · memoir text: benyehuda.org/read/5692 |
| 0:13–0:25 | "In Paris in 1879 he wrote that speaking Hebrew was 'in our power, if only we wish.' On the first day of 1880 he printed what the Academy counts as his first new word. He rejected 'book of words,' a copy of German Wörterbuch, and made milon from mila, word, and the ending -on." | Globe arc Paris → Vienna → Lyck, each pin flashing its label as the arc passes. Over Paris, the clause וגם לדבר בה יש לאל ידנו אם אך נחפוץ set in a period Hebrew face. Over Lyck, the 1880 column: ספר מלים lit and struck, then the sentence that coins מלון. Then type alone: מִלָּה + ־וֹן → מִלּוֹן | 48.86° N, 2.35° E · Paris · 8 March 1879 → 48.21° N, 16.37° E · Vienna · HaShachar 9:7 · "שאלה נכבדה" → 53.82° N, 22.36° E · Lyck (today Ełk) · 1 January 1880 · "שתי מלות חדשות" · מִלּוֹן milon, "a book that holds within it the words of the language" | Essay text: benyehuda.org/read/257 · Column: National Library of Israel, Magid Mishneh title record, web.archive.org/web/20221123000254/https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/magidmischne (issue scan to be pulled by hand) |
| 0:25–0:34 | "In Jerusalem the family spoke only Hebrew. Ben-Yehuda called their son, born in 1882, the first Hebrew child. A community of native speakers formed a generation later, among the children of the first Hebrew schools' graduates." | Itamar Ben-Avi portrait. The phrase הילד העברי הראשון types on beside it, credited to his father. Cut to the 1912 photograph of the Hilfsverein kindergarten in Jerusalem | Itamar Ben-Avi איתמר בן־אב״י, born Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda · 1882 by his father's account; some sources give 1885 · "הילד העברי הראשון," the first Hebrew child, his father's phrase · Hilfsverein kindergarten, Jerusalem · Múlt és Jövő, 15 February 1912 | commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ITAMAR_BEN_AVI,_EDITOR.D396-043.jpg · commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_német_zsidók_segélyegyletének_héber_óvodája_Jeruzsálemben_(1912).jpg · memoir text: benyehuda.org/read/4345 |
| 0:34–0:46 | "Many new words were made from Hebrew material: a root of consonants set into a pattern. The pattern of mafteakh, a key, marks a tool, and from the root for sling he made makle'a, a cannon. The dual ending for pairs turned ofan, a wheel, into ofnayim, a bicycle, on the model of oznayim, ears." | Typographic. Three root letters ק ל ע drop into the frame of מַפְתֵּחַ and settle as מַקְלֵעַ; cut to the same pointed word in the 1880 column. Then אוֹפָן takes the ending ־ַיִם and becomes אָפְנַיִם, with אָזְנַיִם above it as the model | שורש root · משקל pattern · מַפְתֵּחַ key → מַקְלֵעַ, proposed for "cannon," today "machine gun" · אוֹפָן wheel + ־ַיִם → אָפְנַיִם bicycle · "ע״מ אזנים" (on the pattern of oznayim) | Make: typographic. Column as above |
| 0:46–0:54 | "His dictionary marks these words. From 1908 it used a sign for 'words that I coined and that have already been accepted.' It stands before the bicycle, and before glida, ice cream." | Vol. 1 Hebrew title page, push on the date line אתת״מ לחרבן. Cut to the key of signs; the looped mark is cropped from the scan and enlarged. Then the same mark in front of אָפְנַיִם (vol. 1, p. 110) and in front of גְּלִידָה (vol. 2, p. 779) | Milon ha-lashon ha-ivrit, vol. 1 · Jerusalem and Berlin · "אתת״מ לחרבן," year 1840 from the destruction of the Temple (1908–09) · "מלים שחדשתי אני ושנתקבלו כבר בספרות של זמננו" · vol. 1, p. 110 · vol. 2, p. 779 | archive.org/details/thesaurustotiush01benj/page/n16/mode/1up · archive.org/details/thesaurustotiush01benj/page/n131/mode/1up · archive.org/details/thesaurustotiush02benj (leaf n212) |
| 0:54–1:05 | "Some new words were old ones. Ezekiel sees something 'like the look of the khashmal' in the fire, and the word's meaning is uncertain. The Greek translation reads elektron. The poet Judah Leib Gordon followed the Greek and used khashmal for electricity, and the dictionary credits him." | Ezekiel 1:4 set in type, הַחַשְׁמַל lit; ἤλεκτρον fades in above it. Cut to the Gordon portrait, then to vol. 4, p. 1806, footnote 2 lit line by line | חַשְׁמַל khashmal · Ezekiel 1:4 · Septuagint ἤλεκτρον · Judah Leib Gordon יהודה לייב גורדון, 1830–1892 · Milon, vol. 4, p. 1806 | archive.org/details/thesaurustotiush04benj/page/n408/mode/1up · commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yehuda_Leib_Gordon_1.jpeg · text: sefaria.org/api/v3/texts/Ezekiel.1.4?version=hebrew|Tanach with Nikkud |
| 1:05–1:13 | "Many of the words were made by other people. The tomato, agvaniya, is credited to Yehiel Michel Pines, from a root for desire. Ben-Yehuda found it immodest and said badura. Pines's word is in use." | Typographic. ע ג ב drops into עַגְבָנִיָּה beside the German word; בַּדּוּרָה sits opposite beside بندورة; בדורה fades | עַגְבָנִיָּה agvaniya · ע־ג־ב + ־ִיָּה · after German Liebesapfel, "love apple" · Yehiel Michel Pines יחיאל מיכל פינס, 5646 (1885–86), "apparently" (Sivan 1971) · בַּדּוּרָה badura, from Arabic bandūra | Make: typographic |
| 1:13–1:24 | "In 1913 the board of a new technical school in Haifa chose German for the sciences. Three members resigned, and by 1914 the school was to teach in Hebrew. In 1922 the Mandate made Hebrew an official language of Palestine. In 1953 the Knesset created an Academy to direct its development." | The Technikum shell under construction, 1913. The Jaffa meeting poster. Article 22 on p. 8 of the 1922 Command Paper. The 1927 two-mil coin turning to show its three scripts. The 1953 law in Sefer HaHukkim | Technikum, Haifa, 1913 · Neve Shalom, Jaffa, 18 November 1913: "השפה העברית־ שפת הלמוד בבתי הספר העבריים בא״י" · Mandate for Palestine, Art. 22, London, 24 July 1922 · Cmd. 1785, London, December 1922 · פלשתינה (א״י), two mils, 1927 · Knesset, 27 August 1953 · Sefer HaHukkim 135, p. 168 | commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asefa_Nave_Shalom.jpg · archive.org/details/mandateforpalest00leaguoft/page/n7/mode/1up · commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Mils_Palestine_1927.jpg · fs.knesset.gov.il/2/law/2_lsr_208534.pdf · Technikum: see Image notes |
| 1:24–1:28 | (silent) | Globe, pin on Jerusalem. Series tag | 31.78° N, 35.22° E · Ben Yehuda Street · Jerusalem · named for him | Make: own render |
32.05° N, 34.75° E · Jaffa · 1881
In the autumn of 1881, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (אליעזר בן־יהודה) and his wife Devora (דבורה) landed at Jaffa. He had resolved to speak only Hebrew, at home and with anyone who understood it. Jews had read, written and prayed in Hebrew without a break, but from about the second century to the nineteenth it was no one's mother tongue, and many of its names for modern things were phrases. A newspaper was a מכתב עתי, a "periodical letter," and eyeglasses were בתי עיניים, "houses for the eyes."
He had argued the case in an essay dated in Paris on 13 Adar 5639 (8 March 1879) and printed in Peretz Smolenskin's journal HaShachar in Vienna. The essay is mostly about land: the nation needed a center in the Land of Israel. In one sentence he adds that Hebrew could already be written about anything, "וגם לדבר בה יש לאל ידנו אם אך נחפוץ" (and to speak it, too, is in our power, if only we wish). His son later annotated that sentence as the first hint of the demand that Hebrew be spoken again.
On 1 January 1880, in a column titled "שתי מלות חדשות" (two new words) in Magid Mishneh, a Hebrew weekly published in Lyck, East Prussia, he rejected ספר מלים, "book of words," as a copy of German Wörterbuch: "על ידי התחבולה הזאת נהיתה שפתנו כמעט לשפת אשכנזית במלות עבריות" (by this device our language has become almost German in Hebrew words). Hebrew grammar, he argued, already had the means. A prefixed mem can mark an instrument, as in מַפְתֵּחַ (key) from פתח (to open). A final ־וֹן can mark "the thing that holds within it" a concept. From מִלָּה (word) he made מִלּוֹן (milon), and from the root ק־ל־ע (to sling) he made מַקְלֵעַ (makle'a) for a cannon. Today מקלע means a machine gun. The Academy of the Hebrew Language calls מלון the first word he coined, although his son dated it to a notebook of 1879.
In Jerusalem the family kept the rule. Their son Ben-Zion, later Itamar Ben-Avi (איתמר בן־אב״י), was born in the Old City on 15 Av 5642 (31 July 1882) by his father's account; some sources give 1885. Devora kept no servant, so that the child would hear no language but Hebrew, and his father called him "הילד העברי הראשון" (the first Hebrew child). That account comes from a memoir published in 1917–18, some thirty-five years later. Ghil'ad Zuckermann calls Ben-Avi "symbolically" the first native speaker and, citing Chaim Rabin, places the first community of speakers in the early twentieth century, among the children of graduates of the first Hebrew schools. Shlomo Izre'el ties the spread of spoken Hebrew to the Second Aliyah, a wave of immigrants in that century's first decade, and he calls the picture of Ben-Yehuda as the only reviver of the language "a myth." Ben-Yehuda supplied a program, many words and a dictionary, and the first communities of speakers formed in the schools and the farming settlements.
Many of the new words followed the method of the 1880 column. A Hebrew noun is a root of consonants (שורש) set into a pattern (משקל) of vowels and affixes, and some patterns mark a class of thing. The Academy calls מַקְטֵל, the pattern of מַפְתֵּחַ, "משקל המכשירים" (the pattern of instruments), and gives מַצְפֵּן (compass), מַגְהֵץ (iron) and מַחְשֵׁב (computer) as examples. The related pattern מַקְטֶלֶת gave מַגֶּבֶת (towel), from נ־ג־ב (to dry), which Ben-Yehuda marked as his own, and מַצֶּקֶת (ladle), from י־צ־ק (to pour), which the language committee coined in 1912–13. The dual ending ־ַיִם, used for pairs, turned אוֹפָן (wheel) into the bicycle. The dictionary prints that word אָפְנַיִם and names its model in a footnote, אָזְנַיִם, ears; today it is pointed אוֹפַנַּיִם.
The dictionary records this work on its own pages. The first volume of the Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew (מלון הלשון העברית הישנה והחדשה) began to appear in fascicles in 1908, published in Berlin-Schöneberg by Langenscheidt. Its title page promises "מספר רב של מלים אשר יצר המחבר למושגים ישנים וחדשים" (a large number of words that the author created for old and new concepts). Its key of signs marks the period of each word, from the Bible to the literature after the Talmud, and a small looped sign marks "מלים שחדשתי אני ושנתקבלו כבר בספרות של זמננו, או בדבור העברי בארץ ישראל" (words that I coined and that have already been accepted in the literature of our time, or in Hebrew speech in the Land of Israel). It stands before the bicycle, a word that "has already been used much in the newspapers and in books," and, in the second volume, before גְּלִידָה, ice cream.
Other modern words are old ones with new senses. Ezekiel's first vision reads "וּמִתּוֹכָהּ כְּעֵין הַחַשְׁמַל מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ" (and from its midst, like the look of the khashmal, from the midst of the fire). The meaning of חשמל is uncertain, and the Septuagint rendered it ἤλεκτρον. The poet Judah Leib Gordon (יהודה לייב גורדון) followed the Greek and used the word for electricity. His note, which the dictionary quotes, explains: "כונתי להכח הטבעי הנקרא עלעקטריציטט שכן תרגום היוני של חשמל הוא עלעקטראן" (I mean the natural force called Elektrizität, since the Greek translation of khashmal is elektron). Ben-Yehuda did not mark the word as his. He called the Greek reading a homiletic gloss and accepted the usage because need had made it accepted in speech and in literature. In 1893 Yehiel Michel Pines (יחיאל מיכל פינס) ranked such words highest: "הגדולה שבמעלות למלה חדשה אם איננה חדשה" (the highest rank for a new word is if it is not new).
Several of the new words have more than one claimant. Pines put שָׁעוֹן (clock) into print in 1885, and Ben-Yehuda credited it to him in 1898, although the scholar Raphael Weiss later argued that Pines had only endorsed it. In December 1892, after the railway from Jaffa to Jerusalem opened, David Yellin (דוד ילין) proposed קַטָּר for the locomotive, fitting Arabic qiṭār to a Hebrew pattern and to קִיטוֹר (steam). Ben-Yehuda answered with רַכֶּבֶת (train) and credited Pines with its pattern, that of the Talmud's חַמֶּרֶת and גַּמֶּלֶת, caravans of donkeys and of camels. Reuven Sivan concludes that Pines "apparently" coined the word for tomato, עַגְבָנִיָּה, in 5646 (1885–86), from the root ע־ג־ב (to desire), after German Liebesapfel, "love apple." Ben-Yehuda found it immodest, kept it out of his home, his papers and his dictionary, and used בַּדּוּרָה, from Arabic bandūra. The dictionary's sign does not settle these questions: a volume printed long after Ben-Yehuda's death marks שעון as his.
The words reached speakers through newspapers, schools and committees. Ben-Yehuda's newspaper, HaZvi (הצבי), first appeared on 24 October 1884 and ran, as HaZvi and as HaOr, until 1915. A society formed in Jerusalem in 1889 set up a committee to collect Hebrew words, and both soon lapsed. Because the teachers' association needed terms for its classes, a new language committee was founded in Jerusalem in 1904–05, with Ben-Yehuda, Yellin and Pines among its members. Its first bulletin, in 1912, printed a list of arithmetic terms.
The dictionary's first volume names the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (the Aid Society of German Jews) among its funders and the society's founder, Paul Nathan, on its publication committee. The Hilfsverein was building a technical school in Haifa, the Technikum, and on 26 October 1913 the school's board resolved, in the Hebrew rendering the Academy prints, that "מדעי הטבע יהיו נלמדים בשפה הגרמנית" (the natural sciences will be taught in the German language). Three board members, Ahad Ha'am, Shmaryahu Levin and Yehiel Tschlenow, resigned, and on 18 November a public meeting in Jaffa took up Hebrew as the language of instruction in the Hebrew schools. By 1914 the school was to teach in Hebrew, and the Technion opened in 1924 teaching in Hebrew.
Article 22 of the Mandate for Palestine, done at London on 24 July 1922, reads: "English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine." Ben-Yehuda died in Jerusalem that December, with five volumes of the dictionary in print. Four more appeared between 1925 and 1939, and N. H. Tur-Sinai completed it in 1959. On 27 August 1953 the Knesset created the Academy of the Hebrew Language, gave it the task "לכוון את התפתחות הלשון העברית על יסוד חקר הלשון לתקופותיה ולענפיה" (to direct the development of the Hebrew language on the basis of research into the language in its periods and branches), and dissolved the committee into it.
The usual name for this history is "revival." Izre'el argues that Hebrew had never died, and he quotes the linguist Haim Blanc: its unusual feature was that it "was no one's mother tongue." He calls "(re)vernacularization" probably the best term for the social change, and he uses "emergence" for the formation of the spoken language. Zuckermann argues that the language that emerged is a hybrid, with Hebrew and Yiddish as its primary contributors, and he calls it "Israeli." By his Founder Principle, the Yiddish of the first settlers shaped it.
In the Chinese series of these posts, Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi gave Euclid a Chinese vocabulary in 1607 by joining a common character to one qualifier, so that 直線 read as "straight line" on first sight. The Hebrew coiners had a more regular device: a root the reader already knew, set into a pattern that marked the class of thing. Both projects also took old words and changed their senses. 幾何, "how much," became geometry, and Ezekiel's חשמל became electricity.
If you have worked with Ben-Yehuda's papers or the posthumous volumes of the dictionary: who decided which entries in those volumes received his coinage sign, given that it stands on שעון, a word he had credited to Pines in 1898?
31.78° N, 35.22° E · Ben Yehuda Street · Jerusalem
Romanization follows Israeli pronunciation: kh for ח and spirant כ, ts for צ, an apostrophe for a break at ע or א, and no doubled consonants. Names and titles keep their usual English spellings.
| Term (pointed) | Romanization | Root and pattern, or source word | English | Status today | Note and source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| מִלּוֹן | milon | מִלָּה "word" + ־וֹן, read by Ben-Yehuda as "the thing that holds" (his models: צִמָּאוֹן, צִיּוֹן) | dictionary | Identical (spelled מילון today) | Ben-Yehuda, "שתי מלות חדשות," Magid Mishneh, Lyck, 17 Tevet 5640 (1 Jan 1880); he rejects ספר מלים as a copy of Wörterbuch. The Academy (2018) and Weiss (p. 239 n. 46) call it his first coinage; Itamar Ben-Avi's note to the 1879 essay dates it to a small notebook of 1879 (Project Ben-Yehuda, read/257). Vol. 6, p. 3029 marks it with his sign |
| מַקְלֵעַ | makle'a | ק־ל־ע "sling" in מַקְטֵל, on the model of מַפְתֵּחַ (from פתח) and מַסְרֵק (from סרק) | cannon → machine gun | Modified (sense) | Same column, proposed for "cannon," against another writer's compound קנה און. Pointed מַקְלֵעַ in the column. Modern sense: Wiktionary, מקלע |
| עִתּוֹן | iton | עֵת "time" + ־וֹן | newspaper | Identical (spelled עיתון today) | Ben-Yehuda (Academy 2023 edition of Sivan's list; Weiss, p. 239, rejects an attribution to Klausner as an error). In HaZvi/HaOr body text from 29 Tevet 5651 (9 Jan 1891); in the paper's subtitle from 25 Tevet 5655 (Jan 1895) (Gilboa, p. 309). Replaced מכתב עתי |
| שָׁעוֹן | sha'on | שָׁעָה "hour" + ־וֹן | clock, watch | Identical | First printed by Yehiel Michel Pines, HaZvi, 28 Shevat 5645 (13 Feb 1885; the Academy prints 12 February). Ben-Yehuda wrote "שעון חדשה רי״מ פינס" in HaZvi, 21 Iyar 5658 (1898); a posthumous dictionary volume marks it as his own (Academy 2019). Weiss (p. 239 n. 45) argues that Pines only endorsed it. Credit contested. Replaced מורה שעות |
| רַכֶּבֶת | rakevet | ר־כ־ב "ride" in קַטֶּלֶת, after Talmudic חַמֶּרֶת "donkey caravan" and גַּמֶּלֶת "camel caravan" | train | Identical | Proposed in Ben-Yehuda's reply to Yellin, HaOr, Kislev 5653 (Dec 1892), which credits Pines with the pattern. Sivan 1966, pp. 151–153. At its own entry the dictionary gives it the sign for words coined by others (Academy 2023). Credit contested |
| קַטָּר | katar | Arabic qiṭār "train," fitted to קַטָּל and tied to קִיטוֹר "steam" | locomotive | Identical | David Yellin, letter to HaOr, dated by Sivan 28 Kislev 5653 (17 Dec 1892, a Saturday; possibly the issue date). Sivan 1966, p. 152 |
| עַגְבָנִיָּה | agvaniya | ע־ג־ב "desire" + ־ִיָּה; after German Liebesapfel | tomato | Identical | Pines, "ככל הנראה" (apparently), in his translation of Anderlind on agriculture in Syria, Jerusalem 5646 (1885–86). Ben-Yehuda kept it out of his home, papers and dictionary as immodest. The press hardly used it for about twenty years; A. M. Luncz printed עגבוניות in Luah Erets Yisrael, Jerusalem 5655 (1894–95), p. 46. Sivan 1971, pp. 79–84 |
| בַּדּוּרָה | badura | Arabic bandūra (from Italian pomodoro) | tomato | Failed | Used in Ben-Yehuda's home and papers; HaZvi printed בדורה in 5657 and בנדורה in 5658 (1890s). Sivan 1971, pp. 81–83 |
| גְּלִידָה | glida | Mishnaic גְּלִיד "frost, ice" in קְטִילָה, the pattern of לְבִיבָה | ice cream | Identical | Ben-Yehuda, with his sign, vol. 2 (1909–11), p. 779: "יקראו בא״י המדברים עברית ממתק עשוי מסכר וביצים ונקפא וקר כגליד"; note "משקל לביבה" |
| מִבְרָק | mivrak | בָּרָק "lightning" in מִקְטָל | telegram | Identical | Ben-Yehuda, with his sign, vol. 6 (posthumous), p. 2775: "הודעה באה מרחוק במהירות הברק בכח חשמלי"; first used "ב״האור״ גליון א׳ שנה לב" (issue not dated) |
| מִבְרָשָׁה | mivrasha | colloquial Arabic mibrasha | brush | Later form (מִבְרֶשֶׁת) | Ben-Yehuda, with his sign, vol. 6, p. 2775 and n. 2: "נהוג בדבור העברי בא״י." Today's form is מִבְרֶשֶׁת (Academy 2023); who changed it is not known |
| מַגֶּבֶת | magevet | נ־ג־ב "dry" in מַקְטֶלֶת | towel | Identical | Ben-Yehuda, in Sivan's list of words he marked as his own: "מטפחת של בד וכדומה לנגב הידים" (Academy 2023 edition of Sivan 1960–61). First use not dated |
| מַצֶּקֶת | matseket | י־צ־ק "pour" in מַקְטֶלֶת | ladle | Identical | Hebrew Language Committee, list of cooking terms, 5673 (1912–13): "כַּף גְּדוֹלָה לִיצֹק בָּהּ אֶת הָאֹכֶל אֶל הַקְּעָרָה." Academy, 100 מילים (2012), entry 6 |
| מַצְפֵּן | matspen | צָפוֹן "north" in מַקְטֵל, "משקל המכשירים" | compass | Identical | David Yellin, listed under 5688 (1927–28). Academy, 100 מילים, entry 13, which names מַגְהֵץ, מַבְרֵג and מַחְשֵׁב as other new words in the same pattern |
| אָפְנַיִם | ofnayim | אוֹפָן "wheel" (Ezek. 1:16) + dual ־ַיִם, on the pattern of אָזְנַיִם "ears" | bicycle | Modified (pointing: אוֹפַנַּיִם) | Ben-Yehuda, with his sign, vol. 1, p. 110: "וכבר השתמשו הרבה במלה זו בהעתונים ובספרים"; n. 1 "מן, אופן, ע״מ אזנים." In the posthumous entry עֲגָלָה the editor M. Z. Segal wrote "אבל לדעתי יש לנקד אוֹפַנַּיִם" (Academy 2023) |
| מִשְׁקָפַיִם | mishkafayim | ש־ק־ף "look out" + dual | eyeglasses | Identical | Chaim Leib Hazan, HaTsefira, 1890, who wrote that he chose it partly for its likeness to Greek skopeo (Rosenthal 2005; Sivan c. 1981). Vol. 7, p. 3418 marks it with the post-Talmudic sign, so the dictionary does not claim it. Replaced בתי עיניים |
| חַשְׁמַל | khashmal | Ezek. 1:4, 1:27; Septuagint ἤλεκτρον | electricity | Modified (sense) | Judah Leib Gordon, poem "שני יוסף בן שמעון" (in the form הַחַשְׁמַלָּה, as in Ezek. 8:2), with his note quoted in vol. 4, p. 1806, n. 2. The dictionary gives the sense the post-Talmudic sign and credits Gordon. Date of the poem not established |
| מְכוֹנָה | mekhona | 1 Kings 7:38 "stand, base," given the sense of μηχανή, Maschine | machine | Modified (sense) | No single coiner. HaMagid, 1857: "מכונה (מאשינע)" (Academy 2011). Sivan: chosen "מפאת צלצולה הדומה לצלצול המלה הלועזית" |
| מְכוֹנִית | mekhonit | מְכוֹנָה + ־ִית, shortened from עגלה מכונית | car | Identical | Itamar Ben-Avi, by his own claim: "המילה 'מכונית' היא שלי" (Avneri 2020). Earliest Academy citation HaZvi, 1909; Bialik's poem "המכונית" (1932) spread it (Academy 2011) |
| אֲוִירוֹן | aviron | אֲוִיר "air" + ־וֹן, after French avion | airplane | Replaced in formal use (מטוס); survives in children's songs | Ben-Avi per the Academy (page dated 17 October 2010) and Sivan c. 1981; Ben-Yehuda's dictionary lists it among his own (Academy 2023). Contested |
| מָטוֹס | matos | ט־ו־ס "fly fast," from יָטוּשׂ (Job 9:26) | airplane | Identical | Hayim Nahman Bialik, with טִיסָה and טַיָּס from the same root (Academy 2010; Avneri 2020). Year not established |
| מִטְרִיָּה | mitriya | מָטָר "rain" + ־ִיָּה | umbrella | Identical | Ben-Yehuda (Weiss, p. 233; Sivan c. 1981). Not in Sivan's list of words the dictionary marks. Bialik objected to the suffix and proposed סוֹכֵךְ, which failed (Avneri 2020) |
| אֶקְדָּח | ekdakh | Isa. 54:12 אַבְנֵי אֶקְדָּח, a gemstone; tied to ק־ד־ח "kindle, drill" | pistol | Modified (sense) | Ben-Yehuda: "הצעתי השם הזה בהצבי לכלי הנשק הדוחה בכח האש, וגזרתיו מן השרש קדח" (Sivan's list, Academy 2023). Issue of HaZvi not established |
| בֻּבָּה | buba | בָּבָה "pupil of the eye" (Zech. 2:12), first vowel changed | doll | Modified (form and sense) | Ben-Yehuda's dictionary: "בשנוי התנועה הראשנה, מן השם בָּבָה" (Sivan's list, Academy 2023) |
| רִבָּה | riba | Arabic murabbā | jam | Identical | Ben-Yehuda, 1888. Zuckermann 2009, p. 43 |
| סִפְרָה | sifra | ס־פ־ר "count," matched by sound to German Ziffer (from Arabic ṣifr) | digit | Identical | Hebrew Language Committee, listed under 5672 (1911–12), the year of the first bulletin of Zikhronot Va'ad HaLashon, which carried arithmetic terms. Academy, 100 מילים, entry 2 |
| מֵימָן | meiman | מַיִם "water" + ־ָן | hydrogen | Identical | Pines shortened Ben-Yehuda's compounds אַבְמַיִם, אַבְחֶמֶץ, אַבְחֶנֶק to מימן, חמצן, חנקן (Sivan c. 1981; Akadem 47). Ben-Yehuda's forms failed |
| שַׂח־רָחוֹק | sakh-rakhok | שָׂח "talks" + רָחוֹק "far" | telephone | Replaced (טֶלֶפוֹן) | The word in Ben-Yehuda's home; Mandate post-office forms read "הדואר, המברקה והשח-רחוק." The loan won. Sivan c. 1981 |
| מַחְשֵׁב | makhshev | ח־ש־ב "think, reckon" in מַקְטֵל | computer | Identical | The Academy names it as a new word in "משקל המכשירים" (100 מילים, in the entry for מַצְפֵּן). No source opened names a coiner or a year |
{{PD-Israel}}; Ben-Dov portrait 1918–23 (File:Portrait_of_Eliezer_Ben-Yehuda_(id.34235240).jpg), {{PD-Israel}}; Devora (File:Deborah_Ben_Yehuda.jpg), {{PD-Israel}}; Itamar Ben-Avi, GPO D396-043, {{PD-Israel}}; Judah Leib Gordon (File:Yehuda_Leib_Gordon_1.jpeg), {{PD-old-100-expired}}. Ben-Yehuda at his desk (Narinsky, c. 1912), {{PD-Israel}}, but its Israeli status depends on the publication rule; prefer the Ben-Dov portrait.{{PD-old-assumed}}; the NLI copy (File:Survey_of_Western_Palestine_1880.13.jpg) {{PD-scan}}.{{PD-US-expired|PD-HU-unknown}}. Technikum under construction, 1913 (Albert Bär, CZA PHAL\1619662): {{PD-Israel}}. Technion, LOC 2019693406: "No known restrictions on publication."{{PD-scan|PD-LN}}. Two-mil coin, 1927: {{PD-author-FlickrPDM}}; 3-mil stamp, 1927: {{PD-UKGov}}.{{PD-Israel}}. Language Committee photograph: {{PD-Israel}} on Commons, with the Central Zionist Archives named as rights contact by Harvard; credit the CZA.