How English Words Get Entrenched in Israeli Speech, and How to Get Them Out

Why the Hebrew word for "shaming" (as in "Facebook shaming") should not be sheyming.

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“What Is ‘Hashtag’ in Ancient Hebrew?” asks the title of a July 30 article by Isabel Kershner, the Israel correspondent of the New York Times. “Although Israelis,” she writes,

pride themselves on the revival of ancient Hebrew, . . . this high-tech nation can find itself at a loss for contemporary terms. The venerated Academy of the Hebrew Language is always working to update [Hebrew’s] vocabulary. . . . Among the academy’s latest crop, announced on Twitter this month, were Hebrew words for shaming (biyush, an outgrowth of an existing verb, to shame), hashtag (tag hakbatzah—literally, group tag), and big data (n’tunei atek).

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Got a question for Philologos? Ask him directly at philologos@mosaicmagazine.com.

“What Is ‘Hashtag’ in Ancient Hebrew?” asks the title of a July 30 article by Isabel Kershner, the Israel correspondent of the New York Times. “Although Israelis,” she writes,

pride themselves on the revival of ancient Hebrew, . . . this high-tech nation can find itself at a loss for contemporary terms. The venerated Academy of the Hebrew Language is always working to update [Hebrew’s] vocabulary. . . . Among the academy’s latest crop, announced on Twitter this month, were Hebrew words for shaming (biyush, an outgrowth of an existing verb, to shame), hashtag (tag hakbatzah—literally, group tag), and big data (n’tunei atek).

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