454 W 23rd St New York, NY 10011

October 27, 2011

Subject–verb–object (I see him) English, Hebrew*, Vietnamese, Greek, Romance languages, Bulgarian, Chinese, Swahili, American Sign Language
Subject–object–verb (I him see) Japanese, Mongolian, Basque, Turkish, Korean, Sicilian, Latin (default), Ancient Greek, Hindi, Sanskrit
Verb–subject–object (See I him) Classical Arabic, Irish, Gaelic, Manx, Hawaiian, Ancient Egyptian, Maori
Verb–object–subject (See him I) Fijian, Malagasy, Mayan (Tzotzil), Old Javanese
Object–subject–verb (Him I see) Amazonian basin languages (Xavante, Jamamadi, Apurinã), British Sign Language, whatever Yoda speaks
Object–verb–subject (Him see I) Guarijio, Hixkaryana, Urarina, Klingon

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*Classical Hebrew is actually VSO. The discrepancy is accounted for by the fact that Biblical Hebrew was essentially a dead language from around the 2nd century CE on. With the rise of Zionism in 19th century Europe there emerged a desire to revive Hebrew as a common language for all Jews. By that time however, the vast majority of Jews then living spoke Yiddish and/or Russian. Around 1885 and beginning with Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in Palestine, Modern Hebrew began to develop. Despite the contempt in which Yiddish was held by most Zionists, its SVO typology nevertheless crept into their resurrection of Hebrew. Some attempt was made to correct this, but the heavy immigration of European, Yiddish-speaking Jews into Israel after the Second World War essentially fixed the grammar of Modern Hebrew. Ironically, had the resurrection of Hebrew been undertaken by Arabic-speaking Jews from somewhere like Morocco, the sought-after VSO typology probably would have been preserved.

8:36am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z3yrYyBAcT2o

(Notes: 37)

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