CHECK OUT ZIONISM 101 ON THE REVIVAL OF HEBREW-http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2013/09/11/zionism-101-the-revival-of-hebrew/
“Revival of Hebrew” tells the story of how an ancient language used only for study and prayer once again became the common tongue of the Jewish people. Even the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, did not think it possible.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the man who did more than any other to make the renaissance of Hebrew possible, wrote:
“It flashed before my eyes like lightning… I heard a strange voice calling within me: ‘The resurrection of Israel and its language in the Land of Our Fathers!’”
http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2013/12/hebrew-in-crisis/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=ef3877e33e-Mosaic_2013_12_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-ef3877e33e-41165129
This past Tuesday was the 156th anniversary of the birth of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who was born on the 21st of the month of Tevet, 5618. Ben-Yehuda is the personality identified with the resurrection of the Hebrew language as a spoken language.
Most notable is the Ben-Yehuda dictionary, with its 16 volumes, which was finished only in 1959 by Naftali Herz Tour Sinai. Ben-Yehuda used the Bible as the basis for his imaginative extensions of the Hebrew language, bringing it up to date with the contemporary needs of his time.
Ben-Yehuda did not have an easy time. He was criticized severely by many, including Bialik, Ahad Ha’am and other Zionist luminaries, who thought that some of his linguistic inventions went too far. The idea that one could resurrect a language was ridiculed by professional linguists. The fact is that Zamenhof’s Esperanto failed where Ben-Yehuda’s Hebrew succeeded.