MICRO LANGUAGE PLANNING AND THE REVIVAL OF HEBREW - A SCHEMATIC FRAMEWORK

Supported by contemporary evidence, this study discusses the revival o f Hebrew a century ago (within two or three decades), with a focus an the actual total shift of pre-Israel Palestine's Jewish community from Yiddish and several other languages to Hebrew as an all-purpose means of communication. First, four ''factors'' that prevailed prior to and during the revival are discussed: the ''communicative,'' ''political, '' ''religious,'' and ''literary.'' The study then proposes schematica lly that the shift to Hebrew evolved in a cycle consisting of four con secutive albeit partially overlapping ''steps'': (1) The children are instilled with desired language attitudes. (2) The children acquire th e code, Hebrew. (3) The children transfer Hebrew, now a second languag e, out of the schools. (4) With these children now adults, their newly born receive Hebrew as a first language. Finally, the study suggests that, in the absence of a central authority, the revival can be seen a s a case of ''micro language planning,'' in which potential speakers c onstituted ''language planning agents'' active in ''language planning cells.''