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In the years 1889/90 two institutions were founded in Jerusalem: "Safa Brurah" ("Clear Language") and "Vaad HaLashon Halvrit" ("the Hebrew Language Committee"). The purpose of both these institutions was to turn ancient Hebrew into the language of everyday speech for the whole of the Jewish Settlement in the Land of Israel. This date signifies the beginning of a process, which was to be one of the most remarkable achievements of the Zionist Movement: the revival of Hebrew as an everyday language. The Jewish year 5750, corresponding to 1989/90, has therefore been designated as Hebrew Language Year by the Israel Government.
After the establishment of the State, David Ben Gurion was instrumental in setting up the "Academy of the Hebrew Language" as the legal successor to the "Vaad HaLashon Halvrit". In 1953, the Knesset passed the "Supreme Institution of the Hebrew Language: The Language Academy Act" which defined the role of this institution as "directing the development of the Hebrew Language on the basis of research of the language in all its periods and ramifications". "The Hebrew Language Academy Act" bestows on the Plenum of the Academy the right to determine all matters of language, in the same way as the Knesset has the right to legislate on all matters of State.
The Plenum of the Academy is composed of 23 members and a similar number of consultants - all of whom are language researchers, or writers, who are appointed for life. Within the Academy there are tens of professional committees each concentrating on a different sphere of life, or an area of usage or grammar. Members of the Plenum all work as volunteers. Most of the Academy's staff are scholars holding Second and Third Degrees in Jewish Studies, and they include a number of full professors.
Today the Academy is occupied with three central projects:
- The central scientific project of the Academy is the Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language. The objective is the creation of a comprehensive scholarly dictionary, which defines the total vocabulary of the Hebrew Language with all its historical and stylistic associations. It will incorporate some seven million corrected texts, each of which will have been scrutinised, analysed grammatically and computerised. The Historical Dictionary Project will encompass all types of Jewish literature from all periods and it will serve all who are occupied in every branch of Jewish study (Law and Legend, Philosophy, Mysticism and Ethics, Literature, History and so forth).
- Preserved in the Academy Building are the remains of the library of Eliezar Ben Yehuda, the reviver of the Hebrew Language; remnants which the Academy managed to rescue and so save from oblivion. Ben Yehuda's living-room has also been reconstructed there. The Academy plans to build a museum and an archive that will serve as an information centre on the history of spoken Hebrew in the Land of Israel.
- Research into the Hebrew Word - a project designed to bring together everything that has been written on every single word in the Hebrew Language, in research literature, both in Hebrew and in other languages, from the beginning of the writing of linguistic studies until the present. Projects such as this have been and are being undertaken in all civilised countries.