# Modern Hebrew מִלּוֹן

100.0 s · 100 s cut · Narrator: Clara · Reader: Tomer

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda built new Hebrew words from old roots, and his dictionary of 1908 marks his accepted coinages, such as the word for bicycle, with a small sign, prints a different sign on electricity, leaves out Pines’s word for the tomato, which is the word Hebrew speakers use today, and names among its funders a society that was building a school in Haifa, whose board chose German for the sciences in 1913, nine years before the Mandate for Palestine named English, Arabic and Hebrew as the country’s official languages.

| Time | Voice | Line | On screen |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 0:00.54 | Narrator | In 1908 Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s dictionary began to appear, promising many words that the author had created. | מִלּוֹן prints in ink on a faint image of the title page of vol. 1, and the rest of the title prints as the camera pulls back. The camera moves down to the promise line, and crop marks close on it on “promising.” |
| 0:08.80 | Narrator | In 1880 he rejected the phrase sefer milim as a copy of German Wörterbuch. | Card 1 sets ספר מלים under the running head “Magid Mishneh · Lyck · 1 January 1880,” and a rule strikes it on “rejected.” The gloss “sefer milim, book of words” prints below, and Wörter and buch rise under its two words, joined by hairlines. |
| 0:14.88 | Narrator | From mila he made milon, the word for dictionary. | Card 2 sets מִלָּה (word) and adds the ending ־וֹן (the thing that holds). A rule is drawn under them, and מִלּוֹן (dictionary) prints below it. |
| 0:19.16 | Narrator | A Hebrew noun is a root of consonants set into a pattern. | The composing card sets the pattern מַקְטֵל on a rail, and three empty cells for the root open above it. The pattern’s stand-in letters ק ט ל fade to the ghost tone on “pattern.” |
| 0:24.22 | Narrator | He set the root for sling into the pattern of mafteakh and made makle’a, a cannon. | The root letters ק ל ע print into the cells, and the model מַפְתֵּחַ (key) prints beside them. The letters drop into the pattern’s slots on three taps, and מַקְלֵעַ stands with the gloss “makle’a, cannon” and “today, a machine gun.” |
| 0:31.65 | Reader | מלים שחדשתי אני ושנתקבלו כבר בספרות של זמננו, או בדבור העברי בארץ ישראל. <br>*Subtitle:* Words that I coined and that have already been accepted in the literature of our time, or in Hebrew speech in the Land of Israel. | The film cuts to the key of signs, where the coinage row prints in from right to left as Tomer reads it and note 4 translates it. Rose crop marks close on the row’s printed sign, and the sign lifts off the page in rose. |
| 0:40.22 | Narrator | The dictionary prints this sign before the word for bicycle, ofnayim. | The film cuts to p. 110, where the rose sign comes down and registers on the printed sign before אָפְנַיִם on “sign.” The camera pulls back to the entry, crop marks close on the headword, and a hairline runs from its footnote mark to the footnote, which note 6 translates. |
| 0:47.02 | Narrator | The word for wheel is ofan. The ending for pairs turned it into ofnayim. | The bicycle card sets אוֹפָן (wheel) under its model אָזְנַיִם (ears), and the ending for pairs, ־ַיִם, prints at the end of the rail. The ו lifts out, ן turns into נ, the ending joins the word, and אָפְנַיִם stands with the rose sign before it. |
| 0:53.40 | Narrator | The Greek translation renders Ezekiel’s khashmal as elektron. The poet Judah Leib Gordon followed it and used the word to mean electricity. | The clause from Ezekiel 1:4 is set in Hebrew with its English, הַחַשְׁמַל is underlined, and ἤλεκτρον prints above it. On “followed” the film cuts to vol. 4, p. 1806, where Gordon’s note is isolated and note 8 translates it, and on “electricity” it cuts to a closer view of the electricity sense and its printed sign. |
| 1:02.76 | Narrator | The dictionary credits Gordon. | The rose sign comes down toward the sense line and stops above it as rose crop marks numbered 9) close on the printed sign for the literature after the Talmud. The rose sign then withdraws. |
| 1:06.65 | Narrator | Yehiel Michel Pines apparently coined agvaniya, the tomato. | The tomato card sets עַגְבָנִיָּה under the running head “Yehiel Michel Pines · Jerusalem, 5646 (1885–86).” The gloss “agvaniya, tomato” prints below it, and note 10 gives its root ע־ג־ב, to desire. |
| 1:11.46 | Narrator | Ben-Yehuda found it immodest and kept it out of his dictionary. | His own word, בַּדּוּרָה, prints below with the gloss “badura, from Arabic bandūra.” Rose crop marks close on the empty place before עַגְבָנִיָּה where the sign would stand. |
| 1:15.25 | Narrator | Pines’s word is in use. | בַּדּוּרָה and its gloss fade to the ghost tone, and עַגְבָנִיָּה stays in ink. |
| 1:17.96 | Narrator | One of the book’s funders was building a technical school in Haifa. | The film cuts to the front matter of vol. 1, and crop marks numbered 11) close on “Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden;” in its list of funders. |
| 1:22.50 | Narrator | In 1913 the school’s board chose German for the sciences. | The film cuts to the dark board, where the photograph of the Technikum under construction in Haifa in 1913 is laid down. Note 12 gives the photographer and dates the board’s resolution to 26 October 1913. |
| 1:27.00 | Narrator | By 1914 the school was to teach in Hebrew. | The poster for a public meeting in Jaffa on Hebrew as the language of instruction is laid down over part of the photograph, and crop marks close on its subject lines. Note 13 says the collection dates it 1913 and gives its licence. |
| 1:30.80 | No voice | No voice. | Article 22 of the Mandate for Palestine, as printed in Cmd. 1785 in 1922, is laid below the poster. Crop marks close on “English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine.” |
| 1:36.50 | No voice | No voice. | The film cuts home to the key of signs, and the rose sign comes down and registers on its own row. The note band shows the film’s title and the series line, and the film ends. |

Times are where each line starts in the final, read from the film's own audio.