Quote this

January 4, 2010 - 11:40 AM by

elephants-with-unnecessary-quotation-marks-2-2-photo-by-rj-kaplanIsraelis like quotation marks. I’m in the midst of puzzling this one out, as it’s frustrated me for some time. Why, for instance, would the name of a school, as depicted at the front of the building, be spelled with quotation marks around its name? Or the names of two elephants gifted by Thailand to the Biblical Zoo? The end result is that any kind of text reads like a contract, with everyone referring to themselves in quotation marks.

I decided to research this a bit, after noting that an English translation of a press release I was using referred to the organization in, yes, quotation marks. Here’s what I found:

According to Wikipedia, acronyms in Hebrew are denoted with a punctuation bit called the geresh, which is often typed as an apostrophe. The geresh is singular to Hebrew because it started out life in the Torah, where it was used as punctuation and is now used primarily as a note of cantillation in the reading of the Torah and other biblical books. A double geresh (״), known by the plural form gershayim, is used to denote acronyms; it is inserted before (i.e., to the right of) the last letter of the acronym. As in Tzahal (צה”ל), the Hebrew acronym for the IDF, which is also an acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.

Anyway, until the early 1970s, most of the printed Hebrew texts put opening quotes low and closing quotes ones high, often going above the letters themselves. The word “ישראל„ would be a good example.

However, this distinction in Hebrew between opening and closing quotation marks has completely disappeared, and today, quotations are done as in English (ex. “ישראל”), with two high quotes. This is due to the advent of the Hebrew keyboard layout, which lacks the low opening quotation mark („).

Yet the use of quotation marks in what seems like odd places – to an English speaker like myself — appears to be rooted in the German language roots of Hebrew. When Hebrew was revived as a modern language by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (whose seminal Hebrew-English dictionary is currently celebrating its 100th anniversary), the Russian revolutionary followed the norms of those who had come before him, basing modern Hebrew on biblical Hebrew, but with touches of Eastern Europe, where many of the first pioneers were born and raised. According to one blogger, Hebrew grammar and punctuation were based on Western standards, and the German punctuation system was adopted, until 1994, when the Academy of the Hebrew Language changed it to the English system. And in German, quotation marks are often used where English would use italics. Quotation marks are used in English for the titles of poems, articles, short stories, songs and TV shows. German expands this to the titles of books, novels, films, dramatic works and the names of newspapers or magazines, which would be italicized (or underlined in writing) in English:

So the names of two elephants, instead of being italicized, underlined or left alone, are instead placed inside quotation marks. To me, the American English speaker, it appears incorrect. To those educated in the local system, it’s just right.

Tags: , , , , , • Category: Blogging, design, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

Comments

3 Comments on Quote this

  1. Rachel on Mon, Jan 4th 2010 2:51 PM

    2. Glad to have an explanation after years of thinking that Israelis simply had the mentality of your average tween (or is that “tween” — and don’t forget two-handed double finger motion symbolizing quotation marks). However, this does not explain or forgive their misuse of the apostrophe. Case in point, chain shoe store Original’s. Why the apostrophe? Does it belong to a man named Mr. Original?

  2. Jessica on Mon, Jan 4th 2010 8:10 PM

    3. Nope. His name is Avi Avidor. But yes, lots of apostrophe confusion in these parts.

  3. Rachel on Fri, Jan 8th 2010 6:01 PM

    4. Cretins.

Leave a Comment





© 2012 ISRAELITY | Sitemap