The history of the Hebrew language in modern times starts with secular literary writings in Germany and Eastern Europe. The Maskilic authors created popular scientific books, philosophy and poetry, and also fiction – some original and some translated from European languages.

Most Maskilic writers preferred Biblical rather than Rabbinic Hebrew. Nevertheless a number of new syntactic constructions developed in the Enlightenment literature under the influence of German, Yiddish and Slavic languages.

The seminar deals with reading various texts of the Hebrew Enlightenment from the 19th century: two books on nature and science, an autobiography, an adventure story, a translated novel and an original Hebrew novel. We shall discuss inherited and renewed features of their syntax and lexicon and their influence on Modern Hebrew.