Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Quandary for Hebrew: How Would Isaiah Text? There is the creeping foreign influence, as urban sophisticates pepper their Hebrew speech with accented English affectations like “please,” “sorry” and “whatever,” along with a noticeable loss of nuance and relative paucity of vocabulary in regular use. Israelis can obsess about language. “We speak with mistakes,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “Everyone does, and everyone corrects everyone else.” But he and other Hebrew watchers point to a potentially more disturbing trend: living Hebrew has moved at a fast pace, and in the process, it has become increasingly estranged from its loftier ancient form.