The Lingual Enterprise of Itamar Ben Avi: the Dictionary He Used during the Years of His Work, with a Dedication by ...

The Lingual Enterprise of Itamar Ben Avi: the Dictionary He Used during the Years of His Work, with a Dedication by His Father Eliezer ben Yehuda, the Reviver of the Hebrew Language – Comments Handwritten by Itamar Ben Avi/"After Seven Years of Work – the Dictionary of Our Language in Latin Letters has been Completely Finished!"/List of the Dozens of Words Made Up by Ben Avi, in His Handwriting!
Important and special items from the lingual work of Itamar Ben Avi (Ben Zion Ben Yehuda), a Hebrew hournalist, author and Zionist activist, who continued the linguistic work of his father Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the reviver of the Hebrew language [the 1930's].
A. Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch uber das Alte Testament… von Dr. Frants Buhl. Leipzig, 1899. 13th edition.
Hebrew-Aramaic (Biblical) – GermanDictionary. on the preface page, there is a handwritten Hebrew dedication by Eliezer Ben Yehuda to his son, Itamar (Ben Zion): "To Ben Zion, the 22sd of Kislev [1921], Eliezer".
Under Eliezer's dedication, Itamar added a dedication of his own: "And from me to the public library of Netanya, Ben Zion".
An additional dedication handwritten by Itamar appears on the first title page: "To the public library of Netanya, Itamar Ben Avi".
During the 1930's. Itamar Ben Avi devoted his time – seven (!) years to be precise - to a special project – the writing of a Hebrew dictionary in Latin letters.
Before us is the dictionary he used for his work and in which he wrote his comments and lingual innovations. On the leaves of the dictionary appear dozens of corrections and comments handwritten by Itamar Ben Avi (it is possible that several of the comments were handwritten by his father, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, for example, on page 823).
In July 1938, Itamar Ben Avi finished his work, reaching page 902 (where the dictionary ends, before the section of appendices). He was very excited and expressed his excitement on paper. Thus, he wrote in Hebrew in Latin letters (to convey the message of the book): "Listen father and mother in heaven! Tel Aviv 5698. After seven years of work – the dictionary of our language in Latin letters has been completely finished! After seven years of work, with relative quiet in our country and no black frames in our newspapers! Thank God! And may Judah be independent maybe even in September ".
B. Leaves with lists of Hebrew words and their Latin transcription handwritten by Itamar. [9] leaves.
One of the leaves is fascinating. On its upper part, Ben Avi wrote: "Why I do not claim that they are mine" then he wrote down about ten new Hebrew words made up by Bialik and others. Then he wrote: "But they are mine" and then he wrote down dozens of words which he renewed, among them the Hebrew words for football, loudspeaker, safe-box, cinema, motorbike, tasty, binoculars, hairdressing salon, mechanic, umbrella and many more.
C. Leaves handwritten by Itamar Ben Avi with prose. [7] leaves + [1] note.
D. "Chalomi Ha'Rishon" (M First Dream) – an autobiographic literary composition handwritten by Itamar Ben Avi describing hischildhood. [2] leaves.
E. Three telegrams sent by Itamar Ben Avi to his wife Leah. USA, 1937. English.
Itamar Ben Avi's Hebrew-Latin and lingual enterprise
Itamar Ben Avi continued his father's enterprise of developing the Hebrew language and renewed many Hebrew words. At the same time, he also supported the international Esperanto and called for replacing the Hebrew alphabet with the Latin one in order to help turn the Hebrew language into a "Jewish Esperanto". Subsequently, in 1928, he published a Hebrew newspaper in Latin letters titled "Ha Savuja ha Palestini" (The Palestinian Week) and in 1933 established the weekly "Deror", also in Latin letters. However, both soon closed down. The material before us indicates that during the 1930's he also worked on writing a Hebrew dictionary in Latin letters (the dictionary was never published).
Condition: The dictionary is in Fair condition. The leaves are in Fair-Good condition.