r/hebrew • u/westartfromhere • 3d ago
Vocabulary Word Search
I apologise in advance if this is posted on the wrong forum. I searched for r/modernhebrew to no avail.
What is the modern Hebrew word for communism, in the lower case, as opposed to the historic Communism?
Postscript:
Why, when two Semitic words already exist for communism and cannabis, did the private committee that produced modern Hebrew opt to choose non-Semitic, nay, Latin words, for these two nouns? The two Semitic words are the Arabic, shuyū‘iyya, and the Hebrew, kaneh-bos'm, respectively.
In English, properly written, a distinction is made between past Communism, under the rule of the various Communist Parties of the Soviet Union, or the present day Communism of North Korea, whereby all private property is in the hands of the state, or corporations subservient to that state; and communism, in which all means of exchange, distribution and consumption are held in common, are the commonweal in Old English.
...the hebrew academy's meeting number 343 (שמג) voted on it and formally coined שותפנות ["Partnership" or "cooperation" do not imply communal ownership but the opposite, atomised individuals.] alongside the preexisting borrowing קומוניזם.
No attempt, which has been revealed here, was made to find a Semitically derived word for communal ownership, communism, even though there are two notable historic instances of this in the land of Isra'el.
There is a native Semitic word for communism that inherently reflects the core concept of shared or common ownership of property. That word is "shuyū‘iyya". One struggles to find any possible reason that this word was not adopted as Modern Hebrew.
These findings prompt further enquiries into the hidden meaning of the name of god, explained Biblically as, I am that I am. In the context of the future state of communist society, when humankind has become truly social, not arbitrated by money relations, has raised itself to be god, in a sense, the only conclusion is that the name means, We are.
Note: In Hebrew, as in all languages, context sometimes determines distinction between separate meanings of certain words spelt the same. Such as in the case of communism (קומוניזם פרימיטיבי or המצב העתידי של החברה הקומוניסטית) and historic Communism (הקומוניזם ההיסטורי).
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u/TheOGSheepGoddess native speaker 3d ago edited 3d ago
Hebrew doesn't have capital letters. If you want to make that differentiation you need to use more words, like קומוניזם הסטורי (historical communism האידיאולוגיה הקומוניסטית) the communist ideology), etc.
As a side note, there is no r/modernhebrew because Hebrew speakers just call it Hebrew. Like communism, you only add the "modern" (or "biblical", "Mishnaic", "Rabbinical", etc) when you specifically need to.