Israel and its Trilingual History

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The history of Israel's peoples can be seen depicted on signs all around the country. Israel-Hebrew, Arabic, and English are displayed in various forms all around Jerusalem, giving evidence to the social hierarchies present at the time of the sign's construction. Authors Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Muhammad Hasan Amara and Nira Trumper-Hecht studied the usage of these three languages in Jerusalem in their chapter "Linguistic Landscape as Symbolic Construction of Public Space: The Case of Israel." They drew from the concept of linguistic landscape and studied "road signs, names of sites, buildings, places and institutions as well as advertising billboards, commercial shop signs and even personal visiting cards" (2006:6). The amount of language people are confronted with on a daily basis is staggering. When languages are so heavily tied to identity, seeing them everyday can be problematic for those who do not associate with them. Cultural identity is embedded in the languages displayed on public signs, especially in Israel which has had so much political conflict.

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Ben-Rafael, Eliezer, with Muhammad Hasan Amara and Nira Trumper-Hecht.

   2006 Linguistic Landscape as Symbolic Construction of the Public Space: The Case of Israel. In Linguistic Landscape: A New Approach to Multilingualism. Durk Gorter, ed. Pp. 7-30.  Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.