"كتيّب سوريا (بما في ذلك فلسطين). لندن: إدارة استخبارات الأركان البحرية، يونيو ١٩١٩" [و‎‎١‎٠‎٢] (٧٣٨/٢٠٨)

RACE AND LANGUAGE
197
to be making steady progress. When families began to multiply
in the new colonies, ‘ it was recognized that the only means of
dealing satisfactorily with a heterogeneous mass of children
coming from all points of the compass and speaking a score of
tongues, was to give them a common language.’ Of Hebrew
the immigrants all knew something, and there were strong
national reasons for making it the language of the Jews
restored to Palestine. The first school where it was used as the
language of instruction in all subjects was the Higher Grade
Girls’ School in Jaffa, and it has thence spread to other schools,
including kindergartens. The Odessa Committee, which
founded several of these institutions, subsidizes Hebrew
libraries and newspapers and publishers of educational and
other works in Hebrew. A Teachers’ Union has £ codified and
elaborated a Hebrew educational terminology ’. The employ
ment of this ancient language as a means of expression for
modern needs was prepared for by reformers in Germany and
Russia during more than a century, by the translation into
Hebrew of modern novels and by the establishment of a
periodical press. It is hoped to crown the system of Hebrew
education in Palestine by the establishment of a national
university in Jerusalem.
Turkish has been the language of the rulers of Syria ever
since the rise of the Mamluk dynasties of Egypt, who suc
ceeded to the Ayyubids in the thirteenth century a. d. It was,
however, at no time used in either Egypt or Syria much
outside court and official circles, though Mohammed ‘Ali seems
to have tried to make it a medium of education, and recently
the ‘ Young Turks ’ aroused opposition by endeavouring to
make it the language of the whole Ottoman Empire. The
Turkomans speak a Turkish dialect and the native language of
the Turkish inhabitants of northern Syria is Ottoman Turkish.
Other foreign languages used in Syria to a small extent are
Kurdish, Armenian, and Circassian. The languages of the
Jews, in addition to Hebrew, are chiefly Yiddish (Judeo-
German) and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), in about equal measure,
also Arabic, Bukharic, and Persian.