yup, conversational skills are still minimal

[cellio]

The guy at the deli counter was complaining that "tongue" is spelled weirdly, and I said something to the effect that borrowings from other languages are often a little counter-intuitive. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Him: What other languages do you know?
Me: None well, alas.
Him: (fast Hebrew)
Me: Dabeir lei'at, b'vakashah?
Him: At mevinah Ivrit? (This was definitely also a simplification of the prior utterance.)
Me: Ivrit shel torah (shrug gesture) kein yacholet l'kria, aval Ivrit l'omeir, ktzat. (I am certain that this utterance demonstrated the truth of the latter clause. :-) )
Him: kein, kein.

And then we switched back to English and I said I read better than I speak/hear but no, I wouldn't say I know Hebrew...

For future reference, how would I refer to the modern language (as opposed to biblical)? The best I can think of is "Ivrit shel ha-yom", which is probably, at best, "quaint". :-)

Comments

[richardf8]

Speaking to a Hebrew-Speaker - Ivrit should be enough. Biblical Hebrew is Ivrit Tanachit. Ivrit Modernit is the way one says Modern Hebrew.

[kmelion.livejournal.com]

Actually, from what I've seen, the distinction among the ultra-Orthodox is "Lashon haKodesh" (the holy tongue/language) and Ivrit (Hebrew).