ABSTRACT
Foreign words are commonly used in all countries and languages. Interlanguage contact is regarded by anthropologists as an aspect of cultural contiguity, and linguistic interference as a form of acculturization. In 1914, the Language Committee convened to discuss possible sources for filling the voids in the Hebrew language, and Eliezer ben Yehuda declared that the Committee would do everything in its power to stick to the principle of avoiding non-Semitic foreign words. His opposition was ideological, based on the viewpoint of a linguistic element there, hard to adapt to Hebrew and its grammar. The collection of empirical material is based on questionnaires filled out by a student population, nurses and high-school pupils. These consisted of 100 students of the Hebrew Language Faculty at the University of Haifa, 85 nurses specializing in sociology at the Section of External Studies of the University of Haifa, and 110 pupils age 16-17 of the Ironi Gimmel High School in Haifa.
