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Rating: 
Summary: outdated methodology and untenable conclusions
Review: As a historical linguist, I have examined Mozeson's proposals and samples of his treatment of individual words. I do not deal here with the religious issues that arise but rather with the linguistic evidence and associated argumentation, in terms of what we have learned across the 200 years of scientific linguistic scholarship. The main problem with Mozeson's proposal is the comparative methods which are used, which are long outdated and are now used only by fringe amateurs. The probability of pairs of superficially similar words in apparently unrelated languages having very similar or the same senses by chance is in fact MUCH higher than Mozeson suggests. And in this particular case most of the alleged correspondences do indeed appear to be unsystematic and arbitrary; each correspondence is invoked as it is needed to 'explain' specific forms, but there is typically no good explanation for why different correspondences apply in different cases, or even an admission that this is a problem or an issue that needs to be addressed. It is already known that language change does not occur in this way. Using such methods one can 'prove' (spuriously) that almost any two languages share large amounts of vocabulary. The statistics involved here have recently been formalised by Ringe and other historical linguists, and while there is some debate about specifics the overall case is overwhelming. In addition: (a) in many of the cases cited here, other etymologies are already known or proposed with good evidence; (b) the proposal contradicts a large amount of well-grounded information about the genetic relationships of languages; (c ) the analysis ignores the fact that genetic relatedness (as opposed to influential contact) always involves specific elements of grammar and phonology as well as shared vocabulary. Because of all this, Mozeson's sweeping claims about the derivation of all other languages from Hebrew/'Edenic' are invalid. There have been many other attempts to reanalyse language origins in such terms; they all fail, for the same reasons.
Rating: 
Summary: The Word is a once in a lifetime find.
Review: As I read the first page of The Word, I was thrilled to learn that someone had DISCOVERED the hypothesized Indo-European roots to our modern languages! Almost every language can trace some of its roots to this once dead, but now resurrected language, but in English, 95% of our language is demonstrably traceable directly or indirectly to Hebrew. Even some Amer-Indian words have more than coincidental resemblance to Hebrew. How could scholars have missed the connection? Could it possibly be antisemitism within the ranks of the 19th century German linguists, who introduced the science of etymology to the world? Isaac Mozeson is scholarly, yet entertaining as he traces language roots through the developing sciences of linguistics and etymology. And those who love Scripture and linguistics have a double treat in store.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but very questionable
Review: The book is certainly interesting and worth reading, offering fresh insights into the English etymology. However, it's analysis is definitely not without flaws.> Some imagination is required to find lip/nose images in Hebrew letters, corresponding to their pronounciation, although the suggestion is daring. Besides, old Phoenician Hebrew letters are quite different. > If we consider possible wide substitutions, like R-L-N-(M) and work with three basic vowels (or even no vowels at all), add letters' reversal and omission, many three-letter roots are likely to coincide strictly by chance. The odds are only enhanced by the ambiguity of Latin transliteration and sometimes variant writing in Hebrew. Author also feels free to choose the suitable spelling either of modern or ancient English. Allow for the meaning to be not exactly the same, but related, and quite a lot of English words would find their equivalents in the much smaller Hebrew dictionary. Given such assumptions, it's overall plausible to find about a quarter of active English words related to Hebrew roots. > Common linguistic approach is to analyze transformation of the groups of words, not of the single words. This book apparently lacks such analysis either for phonetical groups or those related by meaning. For example, it stresses the origin of giraffe and skunk words, but not of the animals comprehensively. > Although the author traces similarities from Hebrew, this is not self-evident. Both Hebrew and English may inherit it from a source language, be it theoretical IE or actual bablit. > Some very important hypothesis are not elaborated upon. Thus, the author asserts phonetical relation of Hebrew synonyms and antonyms. This is a bold assumption, and would take more than a single pair of words to convince a reasonable person.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but very questionable
Review: The book is certainly interesting and worth reading, offering fresh insights into the English etymology. However, it's analysis is definitely not without flaws. > Some imagination is required to find lip/nose images in Hebrew letters, corresponding to their pronounciation, although the suggestion is daring. Besides, old Phoenician Hebrew letters are quite different. > If we consider possible wide substitutions, like R-L-N-(M) and work with three basic vowels (or even no vowels at all), add letters' reversal and omission, many three-letter roots are likely to coincide strictly by chance. The odds are only enhanced by the ambiguity of Latin transliteration and sometimes variant writing in Hebrew. Author also feels free to choose the suitable spelling either of modern or ancient English. Allow for the meaning to be not exactly the same, but related, and quite a lot of English words would find their equivalents in the much smaller Hebrew dictionary. Given such assumptions, it's overall plausible to find about a quarter of active English words related to Hebrew roots. > Common linguistic approach is to analyze transformation of the groups of words, not of the single words. This book apparently lacks such analysis either for phonetical groups or those related by meaning. For example, it stresses the origin of giraffe and skunk words, but not of the animals comprehensively. > Although the author traces similarities from Hebrew, this is not self-evident. Both Hebrew and English may inherit it from a source language, be it theoretical IE or actual bablit. > Some very important hypothesis are not elaborated upon. Thus, the author asserts phonetical relation of Hebrew synonyms and antonyms. This is a bold assumption, and would take more than a single pair of words to convince a reasonable person.
Rating:
Summary: An Eye-Opening Dissertation on Language
Review: This book is an excellent reference and fascinating explanation of where our words came from and why and how they have traveled from one language to another. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of words and wants to appreciate their language better. In fact, I suppose this book really would interest most everybody.
Rating:
Summary: An Eye-Opening Dissertation on Language
Review: This book is an excellent reference and fascinating explanation of where our words came from and why and how they have traveled from one language to another. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of words and wants to appreciate their language better. In fact, I suppose this book really would interest most everybody.
Rating:
Summary: Excuse-me!?
Review: This is ridiculous. English could not have possibly evolved from Hebrew, it is a Germanic language, and the Germanic sub-family falls into the Indo-European class of languages. In addition, Hebrew is a semitic language. The semitic sub-family is part of the larger African family of languages. In addition, Akkadian is really the oldest known semitic languages. Thus, Hebrew, as well as most other semitic languages such as Arabic and Syriac, most likely stole much of their vocabulary from this language. And I'm sure everyone knows that Europe has had a long history of anti-semitism. It is very likly that any European language would have taken vocabulary from Hebrew. Also, common vocabulary found in English and Hebrew does not mean that Hebrew is responsible. It could have come from another semitic language. More likely, Greek borrowed vocabulary from Phoenician, the most commonly used semitic language of ancient times. It is then probable that the Romans borrowed Greek vocabulary, some which contain semitic Phoenician origins, and then English took the Latin, which is why the author may think that the English language developed from Hebrew, when truly, it developed from Hebrew's close cousin, Phoenician. The idea that Hebrew could actually have contributed to English truly is preposterous. There really are not many Jews that speak Hebrew, and because the language was never used as an administrative language (in ancient times, the Hebrews in Israel learned either to speak Greek or Latin, the Romans and Greeks did not learn Hebrew), there is no way that it could have merged with any other language(not even another semitic language). The only English word derived from Hebrew is Chaunaka.
Rating:
Summary: horrendous
Review: Very good book! The author is more than adequately trained and familiar with his subject matter. No doubt, most critics with an agenda will strongly dislike this book. With a work like this, one cannot help but realize the accuracy of the Biblical record and the beginning of man and the language of man in the Garden of Eden. I am presently a student of the Hebrew language, and I would definitely recommend this book to any serious student or truth-seeking scholar.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling
Review: Very interesting ... look at the Edenics website for some good examples to whet your appetite. The origins of many words whose etymology is/was unknown is pretty convincing.
Rating:
Summary: The Word is the bird!
Review: When God confused the languages at Babel, He didn't do a thorough job. That's the bottom line from The Word by Isaac E. Mozeson. All other languages were confused and all other peoples were scattered, but ancient Hebrew survived in its pure form. And Mozeson claims to have traced modern English words back to their Hebrew roots. Mozeson claims that, in tracing modern words only to Latin or Greek, etymologystops short, instead of taking the last step back to Hebrew. He goes so far as to claim that ancient Hebrew was the language of Adam and Eve, straight from the Garden of Eden. There is much conspiracy theory here: the last hundred years of scholarship in (German) comparative linguistics, Mozeson dismisses as racist and anti-Semitic. But it was not always so: our Puritan forefathers made deep study of Hebrew, and almost made it an official language (they also believed that the Indians were the lost tribes of Israel, but Mozeson does not mention this). Mozeson claims that Hebrew contains subtle wisdom found in no other language; for example, the root "ear" is connected with "balance" - a fact recently confirmed by modern science, but known all along to the ancient Hebrews (or maybe it's because we have one ear on each side?)If you like "The Word", you'll love "Atlantis: The Antediluvian World" by Ignatius Donnely - he and Mozeson were cut from the same cloth.
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