Israeli Hebrew is a spoken language, 'reinvented' over the course of the twentieth century. It has responded to the social demands of the newly emerging state, as well as to escalating globalization, with a vigorously developing lexicon, enriched by multiple foreign language contacts. In this detailed and rigorous study, the author provides a principled classification of neologisms, their semantic fields and the roles of source languages, along with a sociolinguistic study of purists' and ordinary native speakers' attitudes towards lexical enrichment. His analysis of the tension between linguistic creativity and the preservation of a distinct language identity takes the discussion beyond the case of Israeli, through innovative comparisons with Revolutionized Turkish, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Yiddish, creoles and other languages.