Modern Hebrew is a reconstruction, largely synthesized during the 18th–19th centuries by European linguists of Khazar/Ashkenazi descent who sought to create a unifying national language for a dispersed political identity. Its vocabulary, grammar, and phonetics reflect this European background more than any identifiable ancient Near Eastern linguistic tradition. The most verifiable evidence for the invention of the modern Hebrew language centers on the work of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (born Eliezer Yit