(Redirected from Hebrew (language))
'Hebrew' (, ''‘Ivrit'') is a
Semitic language of the
Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in
Israel and
Jewish communities around the world. In Israel, it is the
de facto language of the state and the people, as well as being one of the two official languages (together with
Arabic), and it is spoken by a majority of the population.
The core of the
Tanach (the
Hebrew Bible ) is written in
Classical Hebrew, and much of its present form is specifically the dialect of
Biblical Hebrew that scholars believe flourished around the
6th century BCE, near the
Babylonian exile. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by
Jews as ''Lĕshôn Ha-Qôdesh'' (), "The
Holy Language", since ancient times.
Most linguists agree that after the 6th century BCE when the
Neo-Babylonian Empire destroyed
Jerusalem and exiled its population to Babylon and
Cyrus The Great, the King of Kings or Great King of
Persia gave them their freedom to return, the Biblical Hebrew dialect prevalent in the Bible came to be replaced in daily use by new dialects of Hebrew and a local version of
Aramaic. After the
2nd century CE when the
Roman Empire exiled the Jewish population of Jerusalem and parts of the
Bar Kokhba State, Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language, but remained a major
literary language. Letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, and laws were written in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms.
Hebrew, long extinct outside of Jewish liturgical and scholarly purposes, was revived as a literary and narrative language by the
Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of the mid-
19th century. Near the end of that century the
Jewish
linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, owing to the ideology of
Zionism, began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken and written language. Eventually it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time, such as
Arabic,
Ladino (also called Judezmo),
Yiddish,
Russian, and other languages of the
Jewish diaspora.
Because of its large disuse for centuries, Hebrew lacked many modern words. Several were adapted as
neologisms from the Hebrew Bible or borrowed from Yiddish and other languages by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of the newly declared
State of Israel.
History
As a language, 'Hebrew' belongs to the
Canaanite group of languages. Hebrew (Israel) and
Moabite (Jordan) are Southern Canaanite while
Phoenician (Lebanon) is Northern Canaanite. Canaanite is closely related to
Aramaic and to a lesser extent South-Central
Arabic. Whereas other Canaanite languages and dialects have become extinct, Hebrew survived. Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in Israel from the 10th century BCE until just before the Byzantine Period in the 3rd or 4th century CE. (See below,
Aramaic displacing Hebrew as a spoken language.) Afterward Hebrew continued as a literary language until the Modern Era when it was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century.
[1]
Map of larger Hebrew speaking communities around the World
Origins of Hebrew
Hebrew is a
Semitic language, and as such a member of the larger
Afro-Asiatic phylum.
Within Semitic, the
Northwest Semitic languages formed around the
3rd millennium BCE, grouped with the
Arabic languages as
Central Semitic. The
Canaanite languages are a group within Northwest Semitic, emerging in the
2nd millennium BCE in the
Levant, gradually separating from
Aramaic and
Ugaritic.
Within the Canaanite group, Hebrew belongs to the sub-group also containing
Edomite,
Ammonite and
Moabite: see
Hebrew languages. Another Canaanite sub-group contains
Phoenician and its descendant
Punic.
Hebrew as a distinct Canaanite dialect
The first written evidence of distinctive Hebrew, the
Gezer calendar, dates back to the
10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, the traditional time of the reign of
David and
Solomon. Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The
Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the
Phoenician one that through the
Greeks and
Etruscans later became the
Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use
consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it.
The
Shebna lintel, from the tomb of a royal steward found in
Siloam, dates to the 7th century BCE.
Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example
Protosinaitic. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to the hieroglyphs of the
Egyptian writing, though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the
acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called
Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous
Moabite Stone written in the Moabite dialect; the
Siloam Inscription, found near
Jerusalem, is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include the
ostraka found near
Lachish which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of
586 BCE.
Classical Hebrew
In its widest sense, ''Classical Hebrew'' means the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between the 10th century BCE and the turn of the 4th century CE.
[2] It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them.
★ 'Archaic Biblical Hebrew' from the 10th to the 6th century BCE, corresponding to the Monarchic Period until the Babylonian Exile and represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible (
Tanach), notably the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). Also called Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew. Historically, it used a form of the
Canaanite script.
★ '
Biblical Hebrew' around the 6th century BCE, corresponding to the Babylonian Exile and represented by the bulk of the Hebrew Bible that attains much of its present form around this time, give-or-take. Also called Classical Biblical Hebrew (or Classical Hebrew in the narrowest sense). It adopted the
Imperial Aramaic script.
★ 'Late Biblical Hebrew' from the 6th to the 4th century BCE, that corresponds to the Persian Period and is represented by certain texts in the
Hebrew Bible, notably the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
★ '
Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew' from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, corresponding to the Hellenistic and Roman Periods before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the Qumran Scrolls that form most (but not all) of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Commonly abbreviated as
DSS Hebrew, also called
Qumran Hebrew. The Imperial Aramaic script of the earlier scrolls in the 3rd century BCE evolved into the
Hebrew square script of the later scrolls in the 1st century CE, still in use today.
★ '
Mishnaic Hebrew' from the 1st to the 3rd or 4th century CE, corresponding to the Roman Period after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the bulk of the
Mishnah and
Tosefta within the
Talmud and by the Dead Sea Scrolls, notably the Bar Kokhba Letters and the
Copper Scroll. Also called Tannaitic Hebrew or Early Rabbinic Hebrew.
Sometimes the above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the tenth century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls).
[M. Segal, ''A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927).] However today, most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as a set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either.
[Elisha Qimron, ''The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls'', Harvard Semitic Studies 29 (Atlanta: Scholars Press 1986).] By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceases as a spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba War around 135 CE.
Hebrew in the Mishnah and Talmud
The term generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the
Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into
Mishnaic Hebrew (also called
Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or
Mishnaic Hebrew I), which was a
spoken language, and
Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a
literary language.
The earlier section of the Talmud is the
Mishnah that was published around 200 CE and was written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of the dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel.
A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the
halachic Midrashim (
Sifra,
Sifre,
Mechilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the
Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere; the generic term for these passages is
Baraitot. The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew.
About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. The later section of the Talmud, the
Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later
Amoraic Hebrew, which sometimes occurs in the text of the Gemara.
Medieval Hebrew
Main articles: Medieval Hebrew
Aleppo Codex: 10th century Hebrew Bible with Masoretic pointing
After the Talmud, various regional literary dialects of
Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is
Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed.
Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the remarkable scholarship of the
Masoretes (from ''masoret'' meaning "tradition"), who added
vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The
Syriac script, precursor to the
Arabic script, also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The
Aleppo Codex, a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century likely in Tiberias and survives to this day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence.
In the
Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of
Classical Arabic. Important Hebrew grammarians were
Judah ben David Hayyuj and
Jonah ibn Janah. A great deal of poetry was written, by poets such as
Dunash ben Labrat,
Solomon ibn Gabirol,
Judah ha-Levi and the two
Ibn Ezras, in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative metres. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. It is also interesting to know about the Italian Philosopher Pico della Mirandola who, as one of the beloved philosophers of the famous 15th Century Platonic Academy of Florence, has learned Hebrew from his three teachers, Eliah del Medigo, Leo Abarbanel and Jochanan Alemansee.
The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from
Classical Greek and
Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to a distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the
Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic.)
Another important influence was
Maimonides, who developed a simple style based on
Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the
Mishneh Torah. Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and the Aramaized
Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud.
Hebrew was also used as a language of communication among Jews from different countries, particularly for the purpose of international trade.
Liturgical use of Hebrew
Hebrew has always been used as the language of prayer and study, and the following pronunciation systems are found.
Ashkenazi Hebrew, originating in Central and Eastern Europe, is still widely used in Ashkenazi Jewish religious services and studies in Israel and abroad, particularly in the
Haredi and other
Orthodox communities. It was influenced by the
Yiddish language.
Sephardi Hebrew is the traditional pronunciation of the
Spanish and Portuguese Jews as well as
Sephardi Jews in the countries of the former
Ottoman Empire. This pronunciation, in the form used by the Jerusalem Sephardic community, is the basis of the Hebrew phonology of Israeli native speakers. It was influenced by the
Ladino language.
Mizrahi (Oriental) Hebrew is actually a collection of dialects spoken liturgically by Jews in various parts of the
Arab and
Islamic world. It was possibly influenced by the
Aramaic and
Arabic languages, and in some cases by
Sephardi Hebrew, although some linguists maintain that it is the direct heir of
Biblical Hebrew and thus represents the true dialect of Hebrew. The same claim is sometimes made for
Yemenite Hebrew or ''Temanit'', which differs from other Mizrahi dialects by having a radically different vowel system.
These pronunciations are still used in synagogue ritual and religious study, in Israel and elsewhere, mostly by people who are not native speakers of Hebrew, though some traditionalist Israelis are bi-dialectal.
Many synagogues in the diaspora, even though Ashkenazi by rite and by ethnic composition, have adopted the "Sephardic" pronunciation in deference to Israeli Hebrew. However, in many British and American schools and synagogues, this pronunciation retains several elements of its Ashkenazi substrate, especially the distinction between
tsere and
segol.
Modern Hebrew
Development of Modern Hebrew
In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition as pronounced in Jerusalem revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously ''Israeli Hebrew'', ''Modern Israeli Hebrew'', ''Modern Hebrew'', ''New Hebrew'', ''Israeli Standard Hebrew'', ''Standard Hebrew'', and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits many features of
Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrows (often technical) terms from European languages and adopted (often colloquial) terms from
Palestinian Arabic.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
The literary and narrative use of Hebrew was revived beginning with the
Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of the mid-
19th century, with the publication of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. HaMagid, founded in
Lyck, Prussia, in 1856). Prominent poets were
Chaim Nachman Bialik and
Shaul Tchernichovsky; there were also novels written in the language.
The
revival of Hebrew language as a
mother tongue was initiated by the efforts of
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (
1858-
1922) (). He joined the
Jewish national movement and in
1881 immigrated to
Palestine, then a part of the
Ottoman Empire. Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the
diaspora "
shtetl" lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making the
literary and
liturgical language into everyday
spoken language.
However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in
Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like
Achad Ha-Am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the
vernacularization activity into a gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904-1914 "
Second aliyah" that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the
British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with a truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in syntax and form, especially in phonology
[3], was to take its place among the current languages of the nations.
Reactions to Modern Hebrew
While many saw his work as fanciful or even
blasphemous[4] (due to the fact that Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss common everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of the Palestine Mandate who at the turn of the
20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. It has been said that Hebrew unified the new immigrants coming to Mandate Palestine, creating a common language and culture. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. Later it became the
Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that exists today. The results of his and the Committee's work were published in a dictionary (''The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew''). Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by the beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. However, members of the
Yishuv HaYoshon, the
Eidah Chareidis, as well as some
Chasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of
Satmar refused to speak Hebrew, and continue to this day to speak only
Yiddish.
[5]
Hebrew language in the USSR
Main articles: History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union,
Yevsektsiya
The Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with both
Judaism and
Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the
Narkompros (Commissariat of Education) as early as
1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to
secularize education (the language itself didn't cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes
[6]). The official ordinance stated that
Yiddish, being the spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language.
[7] Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests in the West,
[8] teachers and students who attempted to study the Hebrew language were pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" and later for "anti-Soviet" activities.
Hebrew in Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan Jewish National University works in cooperation with the local
Jewish community of
Birobidzhan. The
university is unique in the
Russian Far East. The basis of the training course is study of the Hebrew language, history and classic Jewish texts.
[1] In recent years, the
Jewish Autonomous Oblast has grown interested in its Jewish roots. Students study Hebrew and Yiddish at a Jewish school and Birobidzhan Jewish National University. In
1989, the Jewish center founded its
Sunday school, where children study Yiddish, learn
folk Jewish dance, and learn about the history of
Israel. The
Israeli government helps fund the program.
[2] Chief Rabbi Mordechai Scheiner has commented the progress at School No. 2, Birobidjan's Jewish
public school with 670 students, 30 percent of whom are Jewish. Pupils learn about
Jewish history, and the Hebrew and
Yiddish languages.
[3]
Modern Israeli Hebrew
Standard Hebrew, as developed by
Eliezer Ben Yehuda, was based on
Mishnaic spelling and
Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However, the earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had
Yiddish as their native tongue and often brought into Hebrew idioms and literal translations from Yiddish. Similarly, the language as spoken in
Israel has adapted to
Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in the following respects:
★ the elimination of
pharyngeal articulation in the letters ''chet'' and ''ayin''
★ the conversion of /r/ from an
alveolar flap to a
voiced uvular fricative or
trill (see
Guttural R)
★ the pronunciation (by many speakers) of ''
tzere'' as [] in some contexts (''sifrey'' and ''teysha'' instead of Sephardic ''sifré'' and ''tésha' )
★ the elimination of vocal ''sheva'' (''zman'' instead of Sephardic ''zĕman'')
★ some of the letter names (''yud'' and ''kuf'' instead of Sephardic ''yod'' and ''qof'')
★ in popular speech, penultimate stress in proper names (''Dvóra'' instead of ''Dĕvorá''; ''Yehúda'' instead of ''Yĕhudá'').
Characterization
Scholars differ on the characterization of the resulting language. Most regard it as a genuine continuation of Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, while conceding that it has acquired some European vocabulary and syntactical features, in much the same way as
Modern Standard Arabic (or even more so, dialects such as
Moroccan Arabic). Two dissenting views are as follows:
★ Wexler
[9] claims that modern Hebrew is not a Semitic language at all, but a dialect of "Judaeo-Sorbian". On his argument, the underlying structure of the language is Slavic, "re-lexified" to absorb much of the vocabulary and inflexional system of Hebrew, in much the same way as a
creole.
★ Ghilad Zuckermann
[10] compromises between Wexler and the majority view: "Israeli" is a separate language from Hebrew, and has a basically European syntax, but should be regarded as a hybrid between the Hebrew and European models.
Neither view has gained significant acceptance among mainstream linguists, though few would dispute that Hebrew has acquired some European features as a result of having been learned by immigrants as a second language at a crucial formative stage. The identity of the European substrate/adstrate has varied: in the time of the Mandate and the early State, the principal contributors were
Yiddish and modern
standard German, while today it is
American English.
Regional Hebrew dialects
According to Ethnologue, the currently spoken dialects of Hebrew are "Standard Hebrew (General Israeli, Europeanized Hebrew)" and "
Oriental Hebrew (Arabized Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew)". These refer to two varieties used for actual communication by native speakers in Israel; they differ mainly in pronunciation, and hardly in any other way. (Incidentally, the term "Arabized" is misleading, in that it implies that it differs from "General Israeli" mainly because it changed under the influence of Arabic. In fact, "Oriental Hebrew" retains features of ancient Hebrew that were shared by Arabic but lost in non-Arabic-speaking parts of the world.)
Immigrants to Israel are encouraged to adopt "Standard Hebrew" as their daily language. Phonologically, this "dialect" may most accurately be described as an amalgam of pronunciations preserving Sephardic vowel sounds and some Ashkenazic consonant sounds with Yiddish-style influence, its recurring feature being simplification of differences among a wide array of pronunciations. This simplifying tendency also accounts for the collapse of the Ashkenazic [t] and [s] allophones of (/t/) into the single
phone [t]. Most Sephardic and Mizrahi dialects share this feature, though some (such as those of Iraq and Yemen) differentiate between these two pronunciations as /t/ and /θ/. Within Israel, however, the pronunciation of Hebrew more often reflects the diasporic origin of the individual speaker, rather than the specific recommendations of the
Academy. For this reason, over half the population pronounces as [], (a
uvular trill, as in Yiddish and some varieties of
German) or as [] (a
voiced uvular fricative, as in
French or many varieties of German), rather than as [r], an
alveolar trill, as in
Spanish. The pronunciation of this phoneme is often used among Israelis as a
shibboleth (שבולת, litt.: spike, ear ''of corn'', stalk ''of grain''), or determinant when ascertaining the national origin of perceived foreigners.
There are mixed views on the status of the two dialects. On the one hand, prominent Israelis of Sephardic or Oriental origin are admired for the purity of their speech and Yemenite Jews are often employed as newsreaders. On the other hand, the speech of middle-class Ashkenazim is regarded as having a certain
Central European sophistication, and many speakers of
Mizrahi origin have moved nearer to this version of Standard Hebrew, in some cases even adopting the uvular ''resh''.
It was formerly the case that the inhabitants of the north of Israel pronounced ''beth rafe'' (בי"ת רפה, bet without
dagesh, litt. ''loose beth'': ) as /b/ in accordance with the conservative Sephardic pronunciation . This was regarded as rustic and has since disappeared. It is still said that one can tell an inhabitant of Jerusalem by the pronunciation of the word for two hundred as "ma'atayim" (מאתיים, as distinct from "matayim", as heard elsewhere in the country). Today, Israeli Hebrew is virtually uniform, the only noticeable variation being along ethnic lines. It is widely felt that these differences, too, have been disappearing among the younger generation.
Coexistence with Aramaic
Main articles: Judeo-Aramaic language
Aramaic is a North-West
Semitic language, like Canaanite. Its name derives either from "Aram Naharayim" in Upper Mesopotamia or from "Aram", an ancient name for Syria. Various dialects of Aramaic coevolved with Hebrew throughout much of its history.
Aramaic as the international language of the Mideast
The language of the
Neo-Babylonian Empire was a dialect of Aramaic. The
Persian Empire that captured Babylonia a few decades later adopted Imperial Aramaic as the official international language of the Persian Empire. The Israelite population, who had been exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem and its surrounding region of ''
Judah'', were allowed to return to Jerusalem to establish a Persian province, usually called ''
Judea''. Thus Aramaic became the administrative language for Judea when dealing with the rest of Persian Empire.
The Aramaic script also evolved from the Canaanite script, but they diverged significantly. By the 1st century CE, the Aramaic script developed into the distinctive
Hebrew square script (also known as 'Assyrian Script', 'Ktav Ashuri'), extant in the Dead Sea Scrolls and similar to the script still in use today.
Aramaic displacing Hebrew as a spoken language
By the early half of the 20th century, modern scholars reached a nearly unanimous opinion that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel by the start of Israel's
Hellenistic Period in the 4th century BCE, and thus Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. However, during the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the
Dead Sea Scrolls has qualified the previous consensus. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew also flourished as a living spoken language. Hebrew flourished until near the end of the
Roman Period, when it continued on as a literary language by the
Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE.
The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local
mother tongue, Aramaic functioned as the international language with the rest of the Mideast, and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. Communities of Jews (and non-Jews) are known, who immigrated to Judea from these other lands and continued to speak Aramaic or Greek.
Although the survival of Hebrew as a spoken language until the Byzantine Period is well-known among Hebrew linguists, there remains a lag in awareness among some historians who do not necessarily keep up-to-speed with linguistic research and rely on outdated scholarship. Nevertheless, current understandings of the vigor of Hebrew are slowly but surely making their way through the academic literature. ''The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' distinguishes the Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew from the various dialects of Biblical Hebrew out of which it evolved: "This book presents the specific features of DSS Hebrew, emphasizing deviations from classical BH."
[ Elisha Qimron, ''The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' (1986), p. 15.] ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church'' which once said, in 1958 in its first edition, that Hebrew "ceased to be a spoken language around the fourth century BCE", now says, in 1997 in its third edition, that Hebrew "continued to be used as a spoken and written language in the New Testament period".
[ "Hebrew" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church'', edit. F.L. Cross, first edition (Oxford, 1958), 3rd edition (Oxford 1997).] ''An Introductory Grammar of Rabbinic Hebrew'' says, "It is generally believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls, specifically the Copper Scroll and also the Bar Kokhba letters, have furnished clear evidence of the popular character of MH [Mishnaic Hebrew]."
[ Miguel Perez Fernandez, ''An Introductory Grammar of Rabbinic Hebrew'' (Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill 1997).] And so on.
[2] Israeli scholars now tend to take it for granted that Hebrew as a spoken language is a feature of Judea's Roman Period.
Jewish dialects of Aramaic
The international language of Aramaic radiated into various regional dialects. In and around Judea, various dialects of
Old Western Aramaic emerged, including the Jewish dialect of
Old Judean Aramaic during the Roman Period.
Josephus Flavius initially wrote and published his book
Jewish War in Old Judean Aramaic but later translated it into Koine Greek to publish it for the Roman imperial court. Unfortunately Josephus's Aramaic version has not survived.
Following the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in
70 CE, the Jews gradually began to disperse from Jerusalem to foreign countries, especially after the
Bar Kokhba War in 135 CE when the Romans turned Jerusalem into a pagan city named ''Aelia Capitolina''.
After the Bar Kokhba War in the 2nd century CE, the
Jewish Palestinian Aramaic dialect emerged from obscurity out of the vicinity of Galilee to form one of the main dialects in the
Western branch of Middle Aramaic. The
Jerusalem Talmud (by the 5th century) used this Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, as did the
Midrash Rabba (6th to 12th century). This dialect probably influenced the pronunciation of the 8th-century
Tiberian Hebrew that vocalizes the Hebrew Bible.
Meanwhile over in Babylon, the
Babylonian Talmud (by the 7th century) used
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, a Jewish dialect in the
Eastern branch of Middle Aramaic. For centuries Jewish Babylonian remained the spoken language of Mesopotamian Jews and the
Lishana Deni. In the area of
Kurdistan, there is a modern Aramaic dialect descending from it that is still spoken by a few thousand Jews (and non-Jews), though it has largely given way to Arabic.
Hebrew continues to strongly influence all these various
Jewish dialects of Aramaic.
Other languages coexisting with Hebrew
Main articles: Jewish languages
Besides Jewish dialects of
Aramaic, other languages are highly influenced by Hebrew, such as
Yiddish,
Ladino,
Karaite and
Judeo-Arabic. Although none is completely derived from Hebrew, they all make extensive use of Hebrew
loanwords.
The revival of Hebrew is often cited by proponents of
international auxiliary languages as the best proof that languages long dead, with small communities, or modified or created artificially can become living languages used by a large number of people.
Phonology
Main articles: Hebrew phonology
Hebrew has two kinds of
stress: on the last syllable (''milra‘'') and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, ''mil‘el''). The former is more frequent. Specific rules connect the location of the stress with the length of the vowels in the last syllable. However, due to the fact that Israeli Hebrew does not distinguish between long and short vowels, these rules are not evident in everyday speech. They usually cannot be inferred from written text either, since usually vowels are not marked. The rules that specify the
vowel length are different for verbs and nouns, which influences the stress; thus the ''mil‘el''-stressed ''ókhel'' (="food") and ''milra‘''-stressed ''okhèl'' (="eats", masculine) differ only in the length of the vowels (and are written identically if vowels are not marked). Little ambiguity exists, however, due to nouns and verbs having incompatible roles in normal sentences. This is, however, also true in English, in, for example, the English word "conduct," in its nominal and verbal forms.
Vowels
The vowel phonemes of Modern Israeli Hebrew
The Hebrew word for
vowels is ''tnu'ot''. The marks for these vowels are called
Nikud. Israeli Hebrew has 6 vowel
phonemes:
★ /a/ (as in "spa") - The vowels kamats (ָ) and patakh (ַ)
★ /e/ (as in "café") - The vowels segol (ֶ) and tsere (ֵ)
★ /i/ (as in "ski") - The vowel khirik (ִ)
★ /o/ (as in "go") - The vowel kholam (ֹ)
★ /u/ (as in "flu") - The vowels shuruk (וּ) and kubuts (ֻ)
★ /ə/ (as in "about") - The vowel shva na' (ְ)
Many Israeli speakers have merged /ə/ into /e/, reducing the vowel phonemes to 5.
In
Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (''khataf''). However, there is no audible distinction between the three in modern Israeli Hebrew, except that
tsere is often pronounced [] as in
Ashkenazi Hebrew.
Hebrew is written with a special vowel called "schwa". Depending on its context in a word, it can be pronounced in three ways, called resting ("nakh"), moving ("na'"), and floating ("merahef") . The resting schwa is silent, while the moving schwa is pronounced /e/ in Israeli Hebrew (though it was traditionally /ə/) . The floating schwa can be pronounced either as a moving schwa or a resting schwa.
One-letter words and particles are always attached to the following word. Such items include: the definite
article ''ha'' (="the");
prepositions ''be'' (="in"), ''mi'' (="from"), ''le'' (="to");
conjunctions ''she'' (="that"), ''ke'' (="as", "like"), ''ve'' (="and"). The vowel that follows the letter thus attached depends in general on the beginning of the next word and the presence of a definite article which may be swallowed by the one-letter word.
The rules for the prepositions are complicated and vary with the formality of speech. In most cases they are followed by a moving schwa, and for that reason they are pronounced as ''be'', ''me'' and ''le''. In more formal speech, if a preposition is put before a word which begins with a moving shva, then the preposition takes the vowel /i/ (and the initial consonant is weakened), but in colloquial speech these changes do not occur. For example, colloquial ''be-kfar'' (="in a village") becomes ''bi-khfar''. If ''l'' or ''b'' are followed by the definite article ''ha'', their vowel changes to /a/. Thus
★ ''be-ha-matos'' becomes ''ba-matos'' (="in the plane"). However it does not happen to ''m'', therefore ''me-ha-matos'' is a valid form, which means "from the plane".
:''
★ indicates that the given example is not grammatically correct''
Consonants
The Hebrew word for consonants is ''‘itsurim'' (עיצורים).
The pairs have historically been allophonic. In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds ( merging with , merging with , merging with ), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial through foreign borrowings.
was once pronounced as a
voiced pharyngeal fricative. Most modern
Ashkenazi Jews do not differentiate between
and ; however,
Mizrahi Jews and Arabs pronounce these phonemes.
Georgian Jews pronounce it as a glottalized q. Western European
Sephardim and Dutch
Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it (like ''ng'' in ''sing'') — a pronunciation which can also be found in the
Italki tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany. (The remnants of this pronunciation are found throughout the Ashkenazi world, in the name "Yankl", a diminutive form of
Jacob, Heb. יעקב.)
Hebrew also has ''
dagesh,'' a strengthening. There are two kinds of strengthenings: light (''kal'', known also as ''dagesh lene'') and heavy (''khazak'' or ''dagesh forte''). There are two sub-categories of the heavy dagesh: structural heavy (''khazak tavniti'') and complementing heavy (''khazak mashlim''). The light affects the phonemes /b/ /k/ /p/ in the beginning of a word, or after a resting schwa. Structural heavy emphases belong to certain vowel patterns (''mishkalim'' and ''binyanim''; see the section on grammar below), and correspond originally to doubled consonants. Complementing strengthening is added when
vowel assimilation takes place. As mentioned before, the emphasis influences which of a pair of (former)
allophones is pronounced. Historical evidence indicates that /g/, /d/ and /t/ also used to have allophones marked by the presence or absence of ''dagesh kal'': these have disappeared from modern Hebrew pronunciation though the distinction in writing still appears in fully pointed texts. All consonants except
gutturals and /r/ may receive the heavy emphasis (''dagesh khazak'').
Historical sound changes
Standard (non-Oriental) Israeli Hebrew (SIH) has undergone a number of splits and mergers in its development from
Biblical Hebrew.
[13]
★ BH had two
allophones, and ; the allophone has merged with into SIH
★ BH had two allophones, and ; the allophone has merged with into SIH , while the allophone has merged with into SIH
★ BH and have merged into SIH
★ BH and have usually merged into SIH , but this distinction may also be upheld in educated speech of many
Sephardim and some
Ashkenazim
★ BH had two allophones, and ; the incorporation of loanwords into Modern Hebrew has probably resulted in a split, so that and are separate phonemes.
Emphasis
Terminal syllabic emphasis is by far the most common, penultimate emphasis being the only other grammatically acceptable option. The two options have names: Terminal emphasis is called ''milera'' (מלרע) and penultimate ''mil'eil'' (מלעיל). Spoken Hebrew admits of more stress variation than the official dialect.
Grammar
Main articles: Hebrew grammar
'Hebrew grammar' is partly
analytic, expressing such forms as
dative,
ablative, and
accusative using
prepositional particles rather than
grammatical cases. However, inflection plays a decisive role in the formation of the verbs and nouns. E.g. nouns have a construct state, called "smikhut", to denote the relationship of "belonging to": this is the converse of the
genitive case of more inflected languages. Words in smikhut are often combined with
hyphens. In modern speech, the use of the construct is sometimes interchangeable with the preposition "shel", meaning "of". There are many cases, however, where older declined forms are retained (especially in idiomatic expressions and the like), and "person"-
enclitics are widely used to "decline" prepositions.
Writing system
Main articles: Hebrew alphabet
Modern Hebrew is written from 'right' to 'left' using the
Hebrew alphabet. Modern scripts are based on the "square" letter form (which was developed from the Aramaic script). A similar system is used in handwriting, but the letters tend to be more circular in their character, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents.
Vowels - niqqud
Original Biblical Hebrew text contained nothing but consonants and spaces and this is still the case with
Torah scrolls that are used in synagogues. A system of writing vowels called
niqqud, (from the root word meaning "points" or "dots") developed around the 5th Century CE. It is used today in printed Bibles and some other religious books and also in poetry, children's literature, and texts for beginning students of Hebrew. Most modern Hebrew texts contain only consonant letters, spaces and western-style
punctuation and to facilitate reading without vowels
mater lectionis (see below) are often inserted into words which would be written without them in a text with full niqqud. The niqqud system is sometimes used when it is necessary to avoid certain ambiguities of meaning — such as when context is insufficient to distinguish between two identically spelled words — and in the transliteration of foreign names.
Consonant letters
All Hebrew consonant phonemes are represented by a single letter. Although a single letter might represent two phonemes — the letter "bet," for example, represents both /b/ and /v/ — the two sounds are always related "hard" (
plosive) and "soft" (
fricative) forms, their pronunciation being very often determined by context. In fully pointed texts, the hard form normally has a dot, known as a
dagesh, in its center.
Mater lectionis
The letters hei, vav and yud can represent consonantal sounds (/h/, /v/ and /j/, respectively) or serve as a markers for vowels. In the latter case, these letters are called "emot qria" ("
matres lectionis" in Latin, "mothers of reading" in English).
The letter hei at the end of a word usually indicates a final /a/, which usually indicates of feminine gender or /e/, which usually indicates masculine gender. In rare cases it may also indicate /o/, such as in שְׁלֹמֹה (''Shlomo'',
Solomon). It may also indicate a possessive suffix for 3rd person feminine singular (סִפְרָהּ, ''her book''), but in that case the hei is not a mater lectionis, but the consonant /h/, although in spoken Hebrew the distinction is rarely made. In texts with niqqud the hei is written with a
mappiq in the latter case. Correct pronunciation must be guessed according to context and niqqud may be used for disambiguation.
Vav may represent /o/ or /u/, and yod may represent /i/ or /e/. Sometimes a double yud is used for /ej/. In some modern Israeli texts, the letter alef is used to indicate long /a/ sounds in foreign names, particularly those of Arabic origin.
Indicating emphasis
There is no one universally accepted sign for indicating emphasis in Hebrew texts. Most texts note emphasis with a vertical line placed underneath the first consonant of the emphasized syllable to the left of the vowel mark. This mark is called ''meteg'' (מתג) and it is available in Unicode. Some others texts, mostly prayer books, employ modified cantillation marks for indicating emphasis.
These signs are used, if at all, only in texts with niqqud.
See also
★
Cantillation
★
Hebrew alphabet
★
Hebrew literature
★
Niqqud (vowel pointing)
★
Study of the Hebrew language
Notes
1. Languages of the World (Hebrew)
2.
3. The famous German Semitologist, Bergstrasser, in his book on Semitic Languages (Einführung in die Semitischen Sprachen, Munich, 1928) divides his discussion of Hebrew into three parts: Ancient Hebrew (Biblical Language); Middle-Hebrew (Mishnaic language) and Modern Hebrew. To him Hebrew is but one language amidst Assyrian, Syriac, Arabic, Maltese, etc. When discussing Modern Hebrew, he says (page 47): ". . . . ein Hebraisch, das in Wirklichkeit eine europäische Sprache mit durchsichtiger hebräischer Verkleidung ist . . . mit nur ganz äusserlich hebräischem Charakter. (“.. . . a Hebrew which is in reality a European language with a transparent Hebrew disguise . . . . with only a purely superficial Hebrew character”).
4. Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Resurgence of the Hebrew Language by Libby Kantorwitz
5. Uriel Zimmer, "Ivrith" and "l'shon ha-kodesh"
6. The Transformation of Jewish Culture in the USSR from 1930 to the Present (in Russian)
7. Nosonovski, Michael (in Russian)
8. Protest against the suppression of Hebrew in the Soviet Union 1930-1931 signed by Albert Einstein, among others
9. Wexler, Paul, ''The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew: A Slavic Language in Search of a Semitic Past'': 1990.
10. Zuckermann, ''Mosaic or mosaic? – The Genesis of the Israeli Language''
11.
12. Postalveolar sounds (with the exception of ) are not native to Hebrew, and only found in borrowings.
13. Robert Hetzron. (1987). Hebrew. In ''The World's Major Languages'', ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-520521-9.
Bibliography
★ Hoffman, Joel M, ''In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language.'' New York: NYU Press. ISBN 0-8147-3654-8.
★ Izre'el, Shlomo, "The emergence of Spoken Israeli Hebrew", in: Benjamin Hary (ed.), ''
The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH): Working Papers I'' (2001)
★ Kuzar, Ron, ''Hebrew and Zionism: A Discourse Analytic Cultural Study''. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter 2001. ISBN 3-11-016993-2, ISBN 3-11-016992-4.
★ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel, ''A History of the Hebrew Language'' (trans. John Elwolde). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55634-1
★ Laufer, Asher. "Hebrew", in: Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press 1999. ISBN 0-521-65236-7, ISBN 0-521-63751-1.
External links
General
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Online Hebrew community To learn Hebrew and find Hebrew partners.
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Hebrew Keyboard Tutor
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Hebrew alphabets with numerical values and literal and symbolic meanings
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Mikledet.com - Send Hebrew emails without having a Hebrew keyboard
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Hebrew Fontboard - for typing in Hebrew
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Hebrew Vocabulary - with audio and transliterations
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Ethnologue report for Hebrew
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Academy of Hebrew Language, see
Academy of the Hebrew Language
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Dictionaries
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English-Hebrew (Maskilon)
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Collection of Hebrew bilingual dictionaries
Grammar
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Online Hebrew Tutorial (foundationstone)
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Hebrew is easy (babel-site)
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Learn Hebrew Verbs
History of the Hebrew Language
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History of the Hebrew Language, David Steinberg
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Short History of the Hebrew Language,
Chaim Rabin
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Israeli Hebrew, David Tene
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Israel Language Policy and Linguistics, Haiim B. Rosén
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Words and their History, E. Y. Kutscher
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Hebrew Slang and Foreign Loan Words, Raphael Sappan
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Language in Time of Revolution, Benjamin Harshav
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Hebrew typography in German speaking regions
Complete texts in Hebrew
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Mechon Mamre - The Bible, Mishnah, Talmud (Babylonian and Palestinian), Tosefta, and Mishneh Torah
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Book of Formation - An old Kabbalistic text relating the Hebrew alphabet to the creation of the universe
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Early Hebrew Newspapers Thousands of pages of mid- to late-19th-century and early 20th-century newspapers written in Hebrew and readable on line. Including contemporary accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg, the assassination of Czar Alexander II, the Dreyfuss affair, etc.
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