Hebrew

Hebrew is a Semitic language known as the Jewish people language and the official language in the state of

Israel

. The Hebrew language is the third Semitic spoken language after Arabic and Amharic. Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Ha-Kodesh (לשון הקודש), "The Holy Language", since ancient times.

The History of The Hebrew Language

Most of the bible books were written in Classical Hebrew, all the Mishnah and most of the Hidden Scrolls. The bible was written in biblical Hebrew while the Mishnah written in dialect who called “Hazal” (our Sages of Blessed Memory) language. In the end of the 2^nd century most of the Jews stop using speoken Hebrew. Hundred years after the Mishnah was finished, the “Talmud” (collection of ancient rabbinic writings on Jewish civil and religious law) was written in Aramaic. Nevertheless, there are evidences that even in the 8 century the spoken language in Tiberias was Hebrew.

Paleo - Hebrew alphabet from year 1500 B.C. that discovered in Negev

When the Hebrew language wasn't used as a spoken language during the generations, still it was the main writing language of the Jews, mainly for Jewish religious laws matters: proceedings writing of courts, Jewish religious laws files (Halakha), Religious text interpretation and more. Jewish articles with secular type was written in other Jewish language or in foreign language, for example the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) wrote his book “Mishneh Torah” in Hebrew while his famous philosophic book “Moreh Nevochim” (Guide to the Perplexed) was written in Arabic – Hebrew. Nevertheless, “Moreh Nevochim” was translated to Hebrew for other Jewish communities around the world who spoke other languages. One of the famous translator families was the Ibn Tibbon family.

Until the 19 century, first days of the Zionist movement, Hebrew was used as a writen language particularly for religious purpose, but also for different varied targets: philosophy, science, medicine and literature. The Hebrew language enters to modern leverage in the beginning of the Jewish education movement in Germany and in eastern Europe in the end of 18 century. During all the 19 century, the secular used in Hebrew was increasing. At the same time “The National Tchiya Movement” starts to turn Hebrew to a colloquial language among the Hebrew population in the state of Israel. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was one of the warriors who fought to establish Hebrew as the main language in the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. Correspondingly the spoken Hebrew developed in several Jewish centers in eastern Europe. With the establishment of the British mandate authority in the country, Hebrew was determined as officially thirdly language together with Arab and English. When the state of Israel was established, the Hebrew language was already the main language in the country and the education institutions.

Eliezer Ben Yehuda - a key figure in the revival of Hebrew

Nowadays there are about 7 million Hebrew speaking people, when the majority live in Israel.Half of them are indigenous (Hebrew is their mother tongue) and half of them use Hebrew as second language. Hebrew nowadays is the official main language of Israel. The Hebrew Language Academy is an official institution that dictates standards of the language. This institution works by the power of law, even though it's effects are actually limited.This institution deals mainly with determination of new, general terms, syntax spelling which obligate all the state education system institutions.

Hebrew Dialects

The Singularity of the Modern Hebrew is in the way she serves so many people with different mother tongue. The number of the non indigenous spokespeople is more or less the same number of the indigenous spokespeople andeven serves to communicate between groups inside Israel that don't speak Hebrew (for example, discussions in Knesset, Israeli courts, when all the litigators belong to the groups that's not Hebrew speaking ). Therefore the Modern Hebrew is exposed to intense effect of other languages such as Arab, Russian, English and more which change the language all the time. In contrast to Arabs of Israel that learn Hebrew in the education system from a young age and manage their lives with both languages, most of the Arab speakers in the occupied territories know Hebrew only partially or don’t know at all.

The Hebrew Writing

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, when written in cursive, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents. The writing includes 22 letters and a system of writing vowels called niqqud.

It is used today in printed Bibles and some other religious books and also in poetry, children's literature, and texts for beginner students of Hebrew. Most Modern Hebrew texts contain only consonant letters, spaces and western-style punctuation and to facilitate reading without vowels 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.

Hebrew phonology

Hebrew phonology passed many changes during thousands of years of it's existence.

In the 19 century, the Hebrew language renewers wanted to adopt the Jewish Spanish pronunciation because of her prestigiousness which used by the Spanish community in Jerusalem and was very similar in the bible punctuation – niqqud. However, most of the Hebrew language renewers were Ashkenazis Jews from eastern Europe who used a different Hebrew pronunciation. Notwithstanding the effort to provide the Hebrew new Spanish pronunciation, the effect of the Ashkenazi pronunciation, and the accent of Yiddish language is very recognizable in the Modern Hebrew.

Hebrew phonology must take into account that the Hebrew language has been used primarily for liturgical, literary, and scholarly purposes for most of the past two millenniums. As a consequence, its pronunciation has been strongly influenced by the vernacular of each individual Jewish community. In contrast to the varied development of these pronunciations is the relatively rapid development of modern Israeli Hebrew.

The Hebrew language in Jewish tradition

According to Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (“Rial” - Spanish Jewish philosopher) in his book “Khozari”, Hebrew is the most aristocrat language which even G-d used to speak with Adam and Eve which they passed on to their offspring and to all humanity. Later on in Babel tower all the languages mixed up and many new languages were created. Eber (great-grandson of Noah's son Shem) continued then to use Hebrew and therefore was called by his name. And from disarray of the languages is resultant the imagination of the immemorial languages to Hebrew.

The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) presents a different and much simpler explanation to Hebrew being the holy language. He explains that there is not words specifically that describe Sexuality in the language. Rabbi Yehuda Low of Prague (Maharal) divides upon him and says that the Rambam mixed things up because Hebrew is any way holiness language which the world was created with and therefore she doesn’t contain any Sexuality words at all.

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Hebrew Hebrew is a Semitic language known as the Jewish people language and the official language in the state of Israel. The Hebrew language is the third Semitic spoken language after Arabic and Amharic. Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Ha-Kodesh (לשון הקודש), "The Holy Language", since ancient times. The History of The Hebrew Language Most of the bible books were written in Classical Hebrew, all the Mishnah and most of the Hidden Scrolls. The bible was written in biblical Hebrew while the Mishnah written in dialect who called “Hazal” (our Sages of Blessed Memory) language. In the end of the 2^nd century most of the Jews stop using speoken Hebrew. Hundred years after the Mishnah was finished, the “Talmud” (collection of ancient rabbinic writings on Jewish civil and religious law) was written in Aramaic. Nevertheless, there are evidences that even in the 8 century the spoken language in Tiberias was Hebrew. Paleo - Hebrew alphabet from year 1500 B.C. that discovered in Negev When the Hebrew language wasn't used as a spoken language during the generations, still it was the main writing language of the Jews, mainly for Jewish religious laws matters: proceedings writing of courts, Jewish religious laws files (Halakha), Religious text interpretation and more. Jewish articles with secular type was written in other Jewish language or in foreign language, for example the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) wrote his book “Mishneh Torah” in Hebrew while his famous philosophic book “Moreh Nevochim” (Guide to the Perplexed) was written in Arabic – Hebrew. Nevertheless, “Moreh Nevochim” was translated to Hebrew for other Jewish communities around the world who spoke other languages. One of the famous translator families was the Ibn Tibbon family. Until the 19 century, first days of the Zionist movement, Hebrew was used as a writen language particularly for religious purpose, but also for different varied targets: philosophy, science, medicine and literature. The Hebrew language enters to modern leverage in the beginning of the Jewish education movement in Germany and in eastern Europe in the end of 18 century. During all the 19 century, the secular used in Hebrew was increasing. At the same time “The National Tchiya Movement” starts to turn Hebrew to a colloquial language among the Hebrew population in the state of Israel. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was one of the warriors who fought to establish Hebrew as the main language in the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. Correspondingly the spoken Hebrew developed in several Jewish centers in eastern Europe. With the establishment of the British mandate authority in the country, Hebrew was determined as officially thirdly language together with Arab and English. When the state of Israel was established, the Hebrew language was already the main language in the country and the education institutions. Eliezer Ben Yehuda - a key figure in the revival of Hebrew Nowadays there are about 7 million Hebrew speaking people, when the majority live in Israel.Half of them are indigenous (Hebrew is their mother tongue) and half of them use Hebrew as second language. Hebrew nowadays is the official main language of Israel. The Hebrew Language Academy is an official institution that dictates standards of the language. This institution works by the power of law, even though it's effects are actually limited.This institution deals mainly with determination of new, general terms, syntax spelling which obligate all the state education system institutions. Hebrew Dialects The Singularity of the Modern Hebrew is in the way she serves so many people with different mother tongue. The number of the non indigenous spokespeople is more or less the same number of the indigenous spokespeople andeven serves to communicate between groups inside Israel that don't speak Hebrew (for example, discussions in Knesset, Israeli courts, when all the litigators belong to the groups that's not Hebrew speaking ). Therefore the Modern Hebrew is exposed to intense effect of other languages such as Arab, Russian, English and more which change the language all the time. In contrast to Arabs of Israel that learn Hebrew in the education system from a young age and manage their lives with both languages, most of the Arab speakers in the occupied territories know Hebrew only partially or don’t know at all. The Hebrew Writing 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, when written in cursive, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents. The writing includes 22 letters and a system of writing vowels called niqqud. It is used today in printed Bibles and some other religious books and also in poetry, children's literature, and texts for beginner students of Hebrew. Most Modern Hebrew texts contain only consonant letters, spaces and western-style punctuation and to facilitate reading without vowels 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. Hebrew phonology Hebrew phonology passed many changes during thousands of years of it's existence. In the 19 century, the Hebrew language renewers wanted to adopt the Jewish Spanish pronunciation because of her prestigiousness which used by the Spanish community in Jerusalem and was very similar in the bible punctuation – niqqud. However, most of the Hebrew language renewers were Ashkenazis Jews from eastern Europe who used a different Hebrew pronunciation. Notwithstanding the effort to provide the Hebrew new Spanish pronunciation, the effect of the Ashkenazi pronunciation, and the accent of Yiddish language is very recognizable in the Modern Hebrew. Hebrew phonology must take into account that the Hebrew language has been used primarily for liturgical, literary, and scholarly purposes for most of the past two millenniums. As a consequence, its pronunciation has been strongly influenced by the vernacular of each individual Jewish community. In contrast to the varied development of these pronunciations is the relatively rapid development of modern Israeli Hebrew. The Hebrew language in Jewish tradition According to Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (“Rial” - Spanish Jewish philosopher) in his book “Khozari”, Hebrew is the most aristocrat language which even G-d used to speak with Adam and Eve which they passed on to their offspring and to all humanity. Later on in Babel tower all the languages mixed up and many new languages were created. Eber (great-grandson of Noah's son Shem) continued then to use Hebrew and therefore was called by his name. And from disarray of the languages is resultant the imagination of the immemorial languages to Hebrew. The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) presents a different and much simpler explanation to Hebrew being the holy language. He explains that there is not words specifically that describe Sexuality in the language. Rabbi Yehuda Low of Prague (Maharal) divides upon him and says that the Rambam mixed things up because Hebrew is any way holiness language which the world was created with and therefore she doesn’t contain any Sexuality words at all.