Hebrew עִבְרִית Ivrit
Pronunciation:	[ʔivˈrit] (standard Israeli), [ʕivˈɾit] (standard Israeli (Sephardi)), [ʕivˈriθ] (Oriental), [ˈivʀis] (Ashkenazi)
Spoken in:	Israel and other countries, including Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Canada,Sweden France, Germany, Iran, Lebanon, Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia, Panama, United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay. Sephardi Jews ( Hebrew: ספרדי, Standard Səfardi Tiberian Səp̄arədî; plural Mizrahi Hebrew or Oriental Hebrew refers to any one of the pronunciation systems for Biblical Hebrew used liturgically by Mizrahi Jews, that is Jews Ashkenazi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld Chile, officially the Republic of Chile ( Spanish:) is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow Coastal strip wedged between the Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. Lebanon (ˈlɛbənɒn Arabic: ar لبنان Lubnān) officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic (ar الجمهورية اللبنانية The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Nigeria, officially named the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal Constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Panama, officially the Republic of Panama (República de Panamá) is the southernmost country of Central America. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Uruguay.(official full name in República Oriental del Uruguay;, Oriental Republic of Uruguay) is a country located in the southeastern part of South America It has also served as the liturgical language of Judaism for over 3,500 years. Judaism (from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, derived from the Hebrew יהודה Yehudah, " Judah " in Hebrew יַהֲדוּת Yahedut
Total speakers:	Extinct as a spoken language by the 4th century CE; Sephardi Hebrew later revived, and now with around 13 million speakers, (United States: 195,375). As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 4th century (per the Julian calendar and Anno Domini / Common era) was that Century Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice 1 1United States Census 2000 PHC-T-37. Ability to Speak English by Language Spoken at Home: 2000. Table 1a.PDF (11. 8 KiB)
Language family:	Afro-Asiatic  Semitic   West Semitic    Central Semitic     Northwest Semitic      Canaanite       Hebrew
Writing system:	Hebrew alphabet
Official status
Official language in:	Israel
Regulated by:	Academy of the Hebrew Language האקדמיה ללשון העברית(HaAqademia LaLashon Ha‘Ivrit)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	he
ISO 639-2:	heb
ISO 639-3:	either: heb – Modern Hebrew hbo – Ancient Hebrew
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. A kibibyte (a contraction of ki lo bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, established by the International List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa The Semitic languages are a Language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. The Central Semitic languages are an intermediate group of Semitic languages, comprising Arabic and Northwest Semitic (including Canaanite The Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. The Canaanite languages or Hebraic languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language Academy of the Hebrew Language (הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית Ha-akademya la-lashon ha-ʻIvrit) was established by the Israeli ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Hebrew (עִבְרִית, ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world. The Semitic languages are a Language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ 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 the majority of the population. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Hebrew is also spoken as a mother tongue by the Samaritans, though today fewer than a thousand Samaritans remain. As a foreign language it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel, archeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilisations and by theologians. The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East.

The core of the Tanakh (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, around the time of the Babylonian exile. See also Old testament, Septuagint, Targum, Peshitta The Tanakh (תַּנַ"ךְ (taˈnax or; also Tenakh or Tenak is The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written in Biblical Hebrew (and the related Biblical Aramaic Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions The 6th century BC started the first day of 600 BC and ended the last day of 501 BC. The Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile, is the name typically given to the deportation and exile of the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Ha-Kodesh (לשון הקודש), "The Holy Language", since ancient times. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions

History

As a language, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. The Canaanite languages or Hebraic languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region Hebrew (Israel) and Moabite (Jordan) are Southern Canaanite while Phoenician (Lebanon) is Northern Canaanite. The Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language spoken in Moab (modern-day northwestern Jordan) in the early first millennium BC Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and Canaanite is closely related to Aramaic and to a lesser extent South-Central Arabic. Aramaic is a Semitic language with Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Whereas other Canaanite languages and dialects have become extinct, Hebrew has survived. Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in Israel from the 10th century BCE until the Babylonian exile. The Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile, is the name typically given to the deportation and exile of the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to After that it was gradually replaced by Aramaic, the cosmopolitan language of the Jewish elite^[1] (see below, Aramaic displacing Hebrew as a spoken language), though some scholars believe that there were still some native speakers of Hebrew until shortly before the Byzantine era. From the beginning of the 1st millennium Hebrew continued in use as a religious and literary language until the 19th century, when it was revived as a spoken language. ^[2]

Most linguists agree that after the 6th century BCE, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah, destroying Jerusalem and exiling its population to Babylon and after Cyrus The Great, the King of Kings or Great King of Persia, gave them permission to return, Biblical Hebrew came to be replaced in daily use by new dialects of Hebrew and a local version of Aramaic. Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital Judea is a term used for the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel. Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, he-Latn Yerushaláyim; Arabic: ar القُدس, ar-Latn al-Quds) is the The Persian Empire was a series of Iranian empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland and beyond in Western Asia Aramaic is a Semitic language with After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language, but remained a major literary language. The 2nd century is the period from 101 to 200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial Background After the failed Great Jewish Revolt in the year 70 the Roman authorities took measures to suppress the rebellious province A literary language is a register of a Language that is used in Literary Writing. Letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, and laws were written in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms.

Hebrew persevered along the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses (poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts, in addition to liturgy). This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could once converse in Latin. It has been 'revived' several times as a literary language, and most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th century. Haskalah ( Hebrew: השכלה "enlightenment" "education" from sekhel " Intellect " "mind") the Jewish Enlightenment The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who was no scholar or linguist, owing to the ideology of the national revival (Hibbat Tziyon, later Zionism) began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ For the street named for Eliezer Ben Yehuda in Jerusalem, Israel, see Ben Yehuda Street. History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of the Second Aliyah, it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. The Second Aliyah was arguably the most important and influential Aliyah. Those languages were Jewish dialects such as Ladino (also called Judezmo), Yiddish and Judeo-Arabic, or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian, Persian, and Arabic. Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High The Judæo-Arabic languages are a collection of Arabic dialects spoken by Jews living or formerly living in the Arab world; the term also refers to The Jewish diaspora ( Hebrew: Tefutzah, "scattered" or Galut גלות "exile" Yiddish: tfutses) the presence Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language

The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along the 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda) and Aramaic. A neologism (from Greek neo = "new" + logos = "word" is a word that although devised relatively recently in a specific time period has been Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. 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. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. English and Arabic still remain formal languages in Israel to this day.

Origins

Hebrew is a Semitic language, and as such a member of the larger Afro-Asiatic phylum. The Semitic languages are a Language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa

Within Semitic, the Northwest Semitic languages formed around the 3rd millennium BCE, grouped with the Arabic languages as Central Semitic. The Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. The Arabic language family consists of The Arabic macrolanguage ( ISO 639-3 ara including the living Varieties of Arabic The Central Semitic languages are an intermediate group of Semitic languages, comprising Arabic and Northwest Semitic (including Canaanite The Canaanite languages are a group within Northwest Semitic, emerging in the 2nd millennium BCE in the Levant, gradually separating from Aramaic and Ugaritic. The Canaanite languages or Hebraic languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region See also Names of the Levant The Levant (lə'vænt is a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia, roughly bounded on the north by the Aramaic is a Semitic language with The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern

Within the Canaanite group, Hebrew belongs to the sub-group also containing Edomite, Ammonite and Moabite: see Hebrew languages. The Edomite language was a Canaanite language spoken by the Edomites in southwestern Jordan in the first millennium BC The Ammonite language is the extinct Hebrew Canaanite language of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible, who used to live in modern-day The Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language spoken in Moab (modern-day northwestern Jordan) in the early first millennium BC Another Canaanite sub-group contains Phoenician and its descendant Punic. Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and The Punic language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of

Gezer calendar and other archaic inscriptions

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. The Gezer calendar is a tablet of soft Limestone inscribed in a paleo-Hebrew script David, Arabic: داوود or داود dawud, "beloved" was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible King Solomon ( Ge'ez: ስለሞን Arabic: ar سليمان, Sulayman, all from the Triliteral root S-L-M, "peace" 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. For the kibbutz see Gezer Israel; For the Arab village see Abu Shusha; for the regional council see Gezer Regional Council The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC The term ancient Greece refers to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy 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. In the spelling of Hebrew and some other Semitic languages, Matres lectionis ( Latin "mothers of reading" singular form mater lectionis

The Shebna lintel, from the tomb of a royal steward found in Siloam, dates to the 7th century BCE. Shebna (meaning "tender youth" was "treasurer over the house" (meaning Comptroller or governor of the palace in the reign of Hezekiah For the Arab village and neighborhood see Silwan For the ancient city and contemporary Jewish neighborhood see City of David

Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Protosinaitic. The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar Undeciphered scripts dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE and believed to be ancestral It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs, though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek Acrophony (Greek acro uppermost head + phonos sound is the naming of letters of an Alphabetic writing system so that a letter's name begins The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. The Canaanite languages or Hebraic languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region 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. The Mesha Stele (popularized in the 19th century as the "Moabite Stone") is a black Basalt stone bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC The Siloam (Shiloach inscription or Silwan inscription ( in reference to Jerusalem neighborhood called Silwan) is a passage of inscribed Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, he-Latn Yerushaláyim; Arabic: ar القُدس, ar-Latn al-Quds) is the 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. An ostracon ( Greek: ostrakon, plural ostraka) is a piece of Pottery (or stone usually broken off from a Vase or other Lachish (לכיש was a town located in the Shephelah, or maritime plain of Philistia ( Joshua 103 5 1211 Nebuchadrezzar II, more often called Nebuchadnezzar (c 630-562 BC was a ruler of Babylon in the Chaldean Dynasty, who reigned c Events and trends 589 BC — Apries succeeds Psammetichus II as king of Egypt.

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. ^[3] 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). See also Old testament, Septuagint, Targum, Peshitta The Tanakh (תַּנַ"ךְ (taˈnax or; also Tenakh or Tenak is Also called Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew. It was written in a form of the Canaanite script. The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC (A script descended from this is still used by the Samaritans, see Samaritan Hebrew language. The Samaritan Hebrew language is a descendant of Biblical Hebrew as pronounced and written by the Samaritans It is used in the reading tradition of the Samaritan )
• 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. Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions Also called Classical Biblical Hebrew (or Classical Hebrew in the narrowest sense).
• 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. The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written in Biblical Hebrew (and the related Biblical Aramaic Basically similar to Classical Biblical Hebrew, apart from a few foreign words adopted for mainly governmental terms, and some syntactical innovations such as the use of the particle shel (of, belonging to). It adopted the Imperial Aramaic script. The Aramaic alphabet is an Abjad, a Consonantal Alphabet, used for writing Aramaic.
• 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. The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of roughly 1000 documents including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1979 in eleven Caves 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, also known as ketav Ashuri (Assyrian script), still in use today. The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language.
• 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. The term Mishnaic Hebrew refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible The Mishnah or Mishna (he משנה "repetition" from the verb shanah he שנה or "to study and review" is a major work of Rabbinic Judaism The Tosefta ( Aramaic: תוספתא is a secondary compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah. The Talmud ( Hebrew: he תַּלְמוּד is a record of Rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history The Copper Scroll is one of the Dead Sea 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). ^[4] 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. ^[5] 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.

Mishnah and Talmud

Main article: Mishnaic Hebrew

The term generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud תלמוד, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The term Mishnaic Hebrew refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible The Talmud ( Hebrew: he תַּלְמוּד is a record of Rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history 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 term Mishnaic Hebrew refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible word /š n/ and /t n/ --> The Mishnah or Mishna (he משנה "repetition" from the verb shanah he שנה or "to study and review" is a major work of Rabbinic Judaism A spoken language is a human Natural language in which the Words are uttered through the Mouth. A literary language is a register of a Language that is used in Literary Writing.

The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah משנה that was published around 200 CE and was written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The Mishnah or Mishna (he משנה "repetition" from the verb shanah he שנה or "to study and review" is a major work of Rabbinic Judaism 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. The Midrashim are mostly derived from and based upon the teachings of the Tannaim: Midrash ( Hebrew: מדרש plural midrashim, lit "to repeat" is a Hebrew term referring to the not exact but comparative ( homiletic Sifra ( Aramaic: סִפְרָא) is the Halakic midrash to Leviticus. Sifre ( סִפְרֵי siphrēy, Sifre Sifrei, also Sifre debe Rab or Sifre Rabbah) refers to either of two Mekhilta or Mekilta ( Hebrew: מכילתא) is the Halakic midrash to the Book of Exodus. ) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta תוספתא. The Tosefta ( Aramaic: תוספתא is a secondary compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah. The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere; the generic term for these passages is Baraitot. Baraita ( Aramaic ברייתא "external" "outside" pl 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 גמרא, generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in Aramaic. The Gemara (also transliterated Gemora or less commonly Gemorra) (from Aramaic גמרא gamar; literally " study" 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 article: Medieval Hebrew

Aleppo Codex: 10th century Hebrew Bible with Masoretic pointing (Joshua 1:1). Medieval Hebrew has many features that distinguish it from older forms of Hebrew.

After the Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. Medieval Hebrew has many features that distinguish it from older forms of Hebrew. 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. Tiberian Hebrew is an extinct (yet very well documented Oral tradition of pronunciation for ancient Hebrew, especially the Hebrew of the Tanakh, that was 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. See also Masoretic text The Masoretes ( ba'alei hamasorah, Hebrew בעלי המסורה were groups of Scribes and Bible Scholars In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Bible in Synagogue services. 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 Syriac alphabet is a Writing system used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The Aleppo Codex, a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century likely in Tiberias and survives to this day. The Aleppo Codex ( Hebrew: כֶּתֶר אֲרָם צוֹבָא kɛθɛɾ ʔăɾɔm sˁovɔʔ Keter Aram Tsova) is a manuscript of the Hebrew Bible 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. For the period of Spanish cultural flourishing in the 17th century see Spanish Golden Age. Arabic is a Semitic language See Arabic language for more information on the language in general Classical Arabic (CA also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj, Jonah ibn Janah and later (in Provence) David Kimhi. Judah ben David Hayyuj ( Arabic: أبو زكريا يحيى بن داؤد حيوج Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Dawūd) was a Spanish - Jewish Grammarian Rabbi Jonah ibn Janah ( Hebrew: יונה אבן ג'נאח Arabic: أبو الوليد مروان بن جناح Abu-l-walīd Marwān ibn Janāh, Latin David Kimhi (דוד קמחי also Kimchi or Qimchi) (1160 &ndash 1235 also known by the Hebrew Acronym as the RaDaK (he רד"ק 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. Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (920-990 ( Hebrew: דוֹנָש הלוי בֵּן לָבְרָט Arabic: دناش بن لبراط was a medieval Jewish commentator Solomon ibn Gabirol, also Solomon ben Judah ( שלמה בן יהודה אבן גבירול, Shelomo ben Yehuda ibn Gevirol; أبو أيوب سليمان Yehuda Halevi, in full Yehuda ben Shemuel Ha-Levi, also Judah Halevi, or Judah ben Samuel Halevi ( Hebrew: יהודה הלוי) (c This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets.

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. The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. Ibn Tibbon ( Heb אבן תבון) is a family of Jewish rabbis and translators that lived principally in Provence in the twelfth and (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. Moses Maimonides ( March 30 1135 – December 13 1204) also known as the Rambam, was a Rabbi, Physician, and The term Mishnaic Hebrew refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible The Mishneh Torah ( Hebrew: משנה תורה subtitled Sefer Yad ha-Chazaka (יד החזקה is a code of Jewish Religious law Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and the Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. The term Mishnaic Hebrew refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew was also used as a language of communication among Jews from different countries, particularly for the purpose of international trade.

Liturgical use

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. Ashkenazi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice Haredi or Chareidi Judaism is the most theologically conservative form of Orthodox Judaism. Orthodox Judaism is the formulation of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics first canonized It was influenced by the Yiddish language. Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High

Sephardi Hebrew is the traditional pronunciation of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews and Sephardi Jews in the countries of the former Ottoman Empire. Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice Spanish and Portuguese Jews are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardim who have their main ethnic origins within the crypto-Jewish communities of the Iberian Sephardi Jews ( Hebrew: ספרדי, Standard Səfardi Tiberian Səp̄arədî; plural The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish 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. Mizrahi Hebrew or Oriental Hebrew refers to any one of the pronunciation systems for Biblical Hebrew used liturgically by Mizrahi Jews, that is Jews The araB gene Promoter is a bacterial promoter activated by e L-arabinose binding For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. 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. Aramaic is a Semitic language with Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions The same claim is sometimes made for Yemenite Hebrew or Temanit, which differs from other Mizrahi dialects by having a radically different vowel system. Yemenite Hebrew, also referred to as Temani Hebrew, is the pronunciation system for Biblical and liturgical Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews.

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. In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations

Modern Hebrew

Main article: Revival of the Hebrew language

Development

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. The revival of the Hebrew language was a process that took place in Europe and Israel at the end of the 19th century and Israeli Hebrew exhibits many features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

The literary and narrative use of Hebrew was revived beginning with the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement. Haskalah ( Hebrew: השכלה "enlightenment" "education" from sekhel " Intellect " "mind") the Jewish Enlightenment The first secular periodical in Hebrew , Hameassef (The Gatherer) was published by Maskilim litterati in Königsberg from 1783 onwards^[6]. Königsberg (Karaliaučius Low German: Königsbarg; Królewiec see also other names) was until 1946 the name of Kaliningrad. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar g. HaMagid, founded in Lyck, Prussia, in 1856) multiplied. Ełk (before 1946; before 1939 rendered in Polish as Łęg or Łęk; Old Prussian Luks) is a Town in northeastern Poland Prominent poets were Chaim Nachman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky; there were also novels written in the language. Hayyim Nahman Bialik ( Hebrew: חיים נחמן ביאליק) ( January 9, 1873&ndash July 4, 1934) also Chaim or Shaul Tchernichovsky ( August 20 1875 - October 14 1943) (שאול טשרניחובסקי Саул Гутманович Черниховский

The revival of Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated by the efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) (אליעזר בן–יהודה). The revival of the Hebrew language was a process that took place in Europe and Israel at the end of the 19th century and A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth For the street named for Eliezer Ben Yehuda in Jerusalem, Israel, see Ben Yehuda Street. Year 1858 ( MDCCCLVIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common Year 1922 ( MCMXXII) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the Year 1881 ( MDCCCLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish 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. The Jewish diaspora ( Hebrew: Tefutzah, "scattered" or Galut גלות "exile" Yiddish: tfutses) the presence A shtetl (שטעטל diminutive form of Yiddish shtot שטאָט "town" pronounced very similarly to the South German diminutive "Städtle" "little A literary language is a register of a Language that is used in Literary Writing. A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a Language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life A spoken language is a human Natural language in which the Words are uttered through the Mouth.

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. Eastern Europe is a general term that refers to the Geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (1856 - 1927 primarily known by his Hebrew name and Pen name, Ahad Ha'am, (אחד העם lit His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into a gradually accepted movement. Vernacular refers to the Native language of a country or a locality 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. Aliyah ( refers to Jewish Immigration to the Land of Israel (and since its establishment in 1948 the State of Israel) 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. The Palestine Mandate, was a set of protocols or articles that formed a multilateral legal and administrative agreement A constructed modern language with a truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology, was to take its place among the current languages of the nations.

Reactions

While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous^[7] (because 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. Blasphemy is the disrespectful use of the name of one or more gods. The twentieth century of the Common Era began on 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. Academy of the Hebrew Language (הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית Ha-akademya la-lashon ha-ʻIvrit) was established by the Israeli 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. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Chasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar, refused to speak Hebrew and only spoke Yiddish. Yishuv (ישוב literally "settlement" or Ha-Yishuv (the Yishuv הישוב or the full term הישוב היהודי בארץ ישראל Hayishuv Hayehudi Hasidic Judaism (also Chasidic, etc from the Hebrew: he '''''חסידות''''', Chassidus, meaning "piety" from the Hebrew Satmar (or Satmar Hasidism or Satmarer Hasidism) (חסידות סאטמאר is a Hasidic movement of mostly Hungarian Grand Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum However, while this ideological stance persists in certain quarters, almost all members of these groups have learned modern Hebrew in order to interact with outsiders.

Russia and the Soviet Union

Main articles: History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union and Yevsektsiya

Russian has separate terms for Ancient Hebrew (ru:Древнееврейский язык, "ancient Jewish language") and Modern Hebrew (ru:Иврит, directly borrowed from the Hebrew name). Yevsektsiya (alternative spelling Yevsektsia) Russian: ЕвСекция, the abbreviation of the phrase "Еврейская секция"

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^[8]). Judaism (from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, derived from the Hebrew יהודה Yehudah, " Judah " in Hebrew יַהֲדוּת Yahedut History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the Narkompros (Наркомпрос is an abbreviation for the People's Commissariat for Education (Народный комиссариат просвещения the Year 1919 ( MCMXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Secularization or secularisation generally refers to the process of transformation by which a Society migrates from close identification with religious institutions 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. Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High ^[9] 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,^[10] teachers and students who attempted to study the Hebrew language were pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" and later for "anti-Soviet" activities. Later in the 1980s years in the USSR, Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel (refuseniks). Refusenik (אסיר ציון asir tzion, "zion prisoner" מסורב עליה mesorav aliyah, "one who is not allowed to perform Aliyah Several of the teachers were imprisoned, for example, Ephraim Kholmyansky, responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of USSR. Ephraim (Alexander Kholmyansky (b in 1950 in Moscow) – refusenik, activist of Jewish revival movement in Russia, teacher of Hebrew, Prisoner of

Birobidzhan

Birobidzhan Jewish National University works in cooperation with the local Jewish community of Birobidzhan. The Birobidzhan Jewish National University works in cooperation with the local Jewish community of Birobidzhan and the Birobidzhan Synagogue. A kehilla or kehillah (קהילה Hebrew: "community" is a Jewish Community. Birobidzhan (Биробиджа́н) is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia. The university is unique in the Russian Far East. A university is an institution of Higher education and Research, which grants Academic degrees in a variety of subjects Russian Far East (Да́льний Восто́к Росси́и ˈdalʲnʲɪj vʌˈstok rʌˈsʲiɪ is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i The basis of the training course is study of the Hebrew language, history and classic Jewish texts. ^[11] In recent years, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast has grown interested in its Jewish roots. Jewish Autonomous Oblast (Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть Yevreyskaya avtonomnaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia 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. " Sunday school " is the generic name for many different types of Religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations See also Folk (disambiguation, Volk (disambiguation Folk is one of the Germanic roots that mean "(of the people" or "our See Secular Jewish culture for the main article on secular Jewish culture For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. The Israeli government helps fund the program. Politics of Israel takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic Republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Israel is ^[12] Chief Rabbi Mordechai Scheiner has commented the progress at School No. Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular Mordechai Sheiner has been Chief Rabbi of Jewish Autonomous Oblast since 2002. 2, Birobidjan's Jewish public school with 670 students, 30 percent of whom are Jewish. The term public school has two distinct (and virtually opposite meanings depending on the location of usage in the United States, Australia and Pupils learn about Jewish history, and the Hebrew and Yiddish languages. Jewish history is the History of the Jewish people, faith, and culture. Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High ^[13]

Modern Israeli Hebrew

Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. For the street named for Eliezer Ben Yehuda in Jerusalem, Israel, see Ben Yehuda Street. The term Mishnaic Hebrew refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice However, the earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native tongue and often brought into Hebrew idioms and literal translations from Yiddish. Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High 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 ([ɾ]) to a voiced uvular fricative ([ʁ]) or trill ([ʀ]) (see Guttural R)
• the pronunciation (by many speakers) of tzere as [eɪ] in some contexts (sifrey and teysha instead of Sephardic sifré and tésha' )
• the elimination of vocal schwa (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)
• similarly, penultimate stress in nouns or verbs with a second or third person plural suffix (katávtem [you wrote] instead of kĕtavtém; elohéyhem [their gods] instead of elohehém). For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. Ashkenazi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning A pharyngeal consonant is a type of Consonant which is articulated with the root of the Tongue against the Pharynx. The alveolar tap or flap is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The voiced uvular fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The uvular trill is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents In Linguistics, guttural R ( throaty R or French R) refers to pronunciation of a Rhotic consonant as a Guttural consonant In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral ^[14]

Classification

Scholars differ on the classification 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). Literary Arabic (ar اللغة العربية الفصحى "the Eloquent Arabic language" or Standard Arabic is the literary and standard variety Moroccan Arabic (also known as Darija, الدارجة) is the variety of Arabic spoken in the Arabic -speaking areas of Morocco Two dissenting views are as follows:

• Wexler^[15] claims that modern Hebrew is not a Semitic language at all, but a dialect of "Judaeo-Sorbian". He argues that the underlying structure of the language is Slavic, but "re-lexified" to absorb much of the vocabulary and inflexional system of Hebrew in much the same way as a creole. A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable Language that originates seemingly as a nativized Pidgin.
• Ghilad Zuckermann^{[16] [17]} compromises between Wexler and the majority view: according to him, 'Israeli' is a separate language from Hebrew, and has a basically European (Yiddish-derived) syntax and phonology, but should be regarded as a hybrid between the Hebrew and European models. Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High

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 contributor was Yiddish, while today it is American English. Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High Phonology North American English regional phonology In many ways compared to English English, North American English is conservative in its Phonology.

Regional dialects

According to Ethnologue, the currently spoken dialects of Hebrew are "Standard Hebrew (General Israeli, Europeanized Hebrew)" and "Oriental Hebrew (Arabized Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew)". Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian Mizrahi Hebrew or Oriental Hebrew refers to any one of the pronunciation systems for Biblical Hebrew used liturgically by Mizrahi Jews, that is Jews 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.

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 ת (/t/) into the single phone [t]. Within Phonetics, a phone is a speech sound or gesture considered a physical event without regard to its place in the Phonology of a Language 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. Academy of the Hebrew Language (הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית Ha-akademya la-lashon ha-ʻIvrit) was established by the Israeli For this reason, over half the population pronounces ר as [ʀ], (a uvular trill, as in Yiddish and French) or as [ʁ] (a voiced uvular fricative, as in Standard German), rather than as [r], an alveolar trill, as in Spanish. The uvular trill is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people The voiced uvular fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The alveolar trill is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental The pronunciation of this phoneme is often used among Israelis as a shibboleth or determinant when ascertaining the national origin of perceived foreigners. Shibboleth (ˈʃɪbəlɛθ or ˈʃɪbələθ is any practice which is indicative of one's social or regional origin

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. Central Europe is the Region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, ( also referred to as Edot HaMizrach (Communities of the East are Jews descended

It was formerly the case that the inhabitants of the north of Israel pronounced beth rafe (בי"ת רפה, bet without dagesh, literally loose beth: ב) as /b/ instead of /v/, in accordance with the conservative Sephardic pronunciation. In Hebrew Orthography the rafe, also raphe, ( Hebrew רפה meaning "weak limp" is a Diacritic ֿ: a short horizontal overbar The dagesh (דָּגֵשׁ is a Diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. This was regarded as rustic and has since disappeared. It is 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.

Aramaic

Main article: Judeo-Aramaic language

Aramaic is a North-West Semitic language, like Canaanite. Judæo-Aramaic is a collective term used to describe several Hebrew -influenced Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic Languages History Aramaic is a Semitic language with The Semitic languages are a Language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, 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.

The language of Jesus and the Neo-Babylonian Empire was a dialect of Aramaic. Jesus of Nazareth (7–2 BC / BCE —26–36 AD / CE) Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital The Persian Empire that captured Babylonia a few decades later adopted Imperial Aramaic as the official international language of the Persian Empire. The Persian Empire was a series of Iranian empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland and beyond in Western Asia 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. Judea is a term used for the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel. Kingdom of Judea redirects here For the 10th-6th century BCE kingdom see Kingdom of Judah Iudaea ( Hebrew: יהודה Standard 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. The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language.

Displacement

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. This article focuses on the historical aspects of the Hellenistic age for the cultural aspects see Hellenistic civilisation. 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. The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of roughly 1000 documents including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1979 in eleven Caves Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew may also have survived as a spoken language, since the Qumran evidence indicates that Hebrew texts were comprehensible to the rank-and-file. For the country that features in Yes Minister, see here. Qumran (خربة قمران חירבת קומראן Khirbet Qumran Some further evidence for this contention has been found in the Christian Bible story of Paul speaking to a crowd of Jews têi hebraïdi dialéktôi^[18] lit. 'in the Hebrew dialect'. However, the standard translation for this Greek passage is 'in the Aramaic vernacular of Palestine' ^[19]. In a groundbreaking article Griatz suggested that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic, lay behind the composition of the Gospel of Matthew^[20]. The Gospel of Matthew (Gk Κατά Ματθαίον Ευαγγέλιον is one of the four Canonical gospels in the New Testament and is a Synoptic gospel Griatz dates the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman Period. Kingdom of Judea redirects here For the 10th-6th century BCE kingdom see Kingdom of Judah Iudaea ( Hebrew: יהודה Standard Hebrew nonetheless continued on as a literary language down through Byzantine Period from the 4th century CE. The History of Palestine is the account of events in the greater geographic area in the Southern Levant known as Palestine, which includes not just the West Bank

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. A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth Communities of Jews (and non-Jews) are known, who immigrated to Judea from these other lands and continued to speak Aramaic or Greek.

Many Hebrew linguists postulate the survival of Hebrew as a spoken language until the Byzantine Period, but some historians do not accept this. 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. "^[21] 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 BC", now says, in its 1997 (third) edition, that Hebrew "continued to be used as a spoken and written language in the New Testament period". ^[22] 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]. "^[23] And so on. ^[3] It is widespread among Israeli scholars to treat Hebrew as a spoken language as a feature of Judea's Roman Period.

Dialects

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. Aramaic is a Semitic language with Josephus Flavius initially drafted his account of The Jewish War in Old Judean Aramaic but later recast it into Koine Greek to publish it for the Roman imperial court. Josephus (AD 37 – c 100 also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu (Joseph son of Matthias and after he became a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus The Wars of the Jews (or The History of the Koine Greek (Κοινὴ Ἑλληνική, "common Greek" or, ciˈni ðiˈale̞kto̞s "the common dialect" is the popular form of Greek which emerged in 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. The Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD It was a decisive event in the First Jewish-Roman War, followed by the fall of Masada in 73 Year 70 was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Julian calendar. Background After the failed Great Jewish Revolt in the year 70 the Roman authorities took measures to suppress the rebellious province

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. Aramaic is a Semitic language with The Jerusalem Talmud (by the 5th century) used this Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, as did the Midrash Rabba (6th to 12th century). The Jerusalem Talmud or Talmud Yerushalmi (תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשָׁלְמִי often the Yerushalmi for short is a collection Midrash ( Hebrew: מדרש plural midrashim, lit "to repeat" is a Hebrew term referring to the not exact but comparative ( homiletic This dialect probably influenced the pronunciation of the 8th-century Tiberian Hebrew that vocalizes the Hebrew Bible. Tiberian Hebrew is an extinct (yet very well documented Oral tradition of pronunciation for ancient Hebrew, especially the Hebrew of the Tanakh, that was

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. The Talmud ( Hebrew: he תַּלְמוּד is a record of Rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history Jewish Babylonian Aramaic is the form of Middle Aramaic employed by Jewish writers in Babylonia between the 4th century and the 11th century CE Aramaic is a Semitic language with For centuries Jewish Babylonian remained the spoken language of Mesopotamian Jews and the Lishana Deni. Lishana Deni is a modern Jewish Aramaic language, often called Neo-Aramaic or Judeo-Aramaic. 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. History See also History of the Kurdish people Ancient period See also Hurrians, Guti, Mannaeans, Medes

Hebrew continues to strongly influence all these various Jewish dialects of Aramaic. Judæo-Aramaic is a collective term used to describe several Hebrew -influenced Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic Languages History

Other coexisting languages

Main article: Jewish languages

Besides Jewish dialects of Aramaic, other languages are highly influenced by Hebrew, such as Yiddish, Ladino, Karaite and Judeo-Arabic. The Jewish languages are a set of Languages that developed in various Jewish communities around the world more notably in Europe, West Asia, and Aramaic is a Semitic language with Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High The Karaim language (Crimean dialect къарай тили Trakai dialect karaj tili is a Turkic language with Hebrew influences in a similar manner to The Judæo-Arabic languages are a collection of Arabic dialects spoken by Jews living or formerly living in the Arab world; the term also refers to Although none is completely derived from Hebrew, they all make extensive use of Hebrew loanwords. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation

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. An international auxiliary language (sometimes abbreviated as IAL or auxlang) or interlanguage is a Language meant for communication between people from

Phonology

Main article: 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). Hebrew Phonology must take into account that the Hebrew language has been used primarily for liturgical, literary and scholarly purposes for most of the In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word 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). In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound Little ambiguity exists, however, due to nouns and verbs having incompatible roles in normal sentences. This is also true in English, for example, with the English word "conduct" in its nominal and verbal forms.

Vowels

Main article: Niqqud

The Hebrew word for vowels is tnu'ot (תְּנוּעוֹת). In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract The orthographic representations for these vowels are called Niqqud. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations Israeli Hebrew has 5 vowel phonemes, represented by the following Niqqud-signs:

In Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (khataf). Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions However, there is no audible distinction between the three in modern Israeli Hebrew, except that tsere is often pronounced [eɪ] as in Ashkenazi Hebrew. Ashkenazi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice

Shva

The Niqqud sign "Shva" represents four grammatical entities: resting (nakh / נָח), moving (na' / נָע), floating (merahef / מְרַחֵף) and "bleating" or "bellowing" ('ge'iya' / גְּעִיָּה). In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations In earlier forms of Hebrew, these entities were phonologically and phonetically distinguishable. However, the phonology of Modern Hebrew has produced two phonetic variants of Shva, either [ɛ̝] or mute, which no longer confirm to the traditional classification, e. g. the (first) Shva Nach in the word קִמַּטְתְ (fem. you crumpled) is pronounced [ɛ̝] ([ki'matɛ̝t]) instead of being mute, whereas the Shva Na in זְמַן (time) is mute ([zman]).

One-letter words

One-letter words are written attached to the following word. Such items include: the definite article ha (/ha/) (="the"); prepositions be (/bə/) (="in"), mi (/mi/) (="from"), le (/lə/) (="to"); conjunctions she (/ʃe/) (="that"), ke (/kə/) (="as", "like"), ve (/və/) (="and"). In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. 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 determining the vowels to follow these 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 grammatically non standard

Consonants

The Hebrew word for consonants is ‘itsurim (עיצורים). A standard language (also standard dialect, standardized dialect, or standardised dialect) is a particular variety of a Language that The following table lists the Hebrew consonants and their pronunciation in IPA transcription:

	Bilabial		Labiodental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar[24]		Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasals	m מ				n נ
Stops	p פּ	b בּ			t ט,ת,תּ	d ד,דּ				k ק,כּ	g ג,גּ			ʔ א,ע
Affricates					ʦ צ
Fricatives			f פ	v ב,ו	s ס,שׂ	z ז	ʃ שׁ	ʒ 'ז		x ח,כ,ך			ʁ ר	h ה ɦ
Trills												ʀ ר
Approximants									j י
Laterals					l ל

The pairs /b, v/, /k, x/ and /p, f/ have historically been allophonic. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Uvulars are Consonants articulated with the back of the Tongue against or near the uvula, that is further back in the mouth than Velar consonants Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together In Phonetics, a trill is a Consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the Place of articulation. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds (/v/ merging with /w/, /k/ merging with /q/, /x/ merging with /ħ/), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial /f/ through foreign borrowings.

ע was once pronounced as a voiced pharyngeal fricative. For the village in Azerbaijan see Əyin. or is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician The voiced pharyngeal approximant/fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet Most modern Ashkenazi Jews do not differentiate between א and ע; however, Mizrahi Jews and Arabs pronounce these phonemes. Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim ( Hebrew: אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים, ˌaʃkəˈnazim sing is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, ( also referred to as Edot HaMizrach (Communities of the East are Jews descended Georgian Jews pronounce it as a glottalized q. Georgia ( საქართველო, Sakartvelo) is a Transcontinental country in the Caucasus region situated at the dividing line between Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it [ŋ] (like ng in sing) — a pronunciation which can also be found in the Italki tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany. Sephardi Jews ( Hebrew: ספרדי, Standard Səfardi Tiberian Səp̄arədî; plural Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim ( Hebrew: אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים, ˌaʃkəˈnazim sing (The remnants of this pronunciation are found throughout the Ashkenazi world, in the name "Yankl" and "Yanki", diminutive forms of Jacob, Heb. Jacob ( Hebrew: יַעֲקֹב, Standard   Yaʿaqov Tiberian   Yaʿăqōḇ; יעקב. )

Hebrew also has dagesh, a strengthening. The dagesh (דָּגֵשׁ is a Diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. 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/ (historically, also /g/, /d/ and /t/) 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. Assimilation is a common Phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary As mentioned before, the emphasis influences which of a pair of (former) allophones is pronounced. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. 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. Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions ^[25]

• BH /b/ had two allophones, [b] and [v]; the [v] allophone has merged with /w/ into SIH /v/
• BH /k/ had two allophones, [k] and [x]; the [k] allophone has merged with /q/ into SIH /k/, while the [x] allophone has merged with /ħ/ into SIH /x/
• BH /t/ and /tˤ/ have merged into SIH /t/
• BH /ʕ/ and /ʔ/ have usually merged into SIH /ʔ/, but this distinction may also be upheld in educated speech of many Sephardim and some Ashkenazim
• BH /p/ had two allophones, [p] and [f]; the incorporation of loanwords into Modern Hebrew has probably resulted in a split, so that /p/ and /f/ are separate phonemes. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. Sephardi Jews ( Hebrew: ספרדי, Standard Səfardi Tiberian Səp̄arədî; plural Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim ( Hebrew: אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים, ˌaʃkəˈnazim sing

Stress

Terminal syllabic stress is by far the most common, penultimate stress being the only other grammatically acceptable option. The two options have names: Terminal stress is called milera (מלרע) and penultimate mil'eil (מלעיל). Spoken Hebrew admits of more stress variation than the official dialect. Stress has phonemic value, e. g. "ילד", when pronounced /'jeled/, means "boy", whereas when pronounced /je'led/ it means "will give birth to".

Grammar

Main article: Hebrew grammar

Hebrew grammar is partly analytic, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than grammatical cases. Hebrew Grammar is partly analytical, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using Prepositional In morphological typology (in linguistics an isolating language (also analytic language) is any Language in which words are composed of The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given In Linguistics, ablative case ( abbreviated ABL) is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the 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. In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another Words in smikhut are often combined with hyphens. A hyphen ( -) is a Punctuation mark It is used for both Words to join and to separate Syllables It is often confused with the dashes 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. In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word.

Writing system

Main article: Hebrew alphabet

Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. 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.

Vowel signs

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 Sefer Torah ( Hebrew: ספר תורה; plural ספרי תורה Sifrei Torah; “Book(s of Torah ” or “Torah Scroll (s” A system of writing vowels called niqqud (from the root word meaning "points" or "dots") developed around the 5th Century CE. In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations 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 matres lectionis (see below) are often inserted into words which would be written without them in a text with full niqqud. In the spelling of Hebrew and some other Semitic languages, Matres lectionis ( Latin "mothers of reading" singular form mater lectionis 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. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together In fully pointed texts, the hard form normally has a dot, known as a dagesh, in its center. The dagesh (דָּגֵשׁ is a Diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet.

There are twenty-seven symbols, representing twenty-two letters, in the Hebrew alphabet, which is called the "aleph bet" because of its first two letters. The letters are as follows: Aleph, Bet/Vet, Gimel, Dalet, He, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, Yod (pronounced Yud by Israelis), Kaf/Chaf, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samekh, Ayin, Pe/Fe, Tzadi, Qof (pronounced Koof by Israelis), Resh, Shin/Sin, Tav.

• The letters Bet, Kaf and Pe (historically, also the letters Gimel, Dalet and Tav) are softened to fricatives when following a vowel (except when doubled). Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together In a fully pointed text, this distinction is indicated by the use of dagesh to denote the hard sound. (Occasionally, a horizontal line called rafe, written above the letter, is used to indicate the softened sound. In Hebrew Orthography the rafe, also raphe, ( Hebrew רפה meaning "weak limp" is a Diacritic ֿ: a short horizontal overbar ) This has led to the misconception that there are separate letters "Vet", "Chaf" and "Fe".
• The letter Shin/Sin is usually pronounced Sh, but occasionally S. In fully pointed texts, this distinction is indicated by a dot at the top left hand corner (for Sin) or the top right hand corner (for Shin). This may indicate that the pronunciation prevailing when the consonantal spelling of Hebrew was fixed was different from that prevailing when the system of pointing was devised, so that the Sin dot is a permanent reminder saying "this letter is spelled Shin but pronounced Samech". (In Samaritan Hebrew Shin is pronounced Sh wherever it occurs, and there is no "Sin". The Samaritan Hebrew language is a descendant of Biblical Hebrew as pronounced and written by the Samaritans It is used in the reading tradition of the Samaritan ) Others regard Sin as a genuine phoneme separate from both Shin and Samech and believe that it must once have had a distinct pronunciation.
• There are two written forms of the letters Kaf/Chaf, Mem, Nun, Pe and Tzadi. Each of these is written differently when appearing at the end of a word than when appearing at the beginning or in the middle of the word. The version used at the end of a word is referred to as Final Kaf, Final Mem, etc. Except in the case of Mem, the difference is that the final form has a tail pointing straight down, whereas in the normal form it bends to the left to point to the next letter.

Mater lectionis

The letters he, vav and yod 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 q'ria" ("matres lectionis" in Latin, "mothers of reading" in English). In the spelling of Hebrew and some other Semitic languages, Matres lectionis ( Latin "mothers of reading" singular form mater lectionis

The letter he at the end of a word usually indicates a final /a/, which usually indicates feminine gender, or /e/, which usually indicates masculine gender. In rare cases it may also indicate /o/, such as in שְׁלֹמֹה (Shlomo, Solomon). King Solomon ( Ge'ez: ስለሞን Arabic: ar سليمان, Sulayman, all from the Triliteral root S-L-M, "peace" It may also indicate a possessive suffix for 3rd person feminine singular (סִפְרָהּ, her book), but in that case the he is not a mater lectionis but the consonant /h/, although in spoken Hebrew the distinction is rarely made. In texts with niqqud the he is written with a mappiq in the latter case. The mappiq ( Hebrew: מפיק also mapiq, mapik, mappik, lit "causing to go out" is a Diacritic used in the Hebrew 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/ or /aj/ (this convention is derived from Yiddish). In some modern Israeli texts, the letter alef is used to indicate long /a/ sounds in foreign names, particularly those of Arabic origin.

In some words there is a choice of whether to use a mater lectionis or not, and in modern printed texts matres lectionis are sometimes used even for short vowels, which is considered to be grammatically incorrect though instances are found as far back as Talmudic times. Spelling with matres lectionis is called male (full), while spelling without matres lectionis is called haser (defective). In Talmudic times texts from Palestine were noticeably more inclined to male spellings than texts from Babylonia: this may reflect the influence of Greek, which had full alphabetic spelling. Similarly in the Middle Ages Ashkenazim tended to use male spellings under the influence of European languages, while Sephardim tended to use haser spellings under the influence of Arabic.

Indicating stress

There is no one universally accepted sign for indicating stress in Hebrew texts. Usually stress is unmarked. In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word In some vocalized texts, such as prayer books, when the stress is not on the last syllable it is marked with a small stroke placed underneath the first consonant of the stressed syllable to the left of the vowel mark (occasionally, as in Davidson's grammar, a different sign is used, to avoid confusion with meteg, see next paragraph). Andrew Bruce Davidson ( 1831 - January 26 1902) was Professor of Hebrew and Oriental languages in New College University of Edinburgh In vocalized Biblical texts stress is shown by the appropriate cantillation mark. Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Bible in Synagogue services.

A secondary stress in a word may be marked with a vertical stroke, called a meteg (מתג), placed to the left of the vowel: this symbol is available in Unicode. Meteg is most usually found two syllables before the main stress: thus, when the following consonant carries a shva, it follows that that shva is a sounded one. In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations (For example, the word ochlah, her food, is written in the same way as āchěla, she ate, but meteg on the first syllable shows that āchěla is intended. )

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
• Hebrew phonology
• Romanization of Hebrew
• Hebraization of English
• International Phonetic Alphabet for Hebrew
• Cursive Hebrew

Notes

References

• 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

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• Words and their History, E. Y. Kutscher
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• Language in Time of Revolution, Benjamin Harshav
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