Hebrew

　 　

WordNet

1. the ancient Canaanitic language of the Hebrews that has been revived as the official language of Israel
2. a Semitic alphabet used since the 5th century BC for writing the Hebrew language (and later for writing Yiddish and Ladino) (同)Hebraic alphabet, Hebrew script
3. Hebrew used in Israel today; revived from ancient Hebrew
4. instruction in the Hebrew language
5. the ethnic group claiming descent from Abraham and Isaac (especially from Isaacs son Jacob); the nation whom God chose to receive his revelation and with whom God chose to make a covenant (Exodus 19) (同)Israelites

PrepTutorEJDIC

1. 〈C〉ヘブライ人,イスラエル人,ユダヤ人 / 〈U〉古代ヘブライ語(旧約聖書はほとんどこの言語で書かれた);現代ヘブライ語 / (またHebraic)ヘブライ人の,ヘブライ語の,ヘブライ文化の
2. (新約聖書の)ヘブル人への手紙

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2016/01/06 15:24:28」(JST)

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ヘブライ語
עברית‎
発音	IPA: [ivˈʁit]
話される国	イスラエル
地域	イスラエルとその占領地など
話者数	約1,000万人
言語系統	アフロ・アジア語族 セム語派 中央セム語 北西セム語 カナン語 ヘブライ語
表記体系	ヘブライ文字
公的地位
公用語	イスラエル
統制機関	ヘブライ語アカデミー (Academy of the Hebrew Language)
言語コード
ISO 639-1	he
ISO 639-2	heb
ISO 639-3	heb

ヘブライ語（ヘブライご、עברית, Ivrit, ラテン語: Lingua Hebraea）は、アフロ・アジア語族のセム語派に属する北西セム語の一つ。ヘブル語とも呼ばれる。

概要

ヘブライ語には、古代にパレスチナに住んでいたヘブライ人（ユダヤ人）が母語として用いていた言語古典ヘブライ語（または聖書ヘブライ語）と、現在イスラエル国で話される現代ヘブライ語とがある。現代ヘブライ語はヘブライ語で「 עברית ，イヴリート（イヴリット）」と呼ばれ、古代の聖書ヘブライ語は לשון הקודש‎ , Leshon HaKodesh あるいは「聖なる言葉」すなわち「神の言語」という名前で知られていた。

古典ヘブライ語はユダヤ人が世界離散（ディアスポラ）したころから次第に話されなくなり、後の時代の離散ユダヤ人は、かわってアラビア語・ラディーノ語・イディッシュ語などの諸言語を日常的に用いた。そのためヘブライ語は二千数百年の間、ユダヤ教の言葉として聖書（ヘブライ語聖書）やミシュナーなどの研究・儀式・祈り、別々の言語を話す遠隔のユダヤ人共同体同士がコミュニケーションを取る場合などに使われるのみであった。しかし、20世紀にヘブライ語が現代ヘブライ語として再生され、他の言語に替わってイスラエル国に居住するユダヤ人の日常語の地位を占めるようになって現在に至っている。

この言語の一般的な名称として使われているヘブライの名は、ユーフラテス川を越えて移住する人たちのことを総称してヘブル人と呼んでいたことに由来する。今から紀元前3500年頃にカルデアのウル（現在のイラク）からカナンの地（現在のパレスチナ・イスラエル）に移住したとされるアブラハム一族と、その子孫である人々が他称としてヘブル人、ヘブライ人などと呼ばれるようになり、彼らが使う言語がヘブル語、ヘブライ語と呼ばれる。

特徴として同じセム語族に属するアラビア語と同様に、この言語は文章で書くときは右から左に書く。またヘブライ文字はアラム文字に由来するため、日本語や英語などと違って、子音を表す表記はあっても、母音を表す表記はないことが多く、言語の習得にはある程度の慣れが必要である。

ネクダーと呼ばれる母音記号は存在はするが、日本語で出版されているヘブライ語の文法書や語学書や辞書など、言語習得のための初等教科書や発音のわからない外来語の表記の際に使われるだけであり、文章を読んだり書いたりする際に使われる機会は少ないが、イスラエル国でも詩やシャアル・ラマトヒールというヘブライ語初心者向けの新聞にはネクダーが付されている。

古典ヘブライ語

詳細は「聖書ヘブライ語」を参照

古代のヘブライ人の言葉がカナン語と混じり合ってできあがったものだとされている。ヘブライ語で書かれた最も著名な書物は「ヘブライ語聖書」（キリスト教徒にとっての旧約聖書）である。

この言語は当時のオリエント世界の共通語であったアラム語に取って代わられていき、旧約聖書も一部はアラム語で記述された。後の新約聖書の時代においても、イエスは日常的にはヘブライ語とともにアラム語を話したと考えられており、新約聖書にはイエスの言葉として両方の言語の言葉がそのまま記載された箇所がある。この二言語はきわめて近縁であり、さらに長年の言語接触で一種の方言連続体を形成していたことから、この時代のユダヤ人は自然とアラム語とヘブライ語のバイリンガルとなっていたと推測されている。

紀元70年にユダヤ人の世界離散（ディアスポラ）が起こってからは、ユダヤ教における宗教儀式において使用されるほかは、ラディーノ語、イディッシュ語の中に痕跡を残すのみで一般的な話し言葉としては完全に使われなくなっていた。

中世に入って文献学者のヨハン・ロイヒリンは非ユダヤ人にして初めて大学で聖書ヘブライ語を教授しカバラについての著書 (De Arte Cabalistica) を残し、ラビとしての教育を受けたバルーフ・デ・スピノザは死後に遺稿集とした出版された『ヘブライ語文法総記』で文献学的聖書解釈の観点からより言語語学的なヘブライ語の説明を行った。その冒頭部で、母音を表す文字がヘブライ文字には存在しないにも拘わらず「母音のない文字は『魂のない身体』(corpora sine anima) である」と記した。

現代ヘブライ語

現代ヘブライ語は、20世紀に日常語として復活した。しかし、ヘブライ語が日常語として用いられなくなっていた時代でも、ヘブライ語による著述活動は約1800年間、途切れることなく続いていたのであり、全くの死語となっていたわけではない。現代ヘブライ語はミシュナー・ヘブライ語など後世の言語的特徴を多く含む。

19世紀にロシアからパレスチナに移り住んだエリエゼル・ベン・イェフダー（1858年 - 1922年）は、ヘブライ語を日常語として用いることを実践した人物であり、ヘブライ語復活に大きな役割を果たした（彼の息子ベン・ツィオンは生まれてから数年間はヘブライ語のみで教育され、約二千年ぶりにヘブライ語を母語として話した人物となった）。しかし、彼が聖書を基に一から現代ヘブライ語を作ったわけではない。彼の貢献は主に語彙の面におけるものであり、使われなくなっていた単語を文献から探し出したり、新語を作ったりして、現代的な概念を表すことができるようにした。そのために全16巻からなる『ヘブライ語大辞典』を編纂したが、完成間近で没し、死後に出版された。

こうしたユダヤ人の努力によってヘブライ語は話し言葉として再生され、のちにイスラエルの公用語のひとつとなった。一度日常語として使われなくなった古代語が再び復活して実際に話されるようになったのは、歴史上このヘブライ語だけである。現代ヘブライ語は、イスラエル国内に多数のアラブ人が居住していることにより、アラビア語の影響を受けており、「ファラフェル」（ヘブライ語: פָלָאפֶל‎）などアラビア語起源の単語がそのままヘブライ文字で記載されることが少なくない。さらに、経済のグローバル化や情報技術の発達などにより、「インターネット（ヘブライ語: אִינְטֶרְנֶט‎）」など英単語をヘブライ語に「翻訳」することなく、そのままヘブライ単語となることも少なくなく、さらにコンピュータ関連の文書などにおいてヘブライ文字で記載されているヘブライ語のなかに、英字で記載されてある英単語がそのまま挿入されていることもある。また、この場合、英単語は右から左へではなくそのまま左から右へと記述され挿入される。

現代のヘブライ語事情に関しては、イスラエル国内のアラブ人、すなわちアラブ系イスラエル人、ならびに占領地におけるパレスチナ人は、ヘブライ語を非常に流暢に話している。彼らのほうが、成人になってからウルパンというヘブライ語教室においてヘブライ語を少しだけ学ぶユダヤ系米国人たちよりもヘブライ語に堪能であると思われる。その背景として、ヘブライ語とアラビア語は、文字は異なるが、共にセム語族の言語であり、文法や語彙などにおいてかなり類似点があるからである。また、現代のパレスチナだけではなくイスラエル国内においても多数のアラブ系イスラエル人が居住し、イスラエル建国以前はアラブ人の都市や村落も多数あるため、アラビア語起源の人名や地名など固有名詞のヘブライ文字化も行われている。具体的には、アラビア語で「ようこそ」などを意味するاهلا وسهلا（アハラン・ワ・サハラン）はאהלן וסהלןとヘブライ文字化される。

現代ヘブライ語において用いられる数字は、数学で用いられているアラビア数字である。そして、右から左へ記載するヘブライ語の中に、左から右へ記載するアラビア数字を挿入して記載している。そして、マイクロソフト社のMicrosoft Wordを用いてヘブライ語の文書を作成する際にも、ヘブライ文字は右から左へ記載されるが、数字だけは左から右へ記載されるようになっている。

世界各地からユダヤ教徒がイスラエルへ移民しているため、イスラエルにおいてはイスラエルへの移民であるか否かを問わず、またイスラエルへ定住する意思の有無を問わず、誰でもヘブライ語を学習することができる成人を対象としたヘブライ語の教育機関としてウルパンが設立されている。

文字

詳細は「ヘブライ文字」を参照

音韻

文法

ヘブライ語の文法は、分析の文法である。与格や奪格や対格の代わりに、前置詞を使う。動詞と名詞の語形変化が重要である。

形態論

ヘブライ語の言葉は三字の語根からでき、その語根から名詞と動詞と形容詞が出来る。これはアラビア語とよく似ている。

ヘブライ語の単語・文

ヘブライ語は、イスラエルでの日常会話に使われるほか、正しい聖書理解、ユダヤ教、ラビ文学を含むヘブライ語文学、ユダヤ音楽、セム語学、アフロアジア語学などに必須の言語である。以下には基本的なものだけを集める。

ヘブライ語の単語や文例の一覧；

感謝、有難う	todah
ザクロ	רימון, Rimmon, Rimon （رمان ,رُمَّان, Rumman, Roman）

ヘブライ語起源の言葉

• シェーハール šēkhâr: リンゴ酒、シードルの語源。また英語を経由してサイダーの語源ともなるが、日本語（和製英語）とアメリカ英語とイギリス英語で、それぞれ意味は異なる。
• セフィラー: アラビア語の姉妹語を通じて、英語 cipher に繋がっている（アラビア数学の功績）
• ハルマゲドン < ハル・メギッドー（メギッドー山）

ヘブライ語の文例

意味	ヘブライ語 （ヘブライ文字表記）	ヘブライ語 （ラテン翻字）	IPA
ヘブライ語	עברית	ivrit	[ivˈʁit]
今日は/平和	שלום	shalom	[ʃʌ'lom]
さようなら	להתראות	lehitraot	[lɛhitʁʌ'ot]
はじめまして	נעים מאוד	Na’im Me’od
どういたしまして	בבקשה	bevakasha	[bɛvʌkʌ'ʃʌ]
ありがとう	תודה	toda	[to'dʌ]
ありがとうございます	תודה רבה	toda raba
それを/あれを	את זה	et ze	[ɛt zɛ]
いくつ？/いくら	?כמה	kama	['kʌmʌ]
これはいくらですか？	?כמה זה עולה	Kama Zeh Oleh?
日本語	יפנית	yapanit	[jʌpon'ɪt]
はい	כן	ken	[kɛn]
いや/ダメ/～しない	לא	lo	[lo]
かんぱい	לחיים	le-chaim	[lɛ'xaim]
おはよう	בוקר טוב	Boker Tov
お休みなさい	לילה טוב	Lailah Tov
どうしたの？	?מה קורה	Ma Kore?
お元気ですか？	?מה נשמע	Ma Nishma?
良い	טוב	Tov
トイレはどこにありますか？	איפה השרותים?‏	Eifo ha-sherutim?
私は信じています	אני מאמין	āni maamīn
日本	יפן	Yapan
東京	טוקיו	Tokyo

脚注

参考文献

• キリスト聖書塾編集部編 『現代ヘブライ語辞典』 キリスト聖書塾 1984年（昭和59年）1月 ISBN 4-89606-103-9
• 橋本功著 『聖書の英語とヘブライ語法』 英潮社 1988年（昭和63年）10月 ISBN 4-268-00317-7

関連項目

• ヘブライ文字
• ヘブライ語のティベリア式発音
• アーメン
• ニクード
• タルムード
• シナゴーグ
• ハスカラ
• シオニズム
• エリエゼル・ベン・イェフダー
• ウルパン
• ウルパン・アキバ
• カバラ
• シャアル・ラマトヒール
• マイムマイム
• ヘブライ語アカデミー

外部リンク

• ヘブライ語アカデミー
• ヘブライ語ってどんな言葉？　株式会社ミルトスのページ
• ヘブライ語のページ
• ヘブライ語オンラインガイド
• Ethnologue report for language code heb （英語） - エスノローグ

wiki en

[Wiki en表示]

"Hebrew" redirects here. For other uses, see Hebrew (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Yiddish language.

Hebrew
עברית ivrit
Portion of the Temple Scroll, one of the longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran
Pronunciation	[(ʔ)ivˈʁit] - [(ʔ)ivˈɾit]
Native to	Israel, West Bank, Golan Heights; used globally as a liturgical language for Judaism
Extinct	Ancient Hebrew extinct by 400 CE, surviving as a liturgical language
Revival	4.4 million native speakers of Modern Hebrew in Israel (2012), over half a million outside Israel as L1 or L2 by all 8.2 million Israelis
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic Canaanite Hebrew
Early forms	Biblical Hebrew Mishnaic Hebrew Medieval Hebrew Hebrew
Standard forms	Modern Hebrew
Writing system	Hebrew alphabet Samaritan alphabet Paleo-Hebrew alphabet (historical)
Signed forms	Signed Hebrew (oral Hebrew accompanied by sign)
Official status
Official language in	Israel (as Modern Hebrew)
Recognised minority language in	Poland
Regulated by	Academy of the Hebrew Language האקדמיה ללשון העברית (HaAkademia LaLashon HaʿIvrit)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	he
ISO 639-2	heb
ISO 639-3	Variously: heb – Modern Hebrew hbo – Classical Hebrew (liturgical) smp – Samaritan Hebrew (liturgical) none – Ammonite (extinct) obm – Moabite (extinct) xdm – Edomite (extinct)
Glottolog	hebr1246
Linguasphere	12-AAB-a
The Hebrew-speaking world:   regions where Hebrew is the language of the majority (Israel)   regions where Hebrew is the language of a significant minority (West Bank and Golan Heights)

File:Simtat_Aluf_Batslut.JPG

Hebrew street sign, above in Hebrew alphabet, below in Latin transliteration. Aluf Batslut veAluf Shum^(he) ("The Knight of Onions and the Knight of Garlic") is a story by Hayim Nahman Bialik.

Hebrew (/ˈhiːbruː/; עברית ʿivrit [ʔivˈʁit] or [ʕivˈɾit]) is a West Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, although the language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Tanakh. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Today, Hebrew is spoken by a total of 9 million people worldwide.

Hebrew had ceased to be an everyday spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and immigrants. It survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. The United States has the second largest Hebrew speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, mostly from Israel.

Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of Israel (the other being Modern Standard Arabic), while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the liturgical tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. As a foreign language, it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel, and by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations, as well as by theologians in Christian seminaries.

The Torah (the first five books), and most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form specifically in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, around the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh (לשון הקדש), "the Holy Language", since ancient times.

Etymology

The modern word "Hebrew" is derived from the word "Ibri" (plural "Ibrim"), one of several names for the Israelite (Jewish and Samaritan) people. It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham's ancestor, Eber ("Ebr" עבר in Hebrew), mentioned in Genesis 10:21. This name is possibly based upon the root "ʕ-b-r" (עבר) meaning "to cross over". Interpretations of the term "ʕibrim" link it to this verb; cross over and homiletical or the people who crossed over the river Euphrates.

In the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit (יהודית) because Judah (Yәhuda) was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation (late 8th century BCE (Is 36, 2 Kings 18)). In Isaiah 19:18 it is called the "Language of Canaan" (שפת כנען).

History

Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages.

According to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE.Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile, when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic.

Hebrew was nearly extinct as a spoken language by Late Antiquity, but it continued to be used as a literary language and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew, until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century.

Oldest Hebrew inscriptions

In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was “proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that, "The differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear,” and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far.

The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon. Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks and Etruscans later became the Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it.

The Shebna Inscription, from the tomb of a royal steward found in Siloam, dates to the 7th century BCE.

Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Protosinaitic. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs, though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam Inscription, found near Jerusalem, is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include the ostraca found near Lachish which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE.

Biblical Hebrew

Main article: Biblical Hebrew

In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew means the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between the 10th century BCE and the turn of the 4th century CE. It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them.

• Archaic Biblical Hebrew from the 10th to the 6th century BCE, corresponding to the Monarchic Period until the Babylonian Exile and represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible (Tanach), notably the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). Also called Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew. It was written in a form of the Canaanite script. (A script descended from this is still used by the Samaritans, see Samaritan Hebrew language.)

Hebrew script used in writing a Torah scroll. Note ornamental "crowns" on tops of certain letters.

• Standard Biblical Hebrew around the 8th to 6th centuries BCE, corresponding to the late Monarchic period and the Babylonian Exile. It is represented by the bulk of the Hebrew Bible that attains much of its present form around this time. Also called Biblical Hebrew, Early Biblical Hebrew, Classical Biblical Hebrew (or Classical Hebrew in the narrowest sense).
• Late Biblical Hebrew, from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BCE, that corresponds to the Persian Period and is represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible, notably the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. 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 (from which the modern Hebrew script descends).
• Israelian Hebrew is a proposed northern dialect of biblical Hebrew, attested in all eras of the language, in some cases competing with late biblical Hebrew as an explanation for non-standard linguistic features of biblical texts.
• Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, corresponding to the Hellenistic and Roman Periods before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the Qumran Scrolls that form most (but not all) of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Commonly abbreviated as DSS Hebrew, also called Qumran Hebrew. The Imperial Aramaic script of the earlier scrolls in the 3rd century BCE evolved into the Hebrew square script of the later scrolls in the 1st century CE, also known as ketav Ashuri (Assyrian script), still in use today.
• Mishnaic Hebrew from the 1st to the 3rd or 4th century CE, corresponding to the Roman Period after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the bulk of the Mishnah and Tosefta within the Talmud and by the Dead Sea Scrolls, notably the Bar Kokhba letters and the Copper Scroll. Also called Tannaitic Hebrew or Early Rabbinic Hebrew.

Sometimes the above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th 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). 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. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceases as a regularly 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.

Aramaic displaces Hebrew as a spoken language

Rashi script

A silver matchbox holder with inscription in Hebrew

See also: Aramaic language

Around the 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah, destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the East in Babylon. During the Babylonian captivity, many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic.

After Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. As a result, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian, Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek, but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as a vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee, Pharisee, Scribe, Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts.

While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in the Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek, scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Geiger and Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic Period in the 4th century BCE, and that as a corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Segal, Klausner, and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946-1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic.

The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to the average Israelite, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicates a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman Period, or about 200 CE. It continued on as a literary language down through the Byzantine Period from the 4th century CE.

The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins, and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with the rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. According to another summary, Greek was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Spolsky, by the beginning of the Common Era, "Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in the southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among the upper class of Jerusalem, while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north.

The Christian New Testament contains some clearly Aramaic place names and quotes. Although the language of such Semitic glosses (and in general the language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is usually referred to as "Hebrew"/"Jewish" in the text, this term often seems to refer to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, many glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well; and it has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of the Gospel of Matthew. (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.)

Mishnah and Talmud

Main article: Mishnaic Hebrew

The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which was a spoken language, and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language. The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and was written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of the dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim (Sifra, Sifre, Mechilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta. The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere; the generic term for these passages is Baraitot. The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew.

About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. The later section of the Talmud, the Gemara, generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which sometimes occurs in the text of the Gemara.

Because as early as the Torah's transcription the Scribe has been the highest position in Judaism, Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as a spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Judeans adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms.

Medieval Hebrew

Main article: Medieval Hebrew

Aleppo Codex: 10th century Hebrew Bible with Masoretic pointing (Joshua 1:1).

Kochangadi Synagogue in Cochin, India dated to 1344.

After the Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the remarkable scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet, precursor to the Arabic alphabet, also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex, a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives to this day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence.

During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic. Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj, Jonah ibn Janah, Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence) David Kimhi. 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 or strophic meters. 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. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic.) Another important influence was Maimonides, who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah. Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and the Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud.

Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been, of course, many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. 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 converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote the Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish, as a guide to Halacha for the "average 17-year old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, the Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan’s purpose in writing the Mishna Berurah was to “produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute”. The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, “the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of a century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble.”

Revival

Main article: Revival of the Hebrew language

Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, owing to the ideology of the national revival (Shivat Tziyon [(שיבת ציון)], later Zionism), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. 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. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic, and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian, Persian, and Arabic.

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 older Aramaic and Latin. 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. Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today.

In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew, Modern Israeli Hebrew, Modern Hebrew, New Hebrew, Israeli Standard Hebrew, Standard Hebrew, and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some 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.

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

The literary and narrative use of Hebrew was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Hameassef (The Gatherer), was published by Maskilim literati in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. HaMagid, founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky; there were also novels written in the language.

The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora "shtetl" lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making the literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language. However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into a gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904-1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with a truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology, was to take its place among the current languages of the nations.

While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of the British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language. The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary (The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew). The seeds of 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 Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar, refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish.

In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities, was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes). 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. 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, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in the 1980s in the USSR, Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel (refuseniks). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun, Ephraim Kholmyansky, Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR.

Modern Hebrew

Main article: Modern Hebrew

Hebrew, Arabic and English multilingual signs on an Israeli highway

Dual language Hebrew and English keyboard

Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However, the earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often brought into Hebrew idioms and calques from Yiddish.

The pronunciation of modern Israeli Hebrew is based mostly on the Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation. However, the language has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following:

• the elimination of pharyngeal articulation in the letters chet (ח) and ayin ( ע) by many speakers.
• the conversion of (ר) /r/ from an alveolar flap [ɾ] to a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] or uvular trill [ʀ], by most of the speakers, like in most varieties of standard German or Yiddish. see Guttural R
• the pronunciation (by many speakers) of tzere ֵ as [eɪ] in some contexts (sifréj and téjša instead of Sephardic sifré and tésha)
• the partial elimination of vocal Shva ְ (zmán instead of Sephardic zĕman)
• in popular speech, penultimate stress in proper names (Dvóra instead of Dĕvorá; Jehúda instead of Yĕhudá) and some other words
• similarly in popular speech, penultimate stress in verb forms with a second person plural suffix (katávtem "you wrote" instead of kĕtavtém).

The vocabulary used within the Hebrew language has been altered from its original form due to its reintroduction to various cultures of organic life throughout time. The mouth to ear pedagogical method used in transmitting Hebrew to generations of children has undergone Europeanization in each attempt resulting in the radically unique and unpredictable course that maintains its current form under the classification of Modern Hebrew. This "course that Modern Hebrew has embarked upon is the sure sign that Hebrew has been reborn."

In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government owned as well as private Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs.

Current status

Academy of the Hebrew Language

Modern Hebrew is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013, there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently.

Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% prefer speaking Hebrew over Arabic. However, Hebrew is the native language of only 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian, Arabic, French, English, Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of Russian immigrants and 12% of Arabs speak Hebrew poorly or not at all.

Due to the current climate of globalization and Americanization, steps have been taken to keep Hebrew the primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson, stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige", and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew is also an official national minority language in Poland, since 6 January 2005.

Phonology

Further information: Biblical Hebrew § Phonology and Modern Hebrew phonology

Biblical Hebrew had a typical Semitic consonant inventory, with pharyngeal /ʕ ħ/, a series of "emphatic" consonants (possibly ejective, but this is debated), lateral fricative /ɬ/, and in its older stages also uvular /χ ʁ/. /χ ʁ/ merged into /ħ ʕ/ in later Biblical Hebrew, and /b ɡ d k p t/ underwent allophonic spirantization to [v ɣ ð x f θ] (known as begadkefat). The earliest Biblical Hebrew vowel system contained the Proto-Semitic vowels /a aː i iː u uː/ as well as /oː/, but this system changed dramatically over time.

By the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, /ɬ/ had shifted to /s/ in the Jewish traditions, though for the Samaritans it merged with /ʃ/ instead. (Elisha Qimron 1986. Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 29). The Tiberian reading tradition of the Middle Ages had the vowel system /a ɛ e i ɔ o u ă ɔ̆ ɛ̆/, though other Medieval reading traditions had fewer vowels.

A number of reading traditions have been preserved in liturgical use. In Oriental (Sephardi and Mizrahi) Jewish reading traditions, the emphatic consonants are realized as pharyngealized, while the Ashkenazi (northern and eastern European) traditions have lost emphatics and pharyngeals, and show the shift of /w/ to /v/. The Samaritan tradition has a complex vowel system which does not correspond closely to the Tiberian systems.

Modern Hebrew pronunciation developed from a mixture of the different Jewish reading traditions, generally tending towards simplification. Emphatic consonants have shifted to their ordinary counterparts, /w/ to /v/, and [ɣ ð θ] are not present. Many Israelis merge /ʕ ħ/ with /ʔ χ/, do not have contrastive gemination, and pronounce /r/ as a uvular trill [ʀ] rather than an alveolar trill, as in many varieties of Ashkenazi Hebrew. The consonants /tʃ dʒ/ have become phonemic due to loan words, and /w/ has similarly been re-introduced.

Hebrew grammar

Main articles: Hebrew grammar and Modern Hebrew grammar

Hebrew grammar is partly analytic, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than grammatical cases. However, inflection plays a decisive role in the formation of the verbs and nouns. E.g. nouns have a construct state, called "smikhut", to denote the relationship of "belonging to": this is the converse of the genitive case of more inflected languages. Words in smikhut are often combined with hyphens. In modern speech, the use of the construct is sometimes interchangeable with the preposition "shel", meaning "of". There are many cases, however, where older declined forms are retained (especially in idiomatic expressions and the like), and "person"-enclitics are widely used to "decline" prepositions.

Morphology

Like all Semitic languages, the Hebrew language exhibits a pattern of stems consisting typically of "triliteral", or 3-consonant consonantal roots (4-consonant roots also exist), from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed in various ways: e.g. by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, lengthening vowels, and/or adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes.

Hebrew uses a number of one-letter prefixes that are added to words for various purposes. These are called inseparable prepositions or "Letters of Use" (Hebrew: אותיות השימוש, Otiyot HaShimush). Such items include: the definite article ha- (/ha/) (="the"); prepositions be- (/bə/) (="in"), le- (/lə/) (="to"; a shortened version of the preposition el), mi- (/mi/) (="from"; a shortened version of the preposition min); conjunctions ve- (/və/) (="and"), she- (/ʃe/) (="that"; a shortened version of the Biblical conjunction asher), ke- (/kə/) (="as", "like"; a shortened version of the conjunction kmo).

The vowel accompanying each of these letters may differ from those listed above, depending on the first letter or vowel following it. The rules governing these changes, hardly observed in colloquial speech as most speakers tend to employ the regular form, may be heard in more formal circumstances. For example, 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 may be weakened): colloquial be-kfar (="in a village") corresponds to the more formal bi-khfar.

The definite article may be inserted between a preposition or a conjunction and the word it refers to, creating composite words like mé-ha-kfar (="from the village"). The latter also demonstrates the change in the vowel of mi-. With be and le, the definite article is assimilated into the prefix, which then becomes ba or la. Thus *be-ha-matos becomes ba-matos (="in the plane"). Note that this does not happen to mé (the form of "min" or "mi-" used before the letter "he"), therefore mé-ha-matos is a valid form, which means "from the airplane".

* indicates that the given example is grammatically non-standard.

Syntax

Like most other languages, the vocabulary of the Hebrew language is divided into verbs, nouns, adjectives, and so on, and its sentence structure can be analyzed by terms like object, subject, and so on. However, speakers of languages such as English, French, Urdu or Persian may find the structure of Hebrew sentences quite surprising.

• Many Hebrew sentences have several correct orders of words. One can change the order of the words in the sentence and keep the same meaning. For example, the sentence "Dad went working", in Hebrew, includes a word for Dad (אבא aba), for went (הלך halaḵ), and for working (to the working place = לעבודה la-ʿavoda). However, unlike in English, you can put those three words almost in any combination (אבא הלך לעבודה/ לעבודה אבא הלך/ לעבודה הלך אבא/ הלך אבא לעבודה and so on).
• In Hebrew, there is no word that is supposed to come before every singular noun (i.e. an article).
• Hebrew sentences do not have to include verbs; the copula in the present tense is omitted (although might be implied). For example, the sentence "I am here" (אני פה ani po) has only two words; one for I (אני) and one for here (פה). In the sentence "I am that person" (אני הוא אדם זה ani hu adam ze), the word for "am" corresponds to the word for "he" (הוא). However, this may also be omitted. Thus, the sentence (אני אדם זה) is identical in meaning.
• Unlike the verb "to have" in English, none of the possession terms in Hebrew is a verb.
• Though early Biblical Hebrew had a verb-subject-object ordering, this gradually transitioned to a subject-verb-object ordering.
• All direct objects have to be marked with a preposition in Hebrew, and there is a specific preposition (את et) for direct objects that would not have a preposition marker in English. The English phrase "he ate the cake" would in Hebrew be הוא אכל את העוגה hu akhal et ha'ugah (literally, "He ate את the cake").

Writing system

Main articles: Hebrew alphabet and Hebrew braille

Hebrew alphabet

Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet, which is an abjad, or consonant-only script of 22 letters. The ancient paleo-Hebrew alphabet is similar to those used for Canaanite and Phoenician. Modern scripts are based on the "square" letter form, known as Ashurit (Assyrian), which was developed from the Aramaic script. A cursive Hebrew script is used in handwriting: the letters tend to be more circular in form when written in cursive, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents. The medieval version of the cursive script forms the basis of another style, known as Rashi script. When necessary, vowels are indicated by diacritic marks above or below the letter representing the syllabic onset, or by use of matres lectionis, which are consonantal letters used as vowels. Further diacritics are used to indicate variations in the pronunciation of the consonants (e.g. bet/vet, shin/sin); and, in some contexts, to indicate the punctuation, accentuation, and musical rendition of Biblical texts (see Cantillation).

Liturgical use in Judaism

Hebrew has always been used as the language of prayer and study, and the following pronunciation systems are found.

Ashkenazi Hebrew, originating in Central and Eastern Europe, is still widely used in Ashkenazi Jewish religious services and studies in Israel and abroad, particularly in the Haredi and other Orthodox communities. It was influenced by the Yiddish language.

Sephardi Hebrew is the traditional pronunciation of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews and Sephardi Jews in the countries of the former Ottoman Empire, with the exception of Yemenite Hebrew. 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 Judezmo language.

Mizrahi (Oriental) Hebrew is actually a collection of dialects spoken liturgically by Jews in various parts of the Arab and Islamic world. It was possibly influenced by the Aramaic and Arabic languages, and in some cases by Sephardi Hebrew, although some linguists maintain that it is the direct heir of Biblical Hebrew and thus represents the true dialect of Hebrew. The same claim is sometimes made for Yemenite Hebrew or Temanit, which differs from other Mizrahi dialects by having a radically different vowel system, and distinguishing between different diacritically marked consonants that are pronounced identically in other dialects (for example gimel and "ghimel".)

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.

See also

• Biblical Hebrew phonology
• Cantillation
• Cursive Hebrew
• Hebraization of English
• Hebrew acronyms
• Hebrew alphabet
• Hebrew literature
• Jewish languages
• Modern Hebrew phonology
• Revival of the Hebrew language
• Romanization of Hebrew
• Study of the Hebrew language
• Yemenite Hebrew

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Hoffman, Joel M. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York: NYU Press. ISBN 0-8147-3654-8. 
• Izre'el, Shlomo (2001). Benjamin Hary, ed. "The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew". (CoSIH): Working Papers I. 
• Klein, Reuven Chaim (2014). "Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew". Mosaica Press. ISBN 978-1937887360. 
• Kuzar, Ron (2001). Hebrew and Zionism: A Discourse Analytic Cultural Study. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016993-2. 
• Laufer, Asher (1999). Hebrew Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-65236-7. 
• Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993). A History of the Hebrew Language. Translated by John Elwolde. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55634-1. 

External links

General

• History of the Ancient and Modern Hebrew Language by David Steinberg
• Short History of the Hebrew Language by Chaim Menachem Rabin

Courses, tutorials, dictionaries

• Fully Transliterated Modern Hebrew Course (with listing of verb roots and derived verbs)
• Modern Hebrew for Beginners at the University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts
• Morfix online dictionary
• USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Hebrew basic course
• Hebrew language, alphabet and pronunciation

Miscellaneous

• Early Hebrew Newspapers, thousands of pages of mid- to late-19th-century and early 20th-century Hebrew newspapers.
• Categorized Hebrew language study resources
• Biblical Hebrew Poetry and Word Play – Reconstructing the Original Oral, Aural and Visual Experience
• Hebrew Pronunciation, Rabbi Gil Student about how Hebrew should be pronounced in prayer, in accordance with Halakha and Poskim
• Hebrew fonts
• Jewish Story Writing Resource for Jewish writers.
• Hebrew language at DMOZ
• Hebrew Phrases with Audio

English Journal

• The processing of polar quantifiers, and numerosity perception.

• Deschamps I1, Agmon G2, Loewenstein Y3, Grodzinsky Y4.
• Cognition.Cognition.2015 Oct;143:115-28. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.06.006. Epub 2015 Jul 2.
• We investigated the course of language processing in the context of a verification task that required numerical estimation and comparison. Participants listened to sentences with complex quantifiers that contrasted in Polarity, a logical property (e.g., more-than-half, less-than-half), and then perf
• PMID 26142825

• FHL2 switches MITF from activator to repressor of Erbin expression during cardiac hypertrophy.

• Rachmin I1, Amsalem E1, Golomb E2, Beeri R3, Gilon D3, Fang P4, Nechushtan H5, Kay G1, Guo M4, Yiqing PL6, Foo RS7, Fisher DE8, Razin E9, Tshori S10.
• International journal of cardiology.Int J Cardiol.2015 Sep 15;195:85-94. doi: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2015.05.108. Epub 2015 May 20.
• BACKGROUND: Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a significant health care burden in developed countries. However, the molecular events leading from cardiac hypertrophy to CHF are unclear and preventive therapeutic approaches are limited. We have previously described that microphthalmia-associated tran
• PMID 26025865

• Organellar maturases: A window into the evolution of the spliceosome.

• Schmitz-Linneweber C1, Lampe MK2, Sultan LD3, Ostersetzer-Biran O4.
• Biochimica et biophysica acta.Biochim Biophys Acta.2015 Sep;1847(9):798-808. doi: 10.1016/j.bbabio.2015.01.009. Epub 2015 Jan 24.
• During the evolution of eukaryotic genomes, many genes have been interrupted by intervening sequences (introns) that must be removed post-transcriptionally from RNA precursors to form mRNAs ready for translation. The origin of nuclear introns is still under debate, but one hypothesis is that the spl
• PMID 25626174

• Plastid intramembrane proteolysis.

• Adam Z1.
• Biochimica et biophysica acta.Biochim Biophys Acta.2015 Sep;1847(9):910-4. doi: 10.1016/j.bbabio.2014.12.006. Epub 2014 Dec 18.
• Progress in the field of regulated intramembrane proteolysis (RIP) in recent years has not surpassed plant biology. Nevertheless, reports on RIP in plants, and especially in chloroplasts, are still scarce. Of the four different families of intramembrane proteases, only two have been linked to chloro
• PMID 25528366

Japanese Journal

• ヘブライ語聖書における災害・苦難 : 新共同訳聖書の訳語「災害」「災い」「災難」「苦難」をめぐって

• 日原 広志
• 西南学院大学神学論集 71(1), 1-42, 2014-03
• NAID 40020019991

• THE Sp[n] × Sp[n]-PERIOD OF A PSEUDO-EISENSTEIN SERIES ON Sp₂n (保型表現とその周辺 : RIMS研究集会報告集)

• LAPID EREZ,OFFEN OMER
• 数理解析研究所講究録 1871, 75-81, 2013-12
• NAID 110009669732

• WHITTAKER-FOURIER COEFFICIENTS OF CUSPIDAL REPRESENTATIONS ON CLASSICAL GROUPS (Automorphic Representations and Related Topics)

• LAPID EREZ,MAO ZHENGYU
• 数理解析研究所講究録 1871, 82-83, 2013-12
• NAID 110009669729

• Recent experimental results show the irreversible binding of antifreeze proteins to ice surfaces(Papers presented at the Seminar, "NIAS International Seminar for Cryobiology and Cryotechnology")

• CELIK Yeliz,DRORI Ran,PERTAYA-BRAUN Natalya [他],BAR-DOLEV Maya,DAVIES Peter L.,BRASLAVSKY Ido
• 低温生物工学会誌 59(1), 15-21, 2013-04-15
• Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) are a subset of ice-binding proteins that evolved to arrest ice crystal growth and also inhibit the recrystallization of ice. An accepted theory for their activity, named th …
• NAID 110009612762

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