Hebrew language
Hebrew (עִבְרִית or עברית,
‘Ivrit) is a
Semitic language of the
Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in
Israel and
Jewish communities around the world. In Israel, it is the
de facto language of the state and the people, as well as being one of the two official languages (together with
Arabic), and is spoken by an overwhelming majority of the population.
The core of the
Tanakh (the
Hebrew Bible) is written in
Classical Hebrew, and much of its present form is specifically in the dialect of
Biblical Hebrew that scholars believe flourished around the
6th century BCE, near the
Babylonian exile. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by
Jews as
Lĕshôn Ha-Kôdesh (), "the Sacred Language," since ancient times.
Most linguists agree that after the 6th century BCE when the
Neo-Babylonian Empire destroyed
Jerusalem and exiled its population to Babylon and the
Persian Empire allowed them to return, the Biblical Hebrew dialect prevalent in the Bible came to be replaced in daily use by new dialects of Hebrew and a local version of
Aramaic. After the
2nd century CE when the
Roman Empire exiled the Jewish population of Jerusalem and parts of the
Bar Kokhba State, Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language, but remained a major
literary language. Letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, and laws were written in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms.
Hebrew, long extinct outside of Jewish liturgical purposes, was revived at the end of the
19th century by the
Jewish
linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, owing to the ideology of
Zionism. Eventually it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time, such as
Ladino (also called Judezmo),
Yiddish,
Russian, and other languages of the
Jewish diaspora.
Because of its large disuse for centuries, Hebrew lacked many modern words. Several were adapted as
neologisms from the Hebrew Bible or borrowed from other languages by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of the newly declared
State of Israel.
As a nationality
Hebrew refers to the ancient
Israelites, but as a language Hebrew refers to one of several dialects of the
Canaanite language. Hebrew (Israel) and
Moabite (Jordan) can be called Southern Canaanite dialects while
Phoenician (Lebanon) can be called a Northern Canaanite dialect. Canaanite is closely related to
Aramaic and to a lesser extent South-Central
Arabic. Whereas other Canaanite dialects have become extinct, Hebrew survived. Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in Israel from the 10th century BCE until just before the Byzantine Period in the 3rd or 4th century CE. (See below,
Aramaic displacing Hebrew as a spoken language.) Afterward Hebrew continued as a literary language until the Modern Era when it revived as a spoken language in the 19th century.
Origins of Hebrew
Hebrew is an Afro-Asiatic language. This language family is generally thought by linguists to have originated somewhere in northeastern
Africa, and began to diverge around the
8th millennium BCE, although there is much debate about the exact date and place. One branch of this family,
Semitic, eventually reached the
Middle East; it gradually differentiated into a variety of related languages.
By the end of the
3rd millennium BCE the ancestral
Aramaic,
Ugaritic and
Canaanite languages were spoken in the
Levant alongside the influential dialects of
Ebla and
Akkad. As the Hebrew founders from northern
Haran filtered south into and came under the influence of the Levant, like many immigrants into Canaan including the
Philistines, they adopted Canaanite dialects.
Hebrew as a distinct Canaanite dialect
The first written evidence of distinctive Hebrew, the
Gezer calendar, dates back to the
10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, the traditional time of the reign of
David and
Solomon. Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The
Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the
Phoenician one that through the
Greeks and
Etruscans later became the
Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use
consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it.
 |
The Shebna lintel, from the tomb of a royal steward found in Siloam, dates to the 7th century BCE. |
Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example
Protosinaitic. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian writing, though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the
acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called
Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous
Moabite Stone written in the Moabite dialect; the
Siloam Inscription, found near
Jerusalem, is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include the
ostraka found near
Lachish which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of
586 BCE.
Classical Hebrew
In its widest sense,
Classical Hebrew means the spoken language of the ancient land of Israel flourishing between the 10th century BCE and the turn of the 4th century CE. [
1] 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 (
Tanakh), notably the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). Also called Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew. Historically, it used a form of the
Canaanite script.
*
Biblical Hebrew around the 6th century, corresponding to the Babylonian Exile and represented by the bulk of the Hebrew Bible that attains much of its present form around this time, give-or-take. Also called Classical Biblical Hebrew (or Classical Hebrew in the narrowest sense). It adopted the
Imperial Aramaic script.
*
Late Biblical Hebrew from the 6th to the 4th century BCE, that corresponds to the Persian Period and is represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible, notably the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
*
Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, corresponding to the Hellenistic and Roman Periods before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the Qumran Scrolls that form most (but not all) of the
Dead Sea Scrolls. Commonly abbreviated as DSS Hebrew, also called Qumran Hebrew. The Imperial Aramaic script of the earlier scrolls in the 3rd century BCE evolved into the
Hebrew square script of the later scrolls in the 1st century CE, still in use today.
*
Mishnaic Hebrew from the 1st to the 3rd or 4th century CE, corresponding to the Roman Period after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the bulk of the
Mishnah and
Tosefta within the
Talmud and by the Dead Sea Scrolls, notably the Bar Kokhba Letters and the
Copper Scroll. Also called Tannaitic Hebrew or Early Rabbinic Hebrew.
Sometimes the above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the tenth century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls).
[M. Segal, A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927).] However today, most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as a set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either.
[Elisha Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Harvard Semitic Studies 29 (Atlanta: Scholars Press 1986).] By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceases as a spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba War around 135 CE.
Amoraic Hebrew
The term
Rabbinic Hebrew generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the
Talmud, besides the quotes from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into
Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew or Early Rabbinic Hebrew), which was a
spoken language, and
Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew), which was a
literary language.
The earlier section of the Talmud is the
Mishnah that was published around 200 CE and was written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The Talmud also adds the
Tosefta being other texts from this dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered one of the dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel.
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 Tosefta in Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later
Amoraic Hebrew, which sometimes occurs in the text of the Gemara.
Medieval Hebrew
|
Aleppo Codex: 10th century Hebrew Bible with Masoretic pointing |
After the Talmud, various regional literary dialects of
Medieval Hebrew evolve. The most important is
Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that becomes the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus 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 add
vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The
Syriac script, whence the
Arabic script, also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The
Aleppo Codex, a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century likely in Tiberias and survives to this day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence.
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. The Hebrew was also used as a language of communication among Jews from different countries, particularly for the purpose of international trade.
Modern Hebrew
In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition as pronounced in Jerusalem revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously New Hebrew, Israeli Hebrew, Israeli Standard Hebrew, Modern Hebrew, and so on. New Hebrew exhibits many features of
Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms and borrows (often technical) terms from European languages and (often colloquial) terms from Arabic to function as a modern language.
The revival of Hebrew as a
mother tongue was initiated by the efforts of
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (
1858-
1922) (). He joined the
Jewish national movement and in
1881 immigrated to
Eretz Israel, then a part of the
Ottoman Empire. Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the
diaspora "
shtetl" lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making the
literary and
liturgical language into everyday
spoken language.
However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in
Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like
Achad Ha-Am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the
vernacularization activity into a gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904-1914 "
Second aliyah" that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the
British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with a truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in syntax and form, was to take its place among the current languages of the nations.
While many saw his work as fanciful or even
blasphemous[Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Resurgence of the Hebrew Language by Libby Kantorwitz] (due to the fact that Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss common everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of pre-State Israel 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. Later it became the
Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that exists today. The results of his and the Committee's work were published in a dictionary (
The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew). Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by the beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British pre-State Israel.
Hebrew language in the USSR
The Soviet authorities considered Hebrew a "reactionary language" since it was associated with both
Judaism and
Zionism, and it was officially banned by the
Narkompros (Commissariat of Education) as early as
1919. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries. Despite numerous protests in the West
[Protest against the suppression of Hebrew in the Soviet Union 1930-1931 signed by Albert Einstein, among others], teachers and students who attempted to study Hebrew language were pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" and later for "anti-Soviet" activities.
According to Ethnologue, dialects of Hebrew include Standard Hebrew (General Israeli), Oriental Hebrew (Iraqi Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew), Sephardi Hebrew (Spanish-orientated Hebrew) and Ashkenazi Hebrew.
Ashkenazi Hebrew is still widely used in Ashkenazi Jewish religious services and studies in Israel and abroad, particulary in the
Haredi community. It was influenced by the
Yiddish language.
Sephardi Hebrew is the basis of Standard Hebrew and not all that different from it, although traditionally it has had a greater range of
phonemes. It was influenced by the
Ladino language.
Mizrahi (Oriental) Hebrew is actually a collection of dialects (including
Yemenite or Temanit) spoken liturgically by Jews in various parts of the
Arab and
Islamic world. It was possibly influenced by the
Aramaic language, although some linguists maintain that it is the direct heir of
Biblical Hebrew, and thus represents the true dialect of Hebrew.
Nearly every immigrant to Israel is 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/ pronunciations of unaspirated and aspirated ת into the single phoneme /t/. Most Sephardic and Mizrahi dialects share this feature, though some (such as those of Iraq and Yemen) differentiate between these two pronunciations as /t/ and /θ/. Within Israel, the pronunciation of "Standard Hebrew", however, more often reflects the diasporic origin of the individual speaker, rather than the specific recommendations of the
Academy. For this reason, over half the population pronounces ר as , (a uvular trill, as in Yiddish and some varieties of
German) or as (a uvular fricative, as in
French or many varieties of German), rather than as [r], an alveolar trill, as in
Spanish. The pronunciation of this phoneme is often used among Israelis as a
shibboleth, or determinant when ascertaining the national origin of perceived foreigners.
Aramaic is a North-West
Semitic language, like Canaanite. Its name derives either from "Aram Naharayim" in Upper Mesopotamia or from "Aram", an ancient name for Syria. Various dialects of Aramaic coevolved with Hebrew throughout much of its history.
Aramaic as the international language of the Mideast
The language of the
Neo-Babylonian Empire was a dialect of Aramaic. The
Persian Empire that captured Babylonia a few decades later adopted Imperial Aramaic as the official international language of the Persian Empire. The Israelite population, who had been exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem and its surrounding region of
Judah, were allowed to return to Jerusalem to estabilish a Persian province, usually called
Judea. Thus Aramaic became the administrative language for Judea when dealing with the rest of Persian Empire.
The Aramaic script also evolved from the Canaanite script, but they diverged significanlty. By the 1st century CE, the borrowed Aramaic script developed into the distinctive
Hebrew square script (also known as
Assyrian Script,
Ktav Ashuri), extant in the Dead Sea Scrolls and similar to the script still in use today.
Aramaic displacing Hebrew as a spoken language
By the early half of the 20th century, modern scholars reached a nearly unanimous opinion that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel by the start of Israel's
Hellenistic Period in the 4th century BCE, and thus Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. However, during the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the
Dead Sea Scrolls has qualified the previous consensus. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew also flourished as a living spoken language. Hebrew flourished until near the end of the
Roman Period, when it continued on as a literary language by the
Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE.
The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local
mother tongue, Aramaic functioned as the international language with the rest of the Mideast, and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. Communities of Jews (and non-Jews) are known, who immigrated to Judea from these other lands and continued to speak Aramaic or Greek.
Although the survival of Hebrew as a spoken language until the Byzantine Period is well-known among Hebrew linguists, there remains a lag in awareness among some historians who do not necessarily keep up-to-speed with linguistic research and rely on outdated scholarship. Nevertheless, the vigor of Hebrew is slowly but surely making its way through the academic literature.
The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls distinguishes the Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew from the various dialects of Biblical Hebrew it evolved out of, "This book presents the specific features of DSS Hebrew, emphasizing deviations from classical BH."
[ Elisha Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1986), p. 15.] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church that once said in 1958 in its first edition, Hebrew "ceased to be a spoken language around the fourth century BC", now says in 1997 in its third edition, Hebrew "continued to be used as a spoken and written language in the New Testament period".
[ "Hebrew" in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edit. F.L. Cross, first edition (Oxford, 1958), 3rd edition (Oxford 1997).] An Introductory Grammar of Rabbinic Hebrew says, "It is generally believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls, specifically the Copper Scroll and also the Bar Kokhba letters, have furnished clear evidence of the popular character of MH [Mishnaic Hebrew]."
[ Miguel Perez Fernandez, An Introductory Grammar of Rabbinic Hebrew (Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill 1997).] And so on.[
2] Israeli scholars now tend to take it for granted that Hebrew as a spoken language is a feature of Israel's Roman Period.
Jewish Dialects of Aramaic
The international language of Aramaic radiated into various regional dialects. In and around Israel, various dialects of
Old Western Aramaic emerged, including the Jewish dialect of
Old Judean Aramaic during the Roman Period. Josephus Flavius initially wrote and published his book
Jewish War in Old Judean Aramaic but later translated it into Koine Greek to publish it for the Roman imperial court. Unfortunately Josephus's Aramaic version does not survive.
Following the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in
70 CE, the Jews gradually began to disperse from Jerusalem to foreign countries, especially after the
Bar Kokhba War in 135 CE when the Romans turned Jerusalem into a pagan city named
Aelia Capitolina.
After the Bar Kokhba War in the 2nd century CE, the
Jewish Palestinian Aramaic dialect emerged from obscurity out of the vicinity of Galilee to form one of the main dialects in the
Western branch of Middle Aramaic. The
Jerusalem Talmud (by the 5th century) used this Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, as did the
Midrash Rabba (6th to 12th century). This dialect probably influenced the pronunciation of the 8th-century
Tiberian Hebrew that vocalizes the Hebrew Bible.
Meanwhile over in Babylon, the
Babylonian Talmud (by the 7th century) used
Jewish Middle Babylonian Aramaic, a Jewish dialect in the
Eastern branch of Middle Aramaic. For centuries Jewish Babylonian remained the spoken language of Mesopotamian Jews and the
Lishana Deni. In the area of
Kurdistan, there is a modern Aramaic dialect descending from it that is still spoken by a few thousand Jews (and non-Jews), though it has largely given way to Arabic.
Hebrew continues to strongly influence all these various
Jewish dialects of Aramaic.
See main article Jewish languagesBesides Jewish dialects of
Aramaic, other languages are highly influenced by Hebrew, such as
Yiddish,
Ladino,
Karaim and
Judeo-Arabic. Although none is completely derived from Hebrew, they all make extensive use of Hebrew
loanwords.
The revival of Hebrew is often cited by proponents of
International auxiliary languages as the best proof that languages long dead, with small communities, or modified or created artificially can become living languages used by a large number of people.
See main article Hebrew phonologyHebrew has two kinds of
stress: on the last syllable (
milra‘) and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last,
mil‘el). The former is more frequent. Specific rules connect the location of the stress with the length of the vowels in the last syllable. However, due to the fact that Modern Hebrew does not distinguish between long and short vowels, these rules are not evident in everyday speech. They usually cannot be inferred from written text either, since usually vowels are not marked. The rules that specify the
vowel length are different for verbs and nouns, which influences the stress; thus the
mil‘el-stressed
ókhel (="food") and
milra‘-stressed
okhèl (="eats", masculine) differ only in the length of the vowels (and are written identically if vowels are not marked). Little ambiguity exists, however, due to nouns and verbs having incompatible roles in normal sentences. This is, however, also true in English, in, for example, the English word "conduct," in its nominal and verbal forms.
Vowels
 |
The vowel phonemes of Modern Israeli Hebrew |
The Hebrew word for
vowels is
tnu'ot. The marks for these vowels are called
Niqqud. Modern Israeli Hebrew has 5 vowel
phonemes:
* /a/ (as in "spa") - The vowels qamats (ָ) and patah (ַ)
* /e/ (as in "set") - The vowels seggol (ֶ) and tsereh (ֵ)
* /i/ (as in "ski") - The vowel hiriq (ִ)
* /o/ (as in "horn") - The vowel holam (ֹ)
* /u/ (as in "flu") - The vowels shuruq (·) and qubbutz (ֻ)
In
Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (
hataf). However, there is no audible distinction between the three in modern Israeli Hebrew, except that
tsereh is often pronounced [eɪ] as in
Ashkenazi Hebrew.
Hebrew is written with a special vowel called "shva". Depending on its context in a word, it can be pronouned in two ways, called resting ("nach"), and moving ("na'"). The resting shva is silent, while the moving shva is pronounced /e/ (although traditionally, it was pronounced as a
schwa sound, or [ə]).
Hebrew also has
dagesh, a strengthening. There are two kinds of strengthenings: light (
qal, known also as
dagesh lene) and heavy (
hazaq or
dagesh forte). There are two sub-categories of the heavy dagesh: structural heavy (
hazaq tavniti) and complementing heavy (
hazaq mashlim). The light affects the phonemes /b/ /k/ /p/ in the beginning of a word, or after a resting schwa. Structural heavy emphases belong to certain vowel patterns (
mishkalim and
binyanim; see the section on grammar below), and correspond originally to doubled consonants. Complementing strengthening is added when
vowel assimilation takes place. As mentioned before, the emphasis influences which of a pair of (former)
allophones is pronounced. Historical evidence indicates that /g/, /d/ and /t/ used to have strengthened versions of their own, however they had disappeared from virtually all the spoken dialects of Hebrew. All other consonants except
gutturals may receive the heavy emphasis, as well.
One-letter articles are always attached to the following word. Such words include: the definite
article ha (="the");
prepositions
be (="in"),
me (="from"),
le (="to");
conjunctions
she (="that"),
ke (="as", "like"),
ve (="and"). The vowel that follows the letter thus attached depends in general on the beginning of the next word and the presence of a definite article which may be swallowed by the one-letter word.
The rules for the prepositions are complicated and vary with the formality of speech. In most cases they are followed by a moving schwa, and for that reason they are pronounced as
be,
me and
le. In more formal speech, if a preposition is put before a word which begins with a moving schwa, then the preposition takes the vowel /i/ (and the initial consonant is weakened), but in colloquial speech these changes do not occur. For example, colloquial
be-kfar (="in a village") becomes
bi-khfar. If
l or
b are followed by the definite article
ha, their vowel changes to /a/. Thus
be-ha-matos becomes
ba-matos (="in the plane"). However it does not happen to
m, therefore
me-ha-matos is a valid form, which means "from the plane".
* indicates that the given example is not grammatically correctConsonants
The Hebrew word for consonants is
‘itsurim (עיצורים).
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Post-
alveolar [Postalveolar sounds (with the exception of ) are not native to Hebrew, and only found in borrowings.] | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal |
|---|
| Stops | [The pairs (), written respectively by the letters bet (ב), kaf (כ) and pe (פ) have historically been allophonic. In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds ( merging with , merging with , merging with ), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial through foreign borrowings.] | | | | colspan="2" | | | colspan="2" | |
| Fricatives | | | | | | | | | |
| Affricates | colspan="2" | | | | colspan="2" |
| Nasals | | colspan="2" | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | colspan="2" | colspan="2" |- align=center | Laterals | colspan="2" | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | colspan="2" | colspan="2" |- align=center | Approximants | colspan="2" | colspan="2" | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | colspan="2" |}
ע was once pronounced as a voiced pharyngeal fricative. Most modern Ashkenazi Jews ignore this and do not differentiate between א and ע; however, Mizrahi Jews and Arabs pronounce these phonemes. Georgian Jews pronounce it as a glottalized g. Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it (like ng in sing) " a pronunciation which can also be found in the Italki tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany.Historical sound changesStandard (non-Oriental) Israeli Hebrew (SIH) has undergone a number of splits and mergers in its development from Biblical Hebrew [Robert Hetzron. (1987). Hebrew. In The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, 686"704. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-520521-9.].
* BH had two allophones, and ; the allophone has merged with into SIH
* BH had two allophones, and ; the allophone has merged with into SIH , while the allophone has merged with into SIH
* BH and have merged into SIH
* BH and have usually merged into SIH , but this distinction may also be upheld in educated speech of many Sephardim and some Ashkenazim
* BH had two allophones, and ; the incorporation of loanwords into Modern Hebrew has probably resulted in a split, so that and are separate phonemes.''See main article Hebrew grammar
Hebrew grammar is mostly analytical, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than grammatical cases. However inflection does play an important role in the formation of the verbs, nouns and the genitive construct, which is called "smikhut". Words in smikhut are often combined with hyphens.Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet. Modern scripts are based on the "square" letter form. A similar system is used in handwriting, but the letters tend to be more circular in their character, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents. Biblical Hebrew text contains nothing but consonants and spaces, and most modern Hebrew texts contain only consonants, spaces and western-style punctuation. A pointing system (nikud, from the root word meaning "points" or "dots") developed around the 5th Century C.E. is used to indicate vowels and syllabic stresses in some religious books, and is almost always found in modern poetry, children's literature, and texts for beginning students of Hebrew. The system is also used sparingly 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.
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 pronunciaton being very often determined by context. In fully pointed texts, the hard form normally has a dot, known as a dagesh, in its center.
The letters hei, vav and yud can represent consonantal sounds (/h/, /v/ and /i/, respectively) or serve as a markers for vowels. In the latter case, these letters are called "emot qria" ("matres lectionis" in Latin, "mothers of reading" in English). The letter hei at the end of a word usually indicates a final /a/, which in turn is usually indicative of feminine gender. Vav may represent /o/ or /u/, and yod may represent /i/. Sometimes a double yud is used for /ej/. In some modern Israeli texts, the letter alef is used to indicate long /a/ sounds in foreign names, particularly those of Arabic origin.
Terminal syllabic emphasis is most common, penultimate emphasis being the only other official option. Fully pointed texts will note variations with a vertical line placed underneath the first consonant of the emphasized syllable, to the left of the vowel mark if there is one. Spoken Hebrew admits of more stress variation than the official dialect.RomanizationSee also Romanization of Hebrew
The Hebrew language is normally written in the Hebrew alphabet. Due to publishing difficulties, and the unfamiliarity of many readers with the alphabet, there are many ways of transcribing Hebrew into Roman letters. The most accepted method is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is used (in a simplified ASCII form) in the section concerned with phonology, to describe the sounds of the Hebrew language. However, the IPA is not well known, and is often considered cumbersome for transcribing pronunciations for a general audience. Therefore this article uses a different system to express Hebrew pronunciation, and at least some orthographic peculiarities. The system comes down to the following:
* The letter tzadi (צ) is transcribed as "s," although "ts" or "tz" is usually acceptable.
* The letter 'ayin (ע) is transcribed as ', the same as alef. In word-final position, this phoneme is always preceded by the vowel /a/.
* The letter shin (ש) is transcribed as "sh", and the letter sin as "s".
* Both the letter tav (ת) and the letter tet (ט) are transcribed as "t".
* The letter hey (") at the end of a word, in those cases where it marks feminine gender, is transcribed as "h" (it is read /a/).
* The letter chet (ח) is usually transcribed by "ch". "h" is occasionally used but often avoided as "h" is also used for hey (").
* The letter qof (ק) is transcribed by "q" (pronounced /k/).
* The letter yod (י) is usually transcribed as "y".
* Single-letter prepositions and the definite article are separated with a dash (-) from their subject.
* Stresses and schwas are not marked.
* The vowels are always written.*Cantillation
*Common phrases in Hebrew
*Hebrew alphabet
*Hebrew literature
*Niqqud (vowel pointing)
*Study of the Hebrew language
*Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew)* Hoffman, Joel M, In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York: NYU Press. ISBN 0814736548.
*Izre'el, Shlomo, "The emergence of Spoken Israeli Hebrew", in: Benjamin Hary (ed.), The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH): Working Papers I (2001) [3]
*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 0521556341
*Laufer, Asher. "Hebrew", in: Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press 1999. ISBN 0-521-65236-7, ISBN 0-521-63751-1.*Ethnologue report for Hebrew
*Academy of Hebrew Language, see Academy of the Hebrew Language
*History of the Hebrew Language
**History of the Hebrew Language, David Steinberg
**Short History of the Hebrew Language, Chaim Rabin
**Israeli Hebrew, David Tene
**Israel Language Policy and Linguistics, Haiim B. Rosén
**Words and their History, E. Y. Kutscher
**Hebrew Slang and Foreign Loan Words, Raphael Sappan
*Grammar
**Online Hebrew Tutorial (foundationstone)
**Hebrew is easy (babel-site)
**Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar
**Learn Hebrew Verbs
*General
**Learning Hebrew - Links, Young Israel
**Hebrew alphabeths with numeral values and literal- and symbolic meanings
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