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Hebrew language

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   Hebrew
   עברית‎ ‘Ivrit
   Pronunciation: IPA: [ʔivˈʁit] (standard Israeli (Ashkenazi)), [ʕivˈɾit]
   (standard Israeli (Sephardi)), [ʕivˈriθ] ( Oriental), [ivˈʀis] (
   Ashkenazi)
   Spoken in: Israel and other countries, including Argentina,Brazil,
   Chile, Canada, France, Panama, UK, United States and Uruguay
   Total speakers: around 15 million, (United States: 195,375).^1

   ^1United States Census 2000 PHC-T-37. Ability to Speak English by
   Language Spoken at Home: 2000. Table 1a.
   Language family: Afro-Asiatic
     Semitic
      West Semitic
       Central Semitic
        Northwest Semitic
         Canaanite
         Hebrew
   Writing system: Hebrew abjad
   Official status
   Official language of: 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/FDIS 639-3: heb
   Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA
   chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

   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 a
   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 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 (לשון הקודש‎), "The Sacred
   Tongue", 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 nearly extinct outside of Jewish liturgical and scholarly
   purposes, was revived as a literary and narrative language by the
   Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of the mid-19th century. Near the end
   of that century the Jewish linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, owing to the
   ideology of Zionism, began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken and
   written language. Eventually it replaced a score of languages spoken by
   Jews at that time, such as 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.

History

   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 was revived as a
   spoken language in the 19th century.
   Map of Hebrew speaking communities around the World
   Enlarge
   Map of Hebrew speaking communities around the World

Origins of Hebrew

   Hebrew is a Semitic language, and as such a member of the larger
   Afro-Asiatic phylum. Proto-Semitic was probably spoken around the 4th
   millennium BC in the Arabian peninsula.

   Within Semitic, the Northwest Semitic languages formed around the 3rd
   millennium BCE, grouped with the Arabic languages as Central Semitic.
   The Canaanite languages are a group within Northwest Semitic, emerging
   in the 2nd millennium BC in the Levant, gradually separating from
   Aramaic and Ugaritic.

   Within the Canaanite group, Hebrew belongs to the sub-group also
   containing Edomite, Ammonite and Moabite: see Hebrew languages. Another
   Canaanite sub-group contains Phoenician and its descendant Punic.

Hebrew as a distinct Canaanite dialect

   The first written evidence of distinctive Hebrew, the Gezer calendar,
   dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic
   Period, the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon.
   Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of
   seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named
   after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old
   Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks and
   Etruscans later became the Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written
   without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even
   in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it.
   The Shebna lintel, from the tomb of a royal steward found in Siloam,
   dates to the 7th century BCE.
   Enlarge
   The Shebna lintel, from the tomb of a royal steward found in Siloam,
   dates to the 7th century BCE.

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

Classical Hebrew

   In its widest sense, Classical Hebrew means the spoken language of
   ancient Palestine 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 ( 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 BCE, corresponding to the
       Babylonian Exile and represented by the bulk of the Hebrew Bible
       that attains much of its present form around this time,
       give-or-take. Also called Classical Biblical Hebrew (or Classical
       Hebrew in the narrowest sense). It adopted the Imperial Aramaic
       script.
     * Late Biblical Hebrew from the 6th to the 4th century BCE, that
       corresponds to the Persian Period and is represented by certain
       texts in the Hebrew Bible, notably the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
     * Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century
       CE, corresponding to the Hellenistic and Roman Periods before the
       destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the
       Qumran Scrolls that form most (but not all) of the Dead Sea
       Scrolls. Commonly abbreviated as DSS Hebrew, also called Qumran
       Hebrew. The Imperial Aramaic script of the earlier scrolls in the
       3rd century BCE evolved into the Hebrew square script of the later
       scrolls in the 1st century CE, still in use today.
     * Mishnaic Hebrew from the 1st to the 3rd or 4th century CE,
       corresponding to the Roman Period after the destruction of the
       Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the bulk of the Mishnah and
       Tosefta within the Talmud and by the Dead Sea Scrolls, notably the
       Bar Kokhba Letters and the Copper Scroll. Also called Tannaitic
       Hebrew or Early Rabbinic Hebrew.

   Sometimes the above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified
   into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the tenth
   century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls)
   and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century
   BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea
   Scrolls). 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 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 תלמוד‎, excepting quotations pulled 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 משנה‎ that was
   published around 200 CE and was written in the earlier Mishnaic
   dialect. The Talmud also adds the Tosefta תוספתא‎ 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 גמרא‎, 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
   Enlarge
   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, precursor to the Arabic script,
   also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo
   Codex, a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the
   10th century likely in Tiberias and survives to this day. It is perhaps
   the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence.

   In the Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula important
   work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary
   of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the
   grammarians of Classical Arabic. Important Hebrew grammarians were
   Judah ben David Hayyuj and Jonah ibn Janah. A great deal of poetry was
   written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Judah
   ha-Levi and the two Ibn Ezras, in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work
   of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative metres. This literary
   Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets.

   The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from
   Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow
   terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin
   equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to a distinct
   style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by
   the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were
   usually written in Arabic.)

   Another important influence was Maimonides, who developed a simple
   style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh
   Torah. Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between
   this style and the Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud.

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

Liturgical use of Hebrew

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

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

   Sephardi Hebrew is the traditional pronunciation of the Spanish and
   Portuguese Jews as well as Sephardi Jews in the countries of the former
   Ottoman Empire. This pronunciation, in the form used by the Jerusalem
   Sephardic community, is the basis of the Hebrew phonology of Israeli
   native speakers. It was influenced by the Ladino language. (The
   "Sephardic" pronunciation of Hebrew in American schools and synagogues
   retains several elements of its Ashkenazi substrate, especially the
   distinction between tsere and segol.)

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

   These pronunciations are still used in synagogue ritual and religious
   study, in Israel and elsewhere, mostly by people who are not native
   speakers of Hebrew, though some traditionalist Israelis are
   bi-dialectal.

Development of Modern Hebrew

   In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew
   tradition as pronounced in Jerusalem revived as the spoken language of
   modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew, Modern Israeli Hebrew,
   Modern Hebrew, New Hebrew, Israeli Standard Hebrew, Standard Hebrew,
   and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits many features of Sephardic Hebrew
   from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous
   neologisms and borrows (often technical) terms from European languages
   and (often colloquial) terms from Palestinian Arabic to function as a
   modern language.

   The literary and narrative use of Hebrew was revived beginning with the
   Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of the mid-19th century, with the
   publication of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers
   (e.g. HaMagid, founded in Lyck, Prussia, in 1856). Prominent poets were
   Chaim Nachman Bialik and Saul Tshernikovsky; there were also novels
   written in the language.

   The revival of Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated by the
   efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda ( 1858- 1922) (אליעזר בן–יהודה‎). He
   joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to
   Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. Motivated by the
   surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora "
   shtetl" lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making the
   literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language.

   However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in
   Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of
   people like Achad Ha-Am and others. His organizational efforts and
   involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of
   textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into a gradually
   accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904-1914 " Second
   aliyah" that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with
   the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of
   immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as
   one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and
   Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A
   constructed modern language with a truly Semitic vocabulary and written
   appearance, although often European in syntax and form, was to take its
   place among the current languages of the nations.

   While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (due to the
   fact that Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some
   thought that it should not be used to discuss common everyday matters),
   many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of the
   Palestine Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in
   large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages.
   However, it has been said that Hebrew unified the new immigrants coming
   to Mandate Palestine, creating a common language and "culture." A
   Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. Later it became the
   Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that exists today. The
   results of his and the Committee's work were published in a dictionary
   (The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew). Ben-Yehuda's
   work fell on fertile ground, and by the beginning of the 20th century,
   Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish
   population of both Ottoman and British Palestine.

Hebrew language in the USSR

   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). 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 in the West,
   teachers and students who attempted to study the Hebrew language were
   pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" and later for
   "anti-Soviet" activities.

Modern Israeli Hebrew

   Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben Yehuda, was intended to be
   based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,
   the language as spoken in Israel has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew
   phonology in the following respects:
     * the elimination of pharyngeal articulation in the letters het and
       ayin
     * the conversion of /r/ from an alveolar flap to a voiced uvular
       fricative or trill (see Guttural R)
     * the pronunciation of tzere as [ey] in some contexts (sifrey and
       teysha instead of Sephardic sifré and tésha' )
     * the elimination of vocal sheva (zman instead of Sephardic zĕman)
     * some of the letter names (yud and kuf instead of Sephardic yod and
       qof)
     * in popular speech, penultimate stress in proper names (Dvóra
       instead of Dĕvorá; Máhane Yehúda instead of Mahané Yĕhudá).

   Scholars differ on the characterization of the resulting language. Most
   regard it as a genuine continuation of Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew,
   while conceding that it has acquired some European vocabulary and
   syntactical features, in much the same way as Modern Standard Arabic.
   Wexler claims that modern Hebrew is not a Semitic language at all, but
   a dialect of "Judaeo-Sorbian". On his argument, the underlying
   structure of the language is Slavic, "re-lexified" to absorb much of
   the vocabulary and inflexional system of Hebrew, in the same way as a
   creole. Ghilad Zuckermann takes an intermediate view: "Israeli" is a
   separate language from Hebrew, and has a basically European syntax, but
   should be regarded as a hybrid between the Hebrew and European models.
   The identity of the European substrate has varied: in the time of the
   Mandate and the early state, the principal contributors were Yiddish
   and modern standard German, while today it is American English.

Regional Hebrew dialects

   According to Ethnologue, the currently spoken dialects of Hebrew are
   "Standard Hebrew (General Israeli, Europeanized Hebrew)" and "Oriental
   Hebrew (Arabized Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew)". These refer to two
   varieties used for actual communication by native speakers in Israel;
   they differ mainly in pronunciation, and hardly in any other way.
   (Incidentally, the term "Arabized" is misleading, in that it implies
   that it differs from "General Israeli" mainly because it changed under
   the influence of Arabic. In fact, "Oriental Hebrew" retains features of
   ancient Hebrew that were shared by Arabic but lost in
   non-Arabic-speaking parts of the world.)

   Immigrants to Israel are encouraged to adopt Israeli 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]. 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 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 [ʀ], (a uvular trill, as in Yiddish and
   some varieties of German) or as [ʁ] (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.

   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 used as
   newsreaders. On the other hand, the speech of middle-class Ashkenazim
   is regarded as having a certain Central European sophistication, and
   many speakers of Mizrahi origin have moved nearer to this version of
   Standard Hebrew, in some cases even adopting the uvular resh.

   It was formerly the case that the inhabitants of the north of Israel
   pronounced bet rafe (bet without dagesh) as /b/ in accordance with the
   conservative Sephardic pronunciation. This was regarded as rustic and
   has since disappeared. It is still said that one can tell an inhabitant
   of Jerusalem by the pronunciation of the word for two hundred as
   "ma'atayim" (as distinct from "matayim", as heard elsewhere in the
   country).

Coexistence with Aramaic

   Aramaic is a North-West Semitic language, like Canaanite. Its name
   derives either from "Aram Naharayim" in Upper Mesopotamia or from
   "Aram", an ancient name for Syria. Various dialects of Aramaic
   coevolved with Hebrew throughout much of its history.

Aramaic as the international language of the Mideast

   The language of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was a dialect of Aramaic. The
   Persian Empire that captured Babylonia a few decades later adopted
   Imperial Aramaic as the official international language of the Persian
   Empire. The Israelite population, who had been exiled to Babylon from
   Jerusalem and its surrounding region of Judah, were allowed to return
   to Jerusalem to establish a Persian province, usually called Judea.
   Thus Aramaic became the administrative language for Judea when dealing
   with the rest of Persian Empire.

   The Aramaic script also evolved from the Canaanite script, but they
   diverged significantly. By the 1st century CE, the 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, current understandings of the vigor of Hebrew are slowly
   but surely making their way through the academic literature. The Hebrew
   of the Dead Sea Scrolls distinguishes the Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew from
   the various dialects of Biblical Hebrew out of which it evolved: "This
   book presents the specific features of DSS Hebrew, emphasizing
   deviations from classical BH." 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 1997 in its third edition, that Hebrew "continued to be used
   as a spoken and written language in the New Testament period". 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]." And so on. Israeli scholars now
   tend to take it for granted that Hebrew as a spoken language is a
   feature of Palestine's Roman Period.

Jewish dialects of Aramaic

   The international language of Aramaic radiated into various regional
   dialects. In and around Palestine, 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.

Other languages coexisting with Hebrew

   Besides 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.

Phonology

   Hebrew has two kinds of stress: on the last syllable (milra‘) and on
   the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, mil‘el). The
   former is more frequent. Specific rules connect the location of the
   stress with the length of the vowels in the last syllable. However, due
   to the fact that Israeli Hebrew does not distinguish between long and
   short vowels, these rules are not evident in everyday speech. They
   usually cannot be inferred from written text either, since usually
   vowels are not marked. The rules that specify the vowel length are
   different for verbs and nouns, which influences the stress; thus the
   mil‘el-stressed ókhel (="food") and milra‘-stressed okhèl (="eats",
   masculine) differ only in the length of the vowels (and are written
   identically if vowels are not marked). Little ambiguity exists,
   however, due to nouns and verbs having incompatible roles in normal
   sentences. This is, however, also true in English, in, for example, the
   English word "conduct," in its nominal and verbal forms.

Vowels

   The vowel phonemes of Modern Israeli Hebrew

   The Hebrew word for vowels is tnu'ot. The marks for these vowels are
   called Nikud. Israeli Hebrew has 6 vowel phonemes:
     * /a/ (as in "spa") - The vowels kamats (ָ) and patakh (ַ)
     * /e/ (as in "café") - The vowels segol (ֶ) and tsere (ֵ)
     * /i/ (as in "ski") - The vowel khirik (ִ)
     * /o/ (as in "go") - The vowel kholam (ֹ)
     * /u/ (as in "flu") - The vowels shuruk (וּ) and kubuts (ֻ)
     * /ə/ (as in "about") - The vowel shva na' (ְ)

   Many Israeli speakers have merged /ə/ into /e/, reducing the vowel
   phonemes to 5.

   In Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and
   interrupted (khataf). However, there is no audible distinction between
   the three in modern Israeli Hebrew, except that tsere is often
   pronounced [eɪ] as in Ashkenazi Hebrew.

   Hebrew is written with a special vowel called "shva". Depending on its
   context in a word, it can be pronounced in two ways, called resting
   ("nakh"), and moving ("na'"). The resting shva is silent, while the
   moving shva is pronounced /e/ in Israeli Hebrew (though it was
   traditionally /ə/) .

   One-letter words and particles are always attached to the following
   word. Such items include: the definite article ha (="the");
   prepositions be (="in"), mi (="from"), le (="to"); conjunctions she
   (="that"), ke (="as", "like"), ve (="and"). The vowel that follows the
   letter thus attached depends in general on the beginning of the next
   word and the presence of a definite article which may be swallowed by
   the one-letter word.

   The rules for the prepositions are complicated and vary with the
   formality of speech. In most cases they are followed by a moving schwa,
   and for that reason they are pronounced as be, me and le. In more
   formal speech, if a preposition is put before a word which begins with
   a moving shva, then the preposition takes the vowel /i/ (and the
   initial consonant is weakened), but in colloquial speech these changes
   do not occur. For example, colloquial be-kfar (="in a village") becomes
   bi-khfar. If l or b are followed by the definite article ha, their
   vowel changes to /a/. Thus *be-ha-matos becomes ba-matos (="in the
   plane"). However it does not happen to m, therefore me-ha-matos is a
   valid form, which means "from the plane".

          * indicates that the given example is not grammatically correct

Consonants

   The Hebrew word for consonants is ‘itsurim (עיצורים).
   Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Post-
   alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
                            Stops p b t d k g ʔ
                      Fricatives f v s z ʃ ʒ χ ʁ h
                                Affricates ʦ
                                 Nasals m n
                                 Laterals l
                               Approximants j

   The pairs /b, v/, /k, x/ and /p, f/ have historically been allophonic.
   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. 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 [ŋ] (like ng in sing) — a
   pronunciation which can also be found in the Italki tradition and,
   historically, in south-west Germany. (The remnants of this
   pronunciation are found throughout the Ashkenazi world, in the name
   "Yankl", a diminutive form of Jacob, Heb. יעקב.)

   Hebrew also has dagesh, a strengthening. There are two kinds of
   strengthenings: light (kal, known also as dagesh lene) and heavy
   (khazak or dagesh forte). There are two sub-categories of the heavy
   dagesh: structural heavy (khazak tavniti) and complementing heavy
   (khazak mashlim). The light affects the phonemes /b/ /k/ /p/ in the
   beginning of a word, or after a resting schwa. Structural heavy
   emphases belong to certain vowel patterns (mishkalim and binyanim; see
   the section on grammar below), and correspond originally to doubled
   consonants. Complementing strengthening is added when vowel
   assimilation takes place. As mentioned before, the emphasis influences
   which of a pair of (former) allophones is pronounced. Historical
   evidence indicates that /g/, /d/ and /t/ also used to have allophones
   marked by the presence or absence of dagesh kal: these have disappeared
   from modern Hebrew pronunciation though the distinction in writing
   still appears in fully pointed texts. All consonants except gutturals
   and /r/ may receive the heavy emphasis (dagesh khazak).

Historical sound changes

   Standard (non-Oriental) Israeli Hebrew (SIH) has undergone a number of
   splits and mergers in its development from Biblical Hebrew.
     * 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 /χ/
     * 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.

Grammar

   Hebrew grammar is mostly analytic, 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 and nouns. In particular, nouns have a
   construct state, called "smikhut", to denote the relationship of
   "belonging to": this is the converse of the genitive case of more
   inflected languages. Words in smikhut are often combined with hyphens.
   In modern speech, the use of the construct is sometimes interchangeable
   with the preposition "shel", meaning "of". There are many cases,
   however, where older declined forms are retained (especially in
   idiomatic expressions and the like), and "person"- enclitics are widely
   used to "decline" prepositions.

Writing system

   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 ( nikkud, from the
   root word meaning "points" or "dots") developed around the 5th Century
   CE 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
   centre.

   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.

Romanization

   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 tsadi (צ) is transcribed as "ts" (although "tz", "z" or
       "s" 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 khet (ח) is transcribed by "kh" (although "ch" or "h" is
       usually acceptable).
     * The letter kuf (ק) is transcribed by "k" (although "q" is usually
       acceptable).
     * The letter vav (ו) is transcribed as "v", but is omitted when mute.
     * The letter yod (י) is transcribed as "y", but is omitted when mute.
     * The letter he (ה) is transcribed as "h", but is omitted when mute
       at the end of a word.
     * Single-letter prepositions and the definite article are separated
       with a dash (-) from their subject.
     * Syllable stress and shva are not marked.
     * The vowels are always written in Roman transcriptions.

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