(Redirected from Hebrew language/Introduction and History)
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. For 2,500 years Hebrew was used mostly for study of the Bible and Mishnah, ceremony, and prayer, but it was reborn as a spoken language during the 20th century, replacing Arabic, Ladino, Yiddish and other languages of the Jewish diaspora as the spoken language of the majority of the Jewish people living in Israel.
Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the state of Israel, alongside Arabic. The Hebrew name for the language is עברית, or I'vrit (pronounced EEvreet [ivr\it]).
| Hebrew (עברית [I'vrit]) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Country |
| Region: | Israel and other countries |
| Total speakers: | 5.1 Million |
| Ranking: | not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central South Canaanite Hebrew |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | Israel |
| Regulated by: | Academy of the Hebrew Language |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | he |
| ISO 639-2 | heb |
| SIL | HBR |
| Table of contents |
Numerous older tablets were found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Ancient Egyptian. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian writing. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. Less ancient samples of Old Hebrew include the tablets found near Lachish and the famous Siloam Inscription which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BC.
The most famous work originally written in Hebrew is the Bible. Although the texts of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) were written down relatively late, perhaps as late as 500 BC, it is apparent that some of them date back to as early as the 9th century BC. We can know less, however, about the more ancient Hebrew language of the early texts due to the editing that the texts must have undergone in the process of being written down.
The formal language of the Babylonian Empire was Aramaic (its name is either derived from "Aram Naharayim", Mesopotamia, or from "Aram," Canaanite for "highland," the ancient name for Syria). The Persian Empire, which had captured Babylonia a few decades later under Cyrus, adopted Aramaic as the official language. Aramaic is also a Semitic language, quite similar to Hebrew. Aramaic has contributed many words and expressions to Hebrew, mainly as the language of commentary in the Talmud and other religious works.
In addition to numerous words and expressions, Hebrew also borrowed the Aramaic writing system. Although the original Aramaic letter forms were derived from the same Phoenician alphabet that was used in ancient Israel, they had changed significantly, both in the hands of the Mesopotamians and of the Jews, assuming the forms familiar to us today around the first century A.D.. Writings of that era (most notably, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran) are written in a script very similar to the "square" one still used today.
Hebrew was not used as a spoken language for roughly 2300 years. However the Jews have always devoted much effort to maintaining high standards of literacy among themselves, the main purpose being to let any Jew read the Hebrew Bible and the accompanying religious works in the original. It is interesting to note that the languages that the Jews adopted from their adopted nations, namely Ladino and Yiddish were not directly connected to Hebrew (the former being based on Spanish and Arabic borrowings, latter being a remote dialect of Middle High German), however, both were written from right to left using the Hebrew script. Hebrew was also used as a language of communication among Jews from different countries, particularly for the purpose of international trade.
The most important contribution to preserving traditional Hebrew pronunciation in this period was that of scholars called Masoretes (from Masora 'tradition'), who from about the seventh to the tenth centuries CE devised detailed markings to indicate vowels, stress, and cantillation (recitation methods). The original Hebrew texts used only consonants, and later some consonants were used to indicate long vowels. By the time of the Masoretes this text was too sacred to be altered, so all their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters.
While at first many considered his work as fanciful, the need for a common language was soon understood by many. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. Later it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that still exists today. The results of his work and the Committee's 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 in Palestine.
Russian influence is particularly evident in Hebrew. For example, the Russian suffix -acia is used in nouns where English has the suffix -ation. It is so both in direct borrowings from Russian, for example "industrializacia", industrialization, and in words that do not exist in Russian (thus, colloquial English "cannibalization" turns into Hebrew "canibalizatcia"). English influence is also very strong, perhaps due to the thirty years of British rule under the Mandate and the dense ties with the United States. Finally, Arabic, being the language of numerous Sephardic Jewish immigrants, has also had an important influence on Hebrew.
Modern Hebrew is printed with a script known as "square". It is the same script, ultimately derived from Aramaic, that was used for copying of Bible books in Hebrew for two thousands years. This script also has a cursive version, which is used for handwriting.
Modern Hebrew has a rich jargon, which is a direct result of the flourishing youth culture. The two main features of this jargon are the Arabic borrowings (for example, "sababa", "excellent", or "kus-emmek", an expression of strong dissatisfaction which is extremely obscene in Arabic), and the obfuscated idioms.
Due to the relatively small size of the vocabulary, numerous foreign borrowings and simple inflexional rules, Hebrew is an easy language to learn. Foreign accents are usually treated with patience by Israeli Hebrew speakers.
Hebrew has been the language of numerous poets, which include Rahel, Hayim Nahman Byalik, Shaul Tchernihovsky, Lea Goldberg, Avraham Shlonsky and Natan Alterman. Hebrew was also the language of hundreds of authors, one of whom is the Nobel Prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon.
Each vowel has three forms: short, long and interrupted (hataf). There is no audible distinction between the three, and the type of a vowel is determined entirely by its position inside a word.
Ancient Hebrew did not have diphthongs. Although diphthongs do exist in modern spoken Hebrew, grammar rules discourage their use. Thus, the root Y-Kh-L, 2nd person singular, future should have been conjugated tuykhal, however the correct form is tukhal.
Hebrew phonetics include a special feature called schwa. There are two kinds of schwa: resting (nah) and moving (na' ). The resting schwa is pronounced as a brief stop of speech. The moving schwa sounds much like the English schwa.
Hebrew also has dagesh, a strengthening. There are two kinds of strengthenings: light (qal, known also as dagesh lene) and heavy (khazaq or dagesh fortis). There are two sub-categories of the heavy dagesh: structural heavy (khazaq tavniti) and complementing heavy (khazaq mashlim). The light affects the phonemes /v/ /g/ /d/ /kh/ /f/ /t/ in the beginning of a word, or after a resting schwa. Structural heavy emphases belong to certain vowel patterns (mishkalim and binyanim; see the section on grammar below). Complementing strengthening is added when vowel assimilation takes place. As mentioned before, the emphasis influences which of a pair of allophones is pronounced. Interestingly enough, 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 aspirates may receive an emphasis, but their sound will not change.
Hebrew has two kinds of stress (taa'm): on the last syllable (milra' ) and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, mile'l). 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 often ignored in everyday speech. Interestingly enough, the rules that specify the vowel length are different for verbs and nouns, which influences the stress; thus the mile'l-stressed ókhel (="food") and milra' -stressed okhèl (="eats", masculine) are written in the same way. 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.
One-letter words are always attached to the following word. Such words include: the definite article; prepositions b (="in"), m (="from"), l (="to"); conjunctions sh (="that"), k (="as", "like"), v (="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 as follows: in most cases they are followed by a moving schwa, and for that reason they're pronounced as be, me and le. If a preposition is put before a word which begins with a moving schwa, then the preposition takes the vowel /i/. For example, *be-khlal becomes bi-khlal (="in general"). 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".
| Labial | Velar | Alveolar |
|---|---|---|
| /b/ (1) /v/ (1, 2) /m/ /p/ (1) /f/ (1) | /g/ /j/ (semi-vowel; weak) /k/ (1, 3) | /d/ /t/ (4, 5) /l/ (Always pronounced as the "l" in "learn", not "land") /n/ /r/ |
| Glottal | Dental | Foreign Borrowings |
| /h/ (semi-vowel, a voiced aspirate, akin to the American pronunciation of /h/ in "hot") /x/ (1, 6) /a'/ (7) | /z/ (pronounced as the "x" in "Xena") /ts/ (5) /s/ /S/ (Read like the "s" in "sure"; in the examples written as "sh") | /dZ/ (Sounds like the "j" in "Jill") /Z/ (Sounds like the "j" in the French "Jacqueline") /tS/ (Sounds like the "ch" in "Chill") |
Notes:
Hebrew has only a definite article, "ha-". It is a contraction of an earlier form, probably *hal, the assymilation of the /l/ being evident in the emphasis that normally follows the article. In smikhut, only the main noun (that is the noun to which the other nouns connect) can receive the article.
The two main parts of the Hebrew sentence ("mishpat") are the subject ("nose") and the predicate ("nasu"). They are adjusted to each other in gender and person. Thus, in a sentence "ani okhel", "I eat"/"I am eating", "ani", "I", is the subject, and "okhel", "eating" (singular masculine present of the root A-K-L in Pa`al) is the verb (Hebrew does not have a system of auxiliary verbs). The subject always receives the definite article, unless it is a pronoun or a name.
Other parts of the Hebrew sentence are the direct object ("musa"), and complements to any noun ("levai"). Unlike English, complements follow the noun, rather than precede it, and also like the verb they follow the subject's gender, person and article. Thus, "Ha-chatul ha-qatan akhal et ha-gvinah", "The small cat ate the cheese", the subject is "ha-chatul", "the cat", the complement is "ha-qatan", "the small", the predicate is "akhal", "ate" (3rd person masculine past of the root A-K-L in Pa`al), and "ha-gvinah", "the cheese" is the object. Note that both the words for "cat" and for "small" received the definite article.
The Hebrew grammar distinguishes between various kinds of indirect objects, according to what they specify. Thus, there is a division between objects for time ("tiur zman"), objects for place ("tiur makom"), objects for reason ("tiur sibah") and many others. Additionally, Hebrew distinguishes between various kinds of verbless fragments, also according to their use, such as "tmurah" for elaboration, "qriah" for exclamation, "pniyah" for approach and "hesger" for disclosing the opinion of a certain party using direct speech (e.g. "le-da'at ha-rofe, ha-i'shun mazik la-briut", "[according to] the opinion of the doctor, smoking is harmful to health").
A sentence may lack a subject. In this case it is called "stami", or "causual". If several parts of the sentence have the same function and are attached to the same word, they are called "kolel", "collective". Two or more sentences who do not share common parts and are separated by comma are called "mishpat mehubar", or "added". In many cases, the second sentence uses a pronoun that stands for the other's subject; they are generally interconnected.
A sentence in which one or more of the parts are replaced by a clause ("psukit") is called a compound sentence, or "mishpat murkav". Compound sentences use the preposition "she-", "that". For example, in the sentence "Yosi omer she-hu okhel", "Yosi says that he is eating", "Yosi omer" ("Yosi says") is the main sentence, followed by a direct subject clause "hu okhel" ("He is eating").
The Hebrew Language verbs are inflected by gender, person, number, mood and tense. The base form for verbs is the 3rd person masculine singular past active indicative.
Usually the person affects the suffix of the verb. Thus lamadti means "I learned", lamadta means "You (masculine singular) learned", lamdu means "they learned". The stem lamd- remains constant.
The inflection by gender is full; that is, Hebrew distinguishes between lamadet (="you learned", feminine) and lamadta (="you learned", masculine).
There are three tenses in the indicative mood: hoveh (="present"), avar (="past") and a'tid (="future"). There is no perfect tense, but the perfect aspect can be derived from the context. To emphasize the imperfect/progressive aspect of an action, the auxiliary verb "to be" may be used, as in the English progressive tenses. However, unlike English, this form is only used for emphasis and distinction, and is not required to express an imperfect sense.
Passive binyans (see below) have neither an imperative nor an infinitive form.
As in other Semitic languages, verbs (like nouns) are derived from a three-letter root (which signifies a certain general concept, such as K-T-V for writing) into numerous patterns through the use of intermediate vowels and prefixes. Hebrew grammarians usually classify the verb system into 7 basic groups (called the binyanim, plural of binyan), each of which conjugates in a certain way, which is usually apparent in the binyan 's name. Thus, the Nif'al binyan specifies the presence of the syllable "ni" in the beginning of the verb (either directly or as a residual emphasis on a different beginning). The Pa'al binyan is sometimes called Qal---perhaps because without diacritics (little dots that serve as vowels in written Hebrew) it could be confused with Pi'el.
There are 3 active binyans (Pa'al, Pi'el, Hif'il) and 4 passive ones (Nif'al, Pu'al, Huf'al, Hitpa'el). Usually Pi'el verbs---e.g. tipel (="handled, took care of")---become passive in Pu'al---tupal, (="was handled, was taken care of"). Similarly, the active Hif'il corresponds to the passive Huf'al. Nif'al is often used as the passive of Pa'al---thus the Pa'al form sagar (="closed"), turns into the Nif'al form nisgar (="was closed"); however, ancient usage suggests that it was originally used as a reflexive structure, and modern Hebrew has many verbs in Nif'al that have an active sense, e.g. nixnas (="entered"). In modern Hebrew, hitpa'el carries the reflexive function.
The system of the binyan is relatively easy to understand and grasp; however it has numerous exceptions due to regular phonological effects like assimilation.
English gerunds such as "my winning the prize was a surprise" are expressed by noun forms equivalent to the infinitive of the verb.
Participles may be formed from all verbs (using the indicative form) and used as nouns or adjectives. e.g. the Hebrew for "guard" (the profession) is the present participle "(he) guards" ("shomer"). Participles may also be used to describe state, and would then usually be accompanied by words such as "while" or "as", e.g. "as he is painting, time goes by". Prefixes may be used with participles to describe time, e.g. mishekamti (="once I stood up"); lixshetakum (="when you get up",future, masculine).
Hebrew nouns are inflected by gender, number (and sometimes by possession) but not by case. Nouns are generally correlated to verbs (by shared roots), but their forming is not as systematic, often due to loan words from foreign languages.
The second way is the addition of two existing stems. For example, qol (="sound") and no'a (="motion") create together qolno'a, (="cinema").
Vowels are optional and written as dots and dashes under the text. Different combinations of dots and dashes signify different types of vowels. A convenient rule to remember is that long vowels have an even number of dots and dashes. The semi-vowels hei, vav and yud can represent both a consonant (/h/, /v/ and /y/, respectively) or a vowel, which presence is ambiguous. In the latter case, these letters are called "emot qria" ("matres lectionis" in Latin, "mothers of reading" in English). With a vowel, the letter alef is mute. When a vowel is absent, alef stands for /a/. The letter hei in the end of a word also sounds like /a/ and signifies the feminine gender. The letter waw standing after the vowels /u/ and /o/ lengthens them, and so does the letter yud after the vowel /i/.
Emphases are written as a dot inside the letter. There is no written differentiation between different types of emphases and schwas.
There is also a Hebrew language Wikipedia at he:עמוד ראשי
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