Read complete books and articles on: Hebrew Language

Hebrew Language - member of the Canaanite group of the West Semitic subdivision of the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). Hebrew was the language of the Jewish people in biblical times, and most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. The oldest extant example of Hebrew writing dates from the 11th or 10th cent. b.c. Hebrew began to die out as a spoken tongue among the Jews after they were defeated by the Babylonians in 586 b.c. Well before the time of Jesus it had been replaced by Aramaic as the Jewish vernacular, although it was preserved as the language of the Jewish religion. From a.d. 70, when the dispersion of the Jews from Palestine began, until modern times, Hebrew has remained the Jewish language of religion, learning, and literature. During this 2,000-year period, Hebrew has always been spoken to some extent. At the end of the 19th cent. the Zionist movement brought about the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, which culminated in its designation as an official tongue of the state of Israel in 1948. There it is spoken by most of the 4.5 million Jews of that country.

Grammatically, Hebrew is typical of the Semitic tongues in that so many words have a triconsonantal root consisting of three consonants separated by vowels. Changes in, or omissions of, the vowels alter the meaning of a root. Prefixes and suffixes are also added to roots to modify the meaning. There are two genders, masculine and feminine, which are found in the inflection of the verb as well as in noun forms. Modern Hebrew has experienced some changes in phonology, syntax, and morphology. Pronunciation of various orthographical forms has changed, as well as the rules for prefixing and suffixing prepositions to nouns and pronouns. Ancient Hebrew seemed to favor a word order in which the verb precedes the subject of a sentence, but in modern Hebrew the subject typically precedes the verb. Hebrew vocabulary has been updated by the addition of many new words, especially words of a scientific nature.

The earliest alphabet used for Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite branch of the North Semitic writing and is known as Early Hebrew. Later the Jews adapted the Aramaic writing and evolved from it a script called Square Hebrew, which is the source of modern Hebrew printing. Most modern Hebrew handwritten text uses a cursive script developed more recently. Today the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters, all consonants. Symbols for the vowels were apparently introduced about the 8th cent. a.d. and are usually placed below the consonants if employed. Their use is generally limited to the Bible, verse, and children's books. Hebrew is written from right to left.

See W. Chomsky, Hebrew: The Eternal Language (1957); D. J. Kamhi, Modern Hebrew (1982); E. Kutscher, A History of the Hebrew Language (1984); L. Glinert, The Grammar of Modern Hebrew (1989).

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9 of the Best Books and Articles on: Hebrew Language

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Hebrew Language and Jewish Thought » Read Now
by David Patterson. 242 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library
2.

The Joys of Hebrew » Read Now
by Lewis Glinert. 292 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

When do you say mazal tov? What is the English equivalent to the Talmudic expression Alya ve-kots ba ("a sheep's tail with a thorn in it")? What is a get, a golem, a kibbutz, a chalutz? What four plant species are waved during prayers on the harvest festival of Sukkot? You'll find answers to these...
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When do you say mazal tov? What is the English equivalent to the Talmudic expression Alya ve-kots ba ("a sheep's tail with a thorn in it")? What is a get, a golem, a kibbutz, a chalutz? What four plant species are waved during prayers on the harvest festival of Sukkot? You'll find answers to these questions and hundreds of others--all in clear English--in this remarkable collection of the best known, most loved Hebrew words and phrases in the English speaking world. From Acharon to Zohar, this informative and often humorous dictionary features over six hundred Hebrew words and expressions arranged in alphabetical order (the Roman alphabet is used throughout, as well as Hebrew head words). The first such guide to Hebrew, this volume is more than a mere lexicon--it is a jubilant celebration of Hebrew itself, a treasure trove of Jewish wit, wisdom, culture, and tradition. Lewis Glinert provides a concise definition of each entry, and then illustrates the word's usage with generous passages from the Bible and the Talmud, the prayers and the sayings of famous rabbis, the razor's edge of Jewish humor, excerpts from the work of Elie Wiesel, Adin Steinsaltz, S.Y. Agnon, Martin Buber, Naomi Shemer and other contemporary writers, folklore from all over the Jewish world, and colorful slices of modern Israeli life. There are words directly related to the practice of religion, such as amida (a prayer said standing, under one's breath, essentially a cry for help--for wisdom, health, peace, prosperity, and so forth) as well as the names of all the Jewish holy days and religious customs; words from everyday Jewish experience, such peot (the long sidecurls customarily worn by the Chasidim); many words familiar from their use in Israel, such as rega (literally, "one moment," it is the Israeli equivalent of Mexico's manana) or miluim (army reserve service); and many traditional sayings, such as Tsarat rabim chatsi nechama ("A public woe is half a comfort"). In addition, Glinert provides at the back of the book an alphabetical list of familiar biblical names in English, Sephardi/Israeli Hebrew, and Ashkenazi Hebrew. This celebration of Hebrew language and culture is a joy to read and to use. Everyone from Bible students to collectors of Judaica, from Woody Allen fans to people planning a journey to the Holy Land, will be delighted by this informative volume.
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3.

Hebrew: The Eternal Language » Read Now
by William Chomsky. 321 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
4.

The Languages of Jerusalem (Chap. 5 "The Revitalization and Spread of Hebrew") » Read Now
by Bernard Spolsky, Robert L. Cooper. 166 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

The Old City of Jerusalem, small and densely populated, is a complex microcosm of Israeli society. It is a multilingual community characterized by unequal power relations between the speakers of the two official languages of Israel--Arabs and Jews. The authors begin with a sociolinguistic sketch of...
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The Old City of Jerusalem, small and densely populated, is a complex microcosm of Israeli society. It is a multilingual community characterized by unequal power relations between the speakers of the two official languages of Israel--Arabs and Jews. The authors begin with a sociolinguistic sketch of the Old City in the present day. They then provide a historical background to their field study, discussing Jewish multilingualism from the period of the Second Temple until modern times, the sociolinguistics of revival and spread of Hebrew. They go on to develop a model of the rules of language choice which arises from their social context. The authors demonstrate that, because of the close association between language use and social structure, the study of language use in a multilingual society is at the same time both powerful and delicate method of studying the dynamics of group interactions.
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5.

Clause Structure and Word Order in Hebrew and Arabic: An Essay in Comparative Semitic Syntax » Read Now
by Ur Shlonsky. 290 pgs.

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Shlonsky uses Chomsky's Government and Binding Approach to examine clausal architecture and verb movement in Hebrew and several varieties of Arabic. He establishes a syntactic analysis of Hebrew and then extends that analysis to certain aspects of Arabic clausal syntax. Through this comparative lens...
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Shlonsky uses Chomsky's Government and Binding Approach to examine clausal architecture and verb movement in Hebrew and several varieties of Arabic. He establishes a syntactic analysis of Hebrew and then extends that analysis to certain aspects of Arabic clausal syntax. Through this comparative lens of Hebrew, Shlonsky hopes to resolve a number of problems in Arabic syntax. His results generate some novel and important conclusions concerning the patterns of negations, verb movement, the nature of participles, and the gamut of positions available to clausal subjects in both languages.
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6.

Language Change in Child and Adult Hebrew: A Psycholinguistic Perspective » Read Now
by Dorit Diskin Ravid. 242 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
7.

Why Did the Qumran Community Write in Hebrew?, in The Journal of the American Oriental Society » Read Now
by Steve Weitzman. 36 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...will again speak the "pure" language of Hebrew. A similar idea appears in...other peoples abandon their languages for Hebrew. In contrast to Philos linguistic...another...
8.

Toward a Social Study of Ashkenazi Hebrew, in Jewish Social Studies » Read Now
by Lewis H. Glinert. 30 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...light of this global approach to language. "Hebrew" is of interest not just as...concerned that their own brand of Hebrew language and orthography be codified...Yehezkel...
9.

Word Order and Time in Biblical Hebrew Narrative » Read Now
by Tal Goldfajn. 169 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

This book addresses the problem of temporal interpretation within narrative of the biblical Hebrew verb, thus exploring the broader issue of the expression of time in language and the ways in which we can attempt to understand and represent it. Goldfajn offers a summary of this controversy, which...
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This book addresses the problem of temporal interpretation within narrative of the biblical Hebrew verb, thus exploring the broader issue of the expression of time in language and the ways in which we can attempt to understand and represent it. Goldfajn offers a summary of this controversy, which has been argued over since at least the tenth century, presenting previous scholarly opinions and theories. She argues that one possible way of understanding the fundamental meanings of the Hebrew verbs is by examining the role played in ordering time by the four main verb forms used in biblical Hebrew narrative. Accordingly, emphasis is given to the intersentential use of these forms and the variety of interesting ways in which they establish the order of events.
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