| Modern Hebrew | |
|---|---|
| |
| עברית חדשה 'Ivrit ḥadasha | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [ivˈʁit]listenⓘ |
| Native to | Land of Israel |
| Region | Southern Levant |
| Ethnicity | Israeli Jews |
Native speakers | 9 million (2014)[1][2][3] |
Early forms | |
| Hebrew alphabet Hebrew Braille | |
| Signed Hebrew (national form)[4] | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Israel |
| Regulated by | Academy of the Hebrew Language |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | he |
| ISO 639-2 | heb |
| ISO 639-3 | heb |
| Glottolog | hebr1245 |
 | |
 Hebrew is not considered endangered as of now according to the classification system of the UNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger[7] | |
Modern Hebrew (endonym:עִבְרִית חֲדָשָׁה,romanized: 'Ivrit ḥadasha,IPA:[ivˈʁitχadaˈʃa] or[ʕivˈritħadaˈʃa]), also known asIsraeli Hebrew or simplyHebrew, is thestandard form of theHebrew language spoken today, and thenative tongue of theJewish people. Developed as part of therevival of Hebrew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is the only survivingCanaanite language, as well as one of theoldest languages still spoken, with its earliest written records dating back to the2nd millennium BC.[8][9] The revival of Hebrew predates thecreation of theState of Israel, where it now serves as thesole official andnational language.[10] Thus, Modern Hebrew is often regarded as one of the most successful instances oflanguage revitalization in history.[11][12]
ANorthwest Semitic language within theAfroasiatic language family, Hebrew was spoken since antiquity as thevernacular of theJews until around the 3rd century BCE, when it wassupplanted by awestern dialect of theAramaic language, the local or dominant languages of the regions Jews migrated to, and laterJudeo-Arabic,Judaeo-Spanish,Yiddish, and otherJewish languages.[13] Although Hebrew continued to be used forJewish liturgy,poetry and literature, and written correspondence,[14] it becameextinct as a spoken language.
By the late 19th century, Russian-Jewish linguistEliezer Ben-Yehuda had begun a popular movement torevive Hebrew as an everyday language, motivated by his desire to preserveHebrew literature and a distinctJewish nationality in the context ofZionism.[15][16][17] Soon after, a large number of Yiddish and Judaeo-Spanish speakers were murdered in theHolocaust[18] orfled to Israel, and many speakers ofJudeo-Arabic emigrated to Israel in theJewish exodus from the Muslim world, where many would adapt to Modern Hebrew.[19]
Currently, Hebrew is spoken by approximately 9–10 million people, counting native, fluent, and non-fluent speakers.[20][21] Some 6 million of these speak it as their native language, the overwhelming majority of whom areJews who were born in Israel or immigrated during early childhood. The rest is split: 2 million areimmigrants to Israel; 1.5 million areIsraeli Arabs, whose first language is usuallyArabic; and half a million areexpatriate Israelis ordiaspora Jews.
Under Israeli law, the organization that officially directs the development of Modern Hebrew is theAcademy of the Hebrew Language, headquartered at theHebrew University of Jerusalem.
The most common scholarly term for the language is "Modern Hebrew" (עברית חדשה). Most people refer to it simply as "Hebrew" (עבריתHebrew pronunciation:[ivˈʁit]).[22]
The term "Modern Hebrew" has been described as "somewhat problematic"[23] as it implies unambiguousperiodization fromBiblical Hebrew.[23]Haiim B. Rosén [he] (חיים רוזן) supported the now widely used[23] term "Israeli Hebrew" on the basis that it "represented the non-chronological nature of Hebrew".[22][24] In 1999, Israeli linguistGhil'ad Zuckermann proposed the term "Israeli" to represent the multiple origins of the language.[25]: 325 [22]
The history of the Hebrew language can be divided into four major periods:[26]
Jewish contemporary sources describe Hebrew flourishing as a spoken language in thekingdoms of Israel and Judah, during about 1200 to 586 BCE.[27] Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew remained a spoken vernacular following theBabylonian captivity, whenOld Aramaic became the predominant international language in the region.
Hebrewdied out as a vernacular language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining after theBar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 CE, which devastated the population ofJudea. Afterthe exile, Hebrew became restricted toliturgical andliterary use.[28]
Hebrew had been spoken at various times and for many purposes throughout the Diaspora. During theOld Yishuv, it had developed into a spokenlingua franca amongPalestinian Jews.[29]Eliezer Ben-Yehuda then led arevival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Modern Hebrew used Biblical Hebrewmorphemes, Mishnaic spelling and grammar, and Sephardic pronunciation. Manyidioms andcalques were made fromYiddish.[citation needed] Its acceptance by the early Jewish immigrants toOttoman Palestine was caused primarily by support from the organisations ofEdmond James de Rothschild in the 1880s and the official status it received in the 1922 constitution of theBritish Mandate for Palestine.[30][31][32][33] Ben-Yehuda codified and planned Modern Hebrew using 8,000 words from the Bible and 20,000 words from rabbinical commentaries. Many new words were borrowed from Arabic, due to the language's common Semitic roots with Hebrew, but changed to fit Hebrew phonology and grammar, for example the wordsgerev (sing.) andgarbayim (pl.) are now applied to 'socks', a diminutive of the Arabicğuwārib ('socks').[34][35] In addition, early Jewish immigrants, borrowing from the local Arabs, and later immigrants from Arab lands introduced many nouns as loanwords from Arabic (such asnana,zaatar,mishmish,kusbara,ḥilba,lubiya,hummus,gezer,rayḥan, etc.), as well as much of Modern Hebrew's slang. Despite Ben-Yehuda's fame as the renewer of Hebrew, the most productive renewer of Hebrew words was poetHaim Nahman Bialik.[citation needed]
One of the phenomena seen with the revival of the Hebrew language is that old meanings of nouns were occasionally changed for altogether different meanings, such asbardelas (ברדלס, a loanword fromKoinē Greek:πάρδαλις,romanized: párdalis,lit. 'leopard, panther'), which in Mishnaic Hebrew meant 'hyena',[36] but in Modern Hebrew it now means 'cheetah'; orshezīf (שזיף) which is now used for 'plum', but formerly meant 'jujube'.[37] The wordkishū’īm (formerly 'cucumbers')[38] is now applied to a variety ofsummer squash (Cucurbita pepo var.cylindrica), a plant native to theNew World. Another example is the wordkǝvīsh (כביש), which now denotes a street or a road, but is actually anAramaic adjective meaning 'trodden down' or 'blazed', rather than a common noun. It was originally used to describe a blazed trail.[39][40] The flowerAnemone coronaria, called in Modern Hebrewkalanit (כלנית), was formerly called in Hebrewshoshanat ha-melekh ('the king's flower').[41][42]
Modern Hebrew is classified as anAfroasiatic language of theSemitic family, within theCanaanite branch of theNorthwest Semitic subgroup.[43][44][45][46] While Modern Hebrew is largely based onMishnaic andBiblical Hebrew as well asSephardi andAshkenazi liturgical and literary tradition from theMedieval andHaskalah eras and retains its Semitic character in its morphology and in much of its syntax,[47][48][page needed] some scholars posit that Modern Hebrew represents a fundamentally new linguistic system, not directly continuing any previous linguistic state, though this is not the consensus among scholars.[49]
Modern Hebrew is considered to be akoiné language based on historical layers of Hebrew that incorporates foreign elements, mainly those introduced during the most critical revival period between 1880 and 1920, as well as new elements created by speakers through natural linguistic evolution.[49][43] A minority of scholars argue that the revived language had been so influenced by varioussubstrate languages that it is genealogically a hybrid with Indo-European.[50][51][52][53] These theories are controversial and have not been met with general acceptance, and the consensus among a majority of scholars is that Modern Hebrew, despite its non-Semitic influences, can correctly be classified as a Semitic language.[44][54] Although Modern Hebrew has more of the features attributed toStandard Average European than Biblical Hebrew, it is still quite distant, and has fewer such features thanModern Standard Arabic.[55]
Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using theHebrew alphabet, which is anabjad, or consonant-only script of 22 letters based on the "square" letter form, known asAshurit (Assyrian), which was developed from theAramaic script. Acursive script is used in handwriting. When necessary, vowels are indicated by diacritic marks above or below the letters known asNikkud, or by use ofMatres lectionis, which are consonantal letters used as vowels. Further diacritics likeDagesh andSin and Shin dots are used to indicate variations in the pronunciation of the consonants (e.g.bet/vet,shin/sin). The letters "צ׳", "ג׳", "ז׳", each modified with aGeresh, represent the consonants[t͡ʃ],[d͡ʒ],[ʒ]. The consonant[t͡ʃ] may also be written as "תש" and "טש".[w] is represented interchangeably by a simple vav "ו", non-standard double vav "וו" and sometimes by non-standard geresh modified vav "ו׳".
| Name | Alef | Bet | Gimel | Dalet | He | Vav | Zayin | Chet | Tet | Yod | Kaf | Lamed | Mem | Nun | Samech | Ayin | Pe | Tzadi | Kof | Resh | Shin | Tav |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Printed letter | א | ב | ג | ד | ה | ו | ז | ח | ט | י | כ ך | ל | מ ם | נ ן | ס | ע | פ ף | צ ץ | ק | ר | ש | ת |
| Cursive letter |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |   |  |   |   |  |  |   |   |  |  |  |  |
| Pronunciation | /ʔ/,/∅/ | /b/,/v/ | /g/ | /d/ | /h/ | /v//u/,/o/,/w/ | /z/ | /χ~ħ/ | /t/ | /j/,/i/,/e(i̯)/ | /k/,/χ/ | /l/ | /m/ | /n/ | /s/ | /ʔ~ʕ/,/∅/ | /p/,/f/ | /t͡s/ | /k/ | /ʁ~r/ | /ʃ/,/s/ | /t/ |
| Transliteration | ',∅ | b, v | g | d | h | v, u, o, w | z | kh, ch, h | t | y, i, e, ei | k, kh | l | m | n | s | ',∅ | p, f | ts, tz | k | r | sh, s | t |
Modern Hebrew has fewer phonemes than Biblical Hebrew but it has developed its own phonological complexity. Israeli Hebrew has 25 to 27 consonants, depending on whether the speaker haspharyngeals. It has 5 to 10 vowels, depending on whether diphthongs and vowels are counted, varying with the speaker and the analysis.
Modern Hebrewmorphology (formation, structure, and interrelationship of words in a language) is essentiallyBiblical.[56] Modern Hebrew showcases much of the inflectional morphology of the classical upon which it was based. In the formation of new words, all verbs and the majority of nouns and adjectives are formed by the classically Semitic devices oftriconsonantal roots (shoresh) withaffixed patterns (mishkal). Mishnaic attributive patterns are often used to create nouns, and Classical patterns are often used to create adjectives. Blended words are created by merging two bound stems or parts of words.
The syntax of Modern Hebrew is mainly Mishnaic[56] but also shows the influence of different contact languages to which its speakers have been exposed during the revival period and over the past century.
The word order of Modern Hebrew is predominately SVO (subject–verb–object). Biblical Hebrew was originally VSO (verb–subject–object), but drifted into SVO.[57] In the modern language, a sentence may correctly be arranged in any order but its meaning might be hard to understand unless אֶת is used.[clarification needed] Modern Hebrew maintains classical syntactic properties associated with VSO languages: it isprepositional, rather than postpositional, in marking case and adverbial relations,auxiliary verbs precede main verbs; main verbs precede their complements, and noun modifiers (adjectives,determiners other than thedefinite articleה- (ha), andnoun adjuncts) follow the head noun; and ingenitive constructions, the possessee noun precedes the possessor. Moreover, Modern Hebrew allows and sometimes requires sentences with a predicate initial.
Modern Hebrew has expanded its vocabulary effectively to meet the needs of casual vernacular, of science and technology, of journalism andbelles-lettres. According toGhil'ad Zuckermann:
The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words is 8198, of which some 2000 arehapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have a Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000.[58]: 64–65
| Modern Hebrew[59] | Transliteration | English[60] |
|---|---|---|
כׇּל בְּנֵי הָאָדָם נוֹלְדוּ בְּנֵי חוֹרִין וְשָׁוִים בְּעֶרְכָּם וּבִזְכֻיוֹתֵיהֶם. כֻּלָם חוֹנְנוּ בִּתְבוּנָה וְּבְמַצְפּוּן, לְפִיכָךְ חוֹבָה עֲלֵיהֶם לִנְהֹג אִישׁ בְּרֵעֵהוּ בְּרוּחַ שֶׁל אַחֲוָה. | Kol bne ha'adam noldu bne chorin veshavim be'erkam uvizchuyotehem. Kulam chonenu bitvunah uvematzpun, lefichach chovah 'alehem linhog 'ish bere'ehu beruach shel achavah. | All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. |
Modern Hebrew hasloanwords fromArabic (both from the localPalestinian dialect and from thedialects of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries),Aramaic,Yiddish,Judaeo-Spanish,German,Polish,Russian,English and other languages. Simultaneously, Israeli Hebrew makes use of words that were originally loanwords from the languages of surrounding nations from ancient times:Canaanite languages as well asAkkadian. Mishnaic Hebrew borrowed many nouns fromAramaic (including Persian words borrowed by Aramaic), as well as fromGreek and to a lesser extentLatin.[61] In the Middle Ages, Hebrew made heavy semantic borrowing from Arabic, especially in the fields of science and philosophy. Here are typical examples of Hebrew loanwords:
| loanword | derivatives | origin | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew | IPA | meaning | Hebrew | IPA | meaning | language | spelling | meaning |
| בַּי | /baj/ | goodbye | English | bye | ||||
| אֶגְזוֹז | /eɡˈzoz/ | exhaust system | exhaust system | |||||
| דיג׳יי | /ˈdidʒej/ | DJ | דיג׳ה | /diˈdʒe/ | to DJ | to DJ | ||
| וַאלְלָה | /ˈwala/ | really!? | Arabic | والله | really!? | |||
| כֵּיף | /kef/ | fun | כַּיֵּף | /kiˈjef/ | to have fun[w 1] | كيف | pleasure | |
| תַּאֲרִיךְ | /taʔaˈʁiχ/ | date | תֶּאֱרַךְ | /teʔeˈreχ/ | to date | تاريخ | date, history | |
| חְנוּן | /χnun/ | geek, wimp, nerd, "square" | Moroccan Arabic | خنونة | snot | |||
| אַבָּא | /ˈaba/ | dad | Aramaic | אבא | the father/ | |||
| דוּגרִי | /ˈdugʁi/ | forthright | Ottoman Turkish | طوغری doğrı | correct | |||
| פַּרְדֵּס | /paʁˈdes/ | orchard | Avestan | 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌⸱𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀 | garden | |||
| אֲלַכְסוֹן | /alaχˈson/ | diagonal | Greek | λοξός | slope | |||
| וִילוֹן | /viˈlon/ | curtain | Latin | vēlum | veil, curtain | |||
| חַלְטוּרָה | /χalˈtuʁa/ | shoddy job | חִלְטֵר | /χilˈteʁ/ | to moonlight | Russian | халтура | shoddy work[w 2] |
| בָּלָגָן | /balaˈɡan/ | mess | בִּלְגֵּן | /bilˈɡen/ | to make a mess | балаган | chaos[w 2] | |
| תַּכְלֶ׳ס | /ˈtaχles/ | directly/ essentially | Yiddish | תכלית | goal (Hebrew word, only pronunciation is Yiddish) | |||
| חְרוֹפּ | /χʁop/ | deep sleep | חָרַפּ | /χaˈʁap/ | to sleep deeply | כראָפ | snore | |
| שְׁפַּכְטֵל | /ˈʃpaχtel/ | putty knife | German | Spachtel | putty knife | |||
| גּוּמִי | /ˈɡumi/ | rubber | גּוּמִיָּה | /ɡumiˈja/ | rubber band | Gummi | rubber | |
| גָּזוֹז | /ɡaˈzoz/ | carbonated beverage | Turkish from French | gazoz[w 3] from eaugazeuse | carbonated beverage | |||
| פּוּסְטֵמָה | /pusˈtema/ | stupid woman | Ladino | פּוֹשׂטֵימה postema | inflamed wound[w 4] | |||
| אַדְרִיכָל | /adʁiˈχal/ | architect | אַדְרִיכָלוּת | /adʁiχaˈlut/ | architecture | Akkadian | 𒀵𒂍𒃲 | temple servant[w 5] |
| צִי | /t͡si/ | fleet | Ancient Egyptian | ḏꜣy | ship | |||
Hebrew is cited by Paulston et al. (1993:276) as 'the only true example of language revival.'
In 1879 he wrote an article for the Hebrew press advocating Jewish immigration to Palestine. Ben-Yehuda argued that only in a country with a Jewish majority could a living Hebrew literature and a distinct Jewish nationality survive; elsewhere, the pressure to assimilate to the language of the majority would cause Hebrew to die out. Shortly afterwards he reached the conclusion that the active use of Hebrew as a literary language could not be sustained, notwithstanding the hoped-for concentration of Jews in Palestine, unless Hebrew also became the everyday spoken language there.
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