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{{Short description|Standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today}}
{{Short description|Standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today}}
{{Infobox language
{{Infobox language
| name = Modern Hebrew
| name = Modern Hebrew
| altname = "Hebrew" / "Israeli Hebrew"
| altname = Hebrew, Israeli Hebrew
| nativename = {{lang|he|{{Script/Hebrew|עברית חדשה}}|rtl=yes}}
| nativename = {{nobold|{{lang|he|{{Script/Hebrew|עברית חדשה}}|rtl=yes}}}}
| familycolor = Afro-Asiatic
| familycolor = Afro-Asiatic
| image = File:Shalom black.svg
| image = File:Shalom black.svg
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| [[Second language|L2]]: 4 million}}
| [[Second language|L2]]: 4 million}}
| fam2 = [[Semitic languages|Semitic]]
| fam2 = [[Semitic languages|Semitic]]
| fam3 = [[Central Semitic languages|Central Semitic]]
| fam3 = [[West Semitic languages|West]]
| fam4 = [[Northwest Semitic languages|Northwest Semitic]]
| fam4 = [[Central Semitic languages|Central]]
| fam5 = [[Canaanite languages|Canaanite]]
| fam5 = [[Northwest Semitic languages|Northwest]]
| fam6 = [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]
| fam6 = [[Canaanite languages|Canaanite]]
| fam7 = [[Canaanite languages#South Canaan|South]]
| fam8 = [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]
| nation = {{flag|Israel}}
| nation = {{flag|Israel}}
| ancestor = [[Biblical Hebrew]]
| ancestor = [[Biblical Hebrew]]
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{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2023}}


'''Modern Hebrew''' ({{Lang|he|{{Script/Hebrew|עִבְרִית חֲדָשָׁה|rtl=yes}}}} {{Transliteration|he|ʿĪvrīt ḥadašá}} {{IPA-he|ivˈʁit χadaˈʃa|}}), also called '''Israeli Hebrew''' or simply '''Hebrew''', is the standard form of the [[Hebrew language]] spoken today. Developed as part of [[Revival of the Hebrew language|Hebrew's revival]] in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it is the official language of the [[Israel|State of Israel]], and the world's only [[Canaanite languages|Canaanite language]] in use. Coinciding with the creation of the state of Israel, where it is the [[national language]], Modern Hebrew is the only successful instance of a complete [[Language revitalization|language revival]].<ref name="GrenobleWhaley2">{{cite book |last1=Grenoble |first1=Leonore A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vavj5-hdDgQC&pg=PA63 |title=Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization |last2=Whaley |first2=Lindsay J. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0521016520 |location=Cambridge, UK |page=63 |quote=Hebrew is cited by Paulston et al. (1993:276) as 'the only true example of language revival.'}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Huehnergard, John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yD6IDwAAQBAJ |title=The Semitic Languages |author2=Pat-El, Na'ama |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=9780429655388 |page=571 |access-date=2021-02-18 |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134731/https://books.google.com/books?id=yD6IDwAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="GrenobleWhaley">{{cite book |last1=Grenoble |first1=Leonore A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vavj5-hdDgQC&pg=PA63 |title=Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization |last2=Whaley |first2=Lindsay J. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0521016520 |location=Cambridge, UK |page=63 |quote=Hebrew is cited by Paulston et al. (1993:276) as 'the only true example of language revival.'}}</ref>
'''Modern Hebrew''' ({{Langx|he|עִבְרִית חֲדָשָׁה}} {{IPA|he|ʔivˈʁit χadaˈʃa|}} or {{IPA|he|ʕivˈrit ħadaˈʃa|}}), also called '''Israeli Hebrew''' or simply '''Hebrew''', is the standard form of the [[Hebrew language]] spoken today. Developed as part of the [[Revival of the Hebrew language|revival of Hebrew]] in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is the official language of the [[Israel|State of Israel]] and the only [[Canaanite languages|Canaanite language]] still spoken as a native language. The revival of Hebrew predates the creation of the state of Israel, where it is now the [[national language]]. Modern Hebrew is often regarded as one of the most successful instances of [[Language revitalization|language revitalization]].<ref name="GrenobleWhaley2">{{cite book |last1=Grenoble |first1=Leonore A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vavj5-hdDgQC&pg=PA63 |title=Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization |last2=Whaley |first2=Lindsay J. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0521016520 |location=Cambridge, UK |page=63 |quote=Hebrew is cited by Paulston et al. (1993:276) as 'the only true example of language revival.'}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Huehnergard, John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yD6IDwAAQBAJ |title=The Semitic Languages |author2=Pat-El, Na'ama |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=9780429655388 |page=571 |access-date=2021-02-18 |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134731/https://books.google.com/books?id=yD6IDwAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>


Hebrew, a [[Northwest Semitic languages|Northwest Semitic language]] within the [[Afroasiatic languages|Afroasiatic language family]], was spoken since antiquity and the [[vernacular]] of the [[Jews|Jewish people]] until the 3rd century BCE, when it was supplanted by [[Western Aramaic languages|Western Aramaic]], a dialect of the [[Aramaic|Aramaic language]], the local or dominant languages of the regions Jews migrated to, and later [[Judeo-Arabic dialects|Judeo-Arabic]], [[Judaeo-Spanish]], [[Yiddish]], and other [[Jewish languages]]. Although Hebrew continued to be used for [[Judaism|Jewish liturgy]], [[Jewish literature|poetry and literature]], and [[Letter (message)|written correspondence]],<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Modern Hebrew|first=Ora (Rodrigue)|last=Schwarzwald|editor-first=Stefan|editor-last=Weninger|editor2-first=Geoffrey|editor2-last=Khan|editor3-first=Michael P.|editor3-last=Streck|editor4-first=Janet C. E.|editor4-last=Watson|title=The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook|publisher=De Gruyter|date=2012|page=534|doi=10.1515/9783110251586.523|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110251586.523/html|isbn=978-3-11-025158-6}}</ref> it became [[Extinct language|extinct]] as a spoken language.
Hebrew, a [[Northwest Semitic languages|Northwest Semitic language]] within the [[Afroasiatic languages|Afroasiatic language family]], was spoken since antiquity and the [[vernacular]] of the [[Jews|Jewish people]] until the 3rd century BCE, when it was supplanted by [[Western Aramaic languages|Western Aramaic]], a dialect of the [[Aramaic|Aramaic language]], the local or dominant languages of the regions Jews migrated to, and later [[Judeo-Arabic dialects|Judeo-Arabic]], [[Judaeo-Spanish]], [[Yiddish]], and other [[Jewish languages]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Language_Contact_and_the_Development_of/X3fsCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=Language Contact and the Development of Modern Hebrew |date=2015-11-16 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-31089-6 |language=en|pages=3,7}}</ref> Although Hebrew continued to be used for [[Jewish liturgy]], [[Jewish literature|poetry and literature]], and written correspondence,<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Modern Hebrew|first=Ora (Rodrigue)|last=Schwarzwald|editor-first=Stefan|editor-last=Weninger|editor2-first=Geoffrey|editor2-last=Khan|editor3-first=Michael P.|editor3-last=Streck|editor4-first=Janet C. E.|editor4-last=Watson|title=The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook|publisher=De Gruyter|date=2012|page=534|doi=10.1515/9783110251586.523|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110251586.523/html|isbn=978-3-11-025158-6}}</ref> it became [[Extinct language|extinct]] as a spoken language.


By the late 19th century, Russian-Jewish linguist [[Eliezer Ben-Yehuda]] had begun a popular movement to [[Language revitalization|revive]] Hebrew as a living language, motivated by his desire to preserve [[Hebrew literature]] and a distinct [[Jewish peoplehood|Jewish nationality]] in the context of [[Zionism]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mandel |first=George |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57470923 |title=Encyclopedia of modern Jewish culture |date=2005 |others=Glenda Abramson |isbn=0-415-29813-X |edition=[New ed.] |location=London |chapter=Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer [Eliezer Yizhak Perelman] (1858–1922) |oclc=57470923 |quote=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. |access-date=2023-05-10 |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134739/https://www.worldcat.org/title/57470923 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Fellman |first=Jack |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1089437441 |title=The Revival of Classical Tongue : Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language |date=19 July 2011 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-087910-0 |oclc=1089437441 |access-date=2023-05-10 |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134737/https://worldcat.org/title/1089437441 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Kuzar |first=Ron |title=Hebrew and Zionism |date=2001 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110869491.vii |work= |access-date=2023-05-10 |place=Berlin, Boston |publisher=DE GRUYTER |doi=10.1515/9783110869491.vii |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134737/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110869491.vii/html |url-status=live }}</ref> Soon after, a large number of Yiddish and Judaeo-Spanish speakers were murdered in the [[Holocaust]]<ref name="Sprache 1984 p. 3">[[Solomon Birnbaum]], ''Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache'' (4., erg. Aufl., Hamburg: Buske, 1984), p. 3.</ref> or [[aliyah|fled to Israel]], and many speakers of [[Judeo-Arabic dialects|Judeo-Arabic]] emigrated to Israel in the [[Jewish exodus from the Muslim world]], where many adapted to Modern Hebrew.
By the late 19th century, Russian-Jewish linguist [[Eliezer Ben-Yehuda]] had begun a popular movement to [[Language revitalization|revive]] Hebrew as a living language, motivated by his desire to preserve [[Hebrew literature]] and a distinct [[Jewish peoplehood|Jewish nationality]] in the context of [[Zionism]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mandel |first=George |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57470923 |title=Encyclopedia of modern Jewish culture |date=2005 |others=Glenda Abramson |isbn=0-415-29813-X |edition=[New ed.] |location=London |chapter=Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer [Eliezer Yizhak Perelman] (1858–1922) |oclc=57470923 |quote=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. |access-date=2023-05-10 |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134739/https://www.worldcat.org/title/57470923 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Fellman |first=Jack |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1089437441 |title=The Revival of Classical Tongue : Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language |date=19 July 2011 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-087910-0 |oclc=1089437441 |access-date=2023-05-10 |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134737/https://worldcat.org/title/1089437441 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Kuzar |first=Ron |title=Hebrew and Zionism |date=2001 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110869491.vii |work= |access-date=2023-05-10 |place=Berlin, Boston |publisher=DE GRUYTER |doi=10.1515/9783110869491.vii |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134737/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110869491.vii/html |url-status=live }}</ref> Soon after, a large number of Yiddish and Judaeo-Spanish speakers were murdered in the [[Holocaust]]<ref name="Sprache 1984 p. 3">[[Solomon Birnbaum]], ''Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache'' (4., erg. Aufl., Hamburg: Buske, 1984), p. 3.</ref> or [[aliyah|fled to Israel]], and many speakers of [[Judeo-Arabic dialects|Judeo-Arabic]] emigrated to Israel in the [[Jewish exodus from the Muslim world]], where many adapted to Modern Hebrew.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Berdichevsky |first=Norman |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Modern_Hebrew/f1_TCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 |title=Modern Hebrew: The Past and Future of a Revitalized Language |date=2016-03-21 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-2629-1 |language=en|pages=39,65,73,77,81,101}}</ref>


Currently, Hebrew is spoken by approximately 9–10 million people, counting native, fluent, and non-fluent speakers.<ref name=israel-hayom-hebrew-speakers>{{cite news|last=Klein|first=Zeev|title=A million and a half Israelis struggle with Hebrew|url=http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=8065|access-date=2 November 2013|newspaper=[[Israel Hayom]]|date=March 18, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104001556/http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=8065|archive-date=4 November 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Behadrey-Haredim>{{cite web|author=Nachman Gur|author2=Behadrey Haredim|title=Kometz Aleph&nbsp;– Au• How many Hebrew speakers are there in the world?|url=http://www.bhol.co.il/article_en.aspx?id=52405|access-date=2 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104025104/http://www.bhol.co.il/article_en.aspx?id=52405|archive-date=4 November 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> Half of this figure comprises Israelis who speak it as their native language, while the other half is split: 1.5 million are immigrants to Israel; 1.5 million are [[Arab citizens of Israel|Israeli Arabs]], whose first language is usually [[Levantine Arabic|Arabic]]; and half a million are [[Yerida|expatriate Israelis]] or [[Jewish diaspora|diaspora Jews]].
Currently, Hebrew is spoken by approximately 9–10 million people, counting native, fluent, and non-fluent speakers.<ref name=israel-hayom-hebrew-speakers>{{cite news|last=Klein|first=Zeev|title=A million and a half Israelis struggle with Hebrew|url=http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=8065|access-date=2 November 2013|newspaper=[[Israel Hayom]]|date=March 18, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104001556/http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=8065|archive-date=4 November 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Behadrey-Haredim>{{cite web|author=Nachman Gur|author2=Behadrey Haredim|title=Kometz Aleph&nbsp;– Au• How many Hebrew speakers are there in the world?|url=http://www.bhol.co.il/article_en.aspx?id=52405|access-date=2 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104025104/http://www.bhol.co.il/article_en.aspx?id=52405|archive-date=4 November 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> Some 6 million of these speak it as their native language, the overwhelming majority of whom are [[Sabra (person)|Jews who were born in Israel]] or immigrated during infancy. The rest is split: 2 million are immigrants to Israel; 1.5 million are [[Arab citizens of Israel|Israeli Arabs]], whose first language is usually [[Levantine Arabic|Arabic]]; and half a million are [[Yerida|expatriate Israelis]] or [[Jewish diaspora|diaspora Jews]].


Under Israeli law, the organization that officially directs the development of Modern Hebrew is the [[Academy of the Hebrew Language]], headquartered at the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]].
Under Israeli law, the organization that officially directs the development of Modern Hebrew is the [[Academy of the Hebrew Language]], headquartered at the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]].




Israeli army kill innocent people and bombed their houses.


==Name==
==Name==
The most common scholarly term for the language is "Modern Hebrew" ({{lang|he|עברית חדשה|rtl=yes}} ''ʿivrít ħadašá[h]''). Most people refer to it simply as ''Hebrew'' ({{lang|he|עברית|rtl=yes}} ''Ivrit'').<ref name=Dekel1>{{harvnb|Dekel|2014}}; quote: "Most people refer to Israeli Hebrew simply as Hebrew. Hebrew is a broad term, which includes Hebrew as it was spoken and written in different periods of time and according to most of the researchers as it is spoken and written in Israel and elsewhere today. Several names have been proposed for the language spoken in Israel nowadays, Modern Hebrew is the most common one, addressing the latest spoken language variety in Israel (Berman 1978, Saenz-Badillos 1993:269, Coffin-Amir & Bolozky 2005, Schwarzwald 2009:61). The emergence of a new language in Palestine at the end of the nineteenth century was associated with debates regarding the characteristics of that language.... Not all scholars supported the term Modern Hebrew for the new language. Rosén (1977:17) rejected the term Modern Hebrew, since linguistically he claimed that 'modern' should represent a linguistic entity that should command autonomy towards everything that preceded it, while this was not the case in the new emerging language. He also rejected the term Neo-Hebrew, because the prefix 'neo' had been previously used for Mishnaic and Medieval Hebrew (Rosén 1977:15–16), additionally, he rejected the term Spoken Hebrew as one of the possible proposals (Rosén 1977:18). Rosén supported the term Israeli Hebrew as in his opinion it represented the non-chronological nature of Hebrew, as well as its territorial independence (Rosén 1977:18). Rosén then adopted the term Contemporary Hebrew from Téne (1968) for its neutrality, and suggested the broadening of this term to Contemporary Israeli Hebrew (Rosén 1977:19)"</ref>
The most common scholarly term for the language is "Modern Hebrew" ({{lang|he|עברית חדשה}}). Most people refer to it simply as ''Hebrew'' ({{lang|he|עברית}} {{IPA|he|Ivrit}}).<ref name=Dekel1>{{harvnb|Dekel|2014}}; quote: "Most people refer to Israeli Hebrew simply as Hebrew. Hebrew is a broad term, which includes Hebrew as it was spoken and written in different periods of time and according to most of the researchers as it is spoken and written in Israel and elsewhere today. Several names have been proposed for the language spoken in Israel nowadays, Modern Hebrew is the most common one, addressing the latest spoken language variety in Israel (Berman 1978, Saenz-Badillos 1993:269, Coffin-Amir & Bolozky 2005, Schwarzwald 2009:61). The emergence of a new language in Palestine at the end of the nineteenth century was associated with debates regarding the characteristics of that language.... Not all scholars supported the term Modern Hebrew for the new language. Rosén (1977:17) rejected the term Modern Hebrew, since linguistically he claimed that 'modern' should represent a linguistic entity that should command autonomy towards everything that preceded it, while this was not the case in the new emerging language. He also rejected the term Neo-Hebrew, because the prefix 'neo' had been previously used for Mishnaic and Medieval Hebrew (Rosén 1977:15–16), additionally, he rejected the term Spoken Hebrew as one of the possible proposals (Rosén 1977:18). Rosén supported the term Israeli Hebrew as in his opinion it represented the non-chronological nature of Hebrew, as well as its territorial independence (Rosén 1977:18). Rosén then adopted the term Contemporary Hebrew from Téne (1968) for its neutrality, and suggested the broadening of this term to Contemporary Israeli Hebrew (Rosén 1977:19)"</ref>


The term "Modern Hebrew" has been described as "somewhat problematic"<ref name=Matras1>{{harvnb|Matras|Schiff|2005}}; quote: The language with which we are concerned in this contribution is also known by the names Contemporary Hebrew and Modern Hebrew, both somewhat problematic terms as they rely on the notion of an unambiguous periodization separating Classical or Biblical Hebrew from the present-day language. We follow instead the now widely-used label coined by Rosén (1955), Israeli Hebrew, to denote the link between the emergence of a Hebrew vernacular and the emergence of an Israeli national identity in Israel/Palestine in the early twentieth century."</ref> as it implies unambiguous [[periodization]] from [[Biblical Hebrew]].<ref name=Matras1/> {{ill|Haiim B. Rosén|he|חיים רוזן}} (חיים רוזן) supported the now widely used<ref name="Matras1" /> term "Israeli Hebrew" on the basis that it "represented the non-chronological nature of Hebrew".<ref name="Dekel1" /><ref name="Rosen15">{{cite book|author=Haiim Rosén|title=Contemporary Hebrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PydwqOHyCMAC&pg=PA29|date=1 January 1977|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-080483-6|pages=15–18}}</ref> In 1999, Israeli linguist [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] proposed the term "Israeli" to represent the multiple origins of the language.<ref>[[Ghil'ad Zuckermann|Zuckermann, G.]] (1999), "Review of the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary", ''International Journal of Lexicography'', Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 325-346</ref>{{rp|325}}<ref name="Dekel1"/>
The term "Modern Hebrew" has been described as "somewhat problematic"<ref name=Matras1>{{harvnb|Matras|Schiff|2005}}; quote: The language with which we are concerned in this contribution is also known by the names Contemporary Hebrew and Modern Hebrew, both somewhat problematic terms as they rely on the notion of an unambiguous periodization separating Classical or Biblical Hebrew from the present-day language. We follow instead the now widely-used label coined by Rosén (1955), Israeli Hebrew, to denote the link between the emergence of a Hebrew vernacular and the emergence of an Israeli national identity in Israel/Palestine in the early twentieth century."</ref> as it implies unambiguous [[periodization]] from [[Biblical Hebrew]].<ref name=Matras1/> {{ill|Haiim B. Rosén|he|חיים רוזן}} (חיים רוזן) supported the now widely used<ref name="Matras1" /> term "Israeli Hebrew" on the basis that it "represented the non-chronological nature of Hebrew".<ref name="Dekel1" /><ref name="Rosen15">{{cite book|author=Haiim Rosén|title=Contemporary Hebrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PydwqOHyCMAC&pg=PA29|date=1 January 1977|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-080483-6|pages=15–18}}</ref> In 1999, Israeli linguist [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] proposed the term "Israeli" to represent the multiple origins of the language.<ref>[[Ghil'ad Zuckermann|Zuckermann, G.]] (1999), "Review of the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary", ''International Journal of Lexicography'', Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 325-346</ref>{{rp|325}}<ref name="Dekel1"/>
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Modern Hebrew used Biblical Hebrew [[morpheme]]s, Mishnaic spelling and grammar, and Sephardic pronunciation. Many [[Idiomatic language|idioms]] and [[calque]]s were made from [[Yiddish]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}} Its acceptance by the early Jewish immigrants to [[Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem|Ottoman Palestine]] was caused primarily by support from the organisations of [[Edmond James de Rothschild]] in the 1880s and the official status it received in the 1922 constitution of the [[Mandate for Palestine|British Mandate for Palestine]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Hobsbawm|first=Eric|author-link=Eric Hobsbawm|title=Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AcYLAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA113|year=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-39446-9}}, "What would the future of Hebrew have been, had not the British Mandate in 1919 accepted it as one of the three official languages of Palestine, at a time when the number of people speaking Hebrew as an everyday language was less than 20,000?"</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Swirski|first=Shlomo|title=Politics and Education in Israel: Comparisons with the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2DOPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA30|date=11 September 2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-58242-5}}: "In retrospect, [Hobsbawm's] question should be rephrased, substituting the Rothschild house for the British state and the 1880s for 1919. For by the time the British conquered Palestine, Hebrew had become the everyday language of a small but well-entrenched community."</ref><ref>[[s:Palestine Mandate|Palestine Mandate]] (1922): "English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine"</ref><ref name="Harshav1999">{{cite book|author=Benjamin Harshav|title=Language in Time of Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HPwR7pmx84IC&pg=PA85|year=1999|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-3540-7|pages=85–}}</ref> 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 words {{transliteration|he|gerev}} (sing.) and {{transliteration|he|garbayim}} (pl.) are now applied to 'socks', a diminutive of the Arabic {{transliteration|ar|ğuwārib}} ('socks').<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Even-Shoshan|editor-first=A. |editor-link=Avraham Even-Shoshan |title=[[Even-Shoshan Dictionary]] |publisher=ha-Milon he-ḥadash Ltd.|volume=1 |page=275 |date=2003 |oclc=55071836 |language=he|isbn=965-517-059-4 }}</ref><ref>Cf. Rabbi [[Hai Gaon]]'s commentary on [[Mishnah]] ''Kelim'' 27:6, where {{lang|he|אמפליא|rtl=yes}} ({{transliteration|he|ampalya}}) was used formerly for the same, and had the equivalent meaning of the Arabic word {{transliteration|ar|ğuwārib}} ('stockings'; 'socks').</ref> In addition, early Jewish immigrants, borrowing from the local Arabs, and later immigrants from Arab lands introduced many nouns as loanwords from Arabic (such as ''[[Mentha|nana]]'', {{transliteration|he|[[zaatar]]}}, {{transliteration|he|[[Apricot|mishmish]]}}, {{transliteration|he|[[Coriander|kusbara]]}}, {{transliteration|he|[[Hilbah|ḥilba]]}}, ''[[Vigna unguiculata subsp. unguiculata|lubiya]]'', ''[[hummus]]'', {{transliteration|he|[[Carrot|gezer]]}}, {{transliteration|he|[[Basil|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 poet [[Haim Nahman Bialik]].{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}
Modern Hebrew used Biblical Hebrew [[morpheme]]s, Mishnaic spelling and grammar, and Sephardic pronunciation. Many [[Idiomatic language|idioms]] and [[calque]]s were made from [[Yiddish]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}} Its acceptance by the early Jewish immigrants to [[Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem|Ottoman Palestine]] was caused primarily by support from the organisations of [[Edmond James de Rothschild]] in the 1880s and the official status it received in the 1922 constitution of the [[Mandate for Palestine|British Mandate for Palestine]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Hobsbawm|first=Eric|author-link=Eric Hobsbawm|title=Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AcYLAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA113|year=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-39446-9}}, "What would the future of Hebrew have been, had not the British Mandate in 1919 accepted it as one of the three official languages of Palestine, at a time when the number of people speaking Hebrew as an everyday language was less than 20,000?"</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Swirski|first=Shlomo|title=Politics and Education in Israel: Comparisons with the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2DOPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA30|date=11 September 2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-58242-5}}: "In retrospect, [Hobsbawm's] question should be rephrased, substituting the Rothschild house for the British state and the 1880s for 1919. For by the time the British conquered Palestine, Hebrew had become the everyday language of a small but well-entrenched community."</ref><ref>[[s:Palestine Mandate|Palestine Mandate]] (1922): "English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine"</ref><ref name="Harshav1999">{{cite book|author=Benjamin Harshav|title=Language in Time of Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HPwR7pmx84IC&pg=PA85|year=1999|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-3540-7|pages=85–}}</ref> 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 words {{transliteration|he|gerev}} (sing.) and {{transliteration|he|garbayim}} (pl.) are now applied to 'socks', a diminutive of the Arabic {{transliteration|ar|ğuwārib}} ('socks').<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Even-Shoshan|editor-first=A. |editor-link=Avraham Even-Shoshan |title=[[Even-Shoshan Dictionary]] |publisher=ha-Milon he-ḥadash Ltd.|volume=1 |page=275 |date=2003 |oclc=55071836 |language=he|isbn=965-517-059-4 }}</ref><ref>Cf. Rabbi [[Hai Gaon]]'s commentary on [[Mishnah]] ''Kelim'' 27:6, where {{lang|he|אמפליא|rtl=yes}} ({{transliteration|he|ampalya}}) was used formerly for the same, and had the equivalent meaning of the Arabic word {{transliteration|ar|ğuwārib}} ('stockings'; 'socks').</ref> In addition, early Jewish immigrants, borrowing from the local Arabs, and later immigrants from Arab lands introduced many nouns as loanwords from Arabic (such as ''[[Mentha|nana]]'', {{transliteration|he|[[zaatar]]}}, {{transliteration|he|[[Apricot|mishmish]]}}, {{transliteration|he|[[Coriander|kusbara]]}}, {{transliteration|he|[[Hilbah|ḥilba]]}}, ''[[Vigna unguiculata subsp. unguiculata|lubiya]]'', ''[[hummus]]'', {{transliteration|he|[[Carrot|gezer]]}}, {{transliteration|he|[[Basil|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 poet [[Haim Nahman Bialik]].{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}


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 as ''bardelas'' ({{lang|he|ברדלס|rtl=yes}}), which in Mishnaic Hebrew meant '[[hyena]]',<ref>Maimonides' commentary and Rabbi [[Ovadiah Bartenurah|Ovadiah of Bartenura]]'s commentary on Mishnah ''Baba Kama'' 1:4; Rabbi [[Nathan ben Abraham I|Nathan ben Abraham]]'s Mishnah Commentary, ''Baba Metzia'' 7:9, s.v. {{lang|he|הפרדלס}}; ''[[Arukh|Sefer Arukh]]'', s.v. {{lang|he|ברדלס}}; Zohar Amar, ''Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings'', Kefar Darom 2015, pp. 177–178; 228</ref> but in Modern Hebrew it now means '[[cheetah]]'; or ''shezīph'' ({{lang|he|שְׁזִיף|rtl=yes}}) which is now used for '[[plum]]', but formerly meant '[[jujube]]'.<ref>Zohar Amar, ''Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings'', Kfar Darom 2015, p. 157, s.v. {{lang|he|שזפין}} {{OCLC|783455868}}, explained to mean 'jujube' (''Ziziphus jujuba''); [[Solomon Sirilio]]'s Commentary of the Jerusalem Talmud, on ''Kila'im'' 1:4, s.v. {{lang|he|השיזפין}}, which he explained to mean in Spanish {{lang|es|azufaifas}} ('jujubes'). See also Saul Lieberman, Glossary in ''Tosephta'' - based on the Erfurt and Vienna Codices (ed. M.S. Zuckermandel), Jerusalem 1970, s.v. {{lang|he|שיזפין}} (p. LXL), explained in German as meaning {{lang|de|Brustbeerbaum}} ('jujube').</ref> The word {{transliteration|he|kishū’īm}} (formerly 'cucumbers')<ref>Thus explained by Maimonides in his Commentary on [[Mishnah]] ''Kila'im'' 1:2 and in Mishnah ''Terumot'' 2:6. See: Zohar Amar, ''Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings'', Kefar Darom 2015, pp. 111, 149 (Hebrew) {{OCLC|783455868}}; Zohar Amar, ''Agricultural Produce in the Land of Israel in the Middle Ages'' (Hebrew title: {{lang|he|גידולי ארץ-ישראל בימי הביניים}}), [[Ben-Zvi Institute]]: Jerusalem 2000, p. 286 {{ISBN|965-217-174-3}} (Hebrew)</ref> is now applied to a variety of [[summer squash]] (''Cucurbita pepo'' var. ''cylindrica''), a plant native to the [[New World]]. Another example is the word {{transliteration|he|kǝvīš}} ({{lang|he|כביש|rtl=yes}}), which now denotes a street or a road, but is actually an [[Aramaic]] adjective meaning 'trodden down' or 'blazed', rather than a common noun. It was originally used to describe a blazed trail.<ref>Compare [[Rashi]]'s commentary on Exodus 9:17, where he says the word {{transliteration|he|mesillah}} is translated in Aramaic {{transliteration|tmr|oraḥ kevīsha}} ('a blazed trail'), the word {{transliteration|tmr|kevīsh}} being only an adjective or descriptive word, but not a common noun as it is used today. It is said that [[Ze'ev Yavetz]] (1847&ndash;1924) is the one who coined this modern Hebrew word for 'road'. See [http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/with-tu-bishvat-near-a-tree-grows-in-zichron-yaakov.premium-1.496141 Haaretz, Contributions made by Ze'ev Yavetz] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924160513/http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/with-tu-bishvat-near-a-tree-grows-in-zichron-yaakov.premium-1.496141 |date=2015-09-24 }}; {{cite news | last =Maltz | first =Judy | title =With Tu Bishvat Near, a Tree Grows in Zichron Yaakov | language =en | publisher =Haaretz | date =25 January 2013 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/with-tu-bishvat-near-a-tree-grows-in-zichron-yaakov.premium-1.496141?=&ts=_1490626484939 | access-date =27 March 2017 | archive-date =28 March 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170328021151/http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/with-tu-bishvat-near-a-tree-grows-in-zichron-yaakov.premium-1.496141?=&ts=_1490626484939 | url-status =live }}</ref><ref>Roberto Garvio, ''Esperanto and its Rivals, University of Pennsylvania Press'', 2015, p. 164</ref> The flower ''[[Anemone coronaria]]'', called in Modern Hebrew {{transliteration|he|kalanit}}, was formerly called in Hebrew {{transliteration|he|shoshanat ha-melekh}} ('the king's flower').<ref>{{cite book |last=Amar|first=Z. |author-link=Zohar Amar |title=Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings|date=2015 |location=Kfar Darom|page=156 |language=he |oclc=783455868}}, s.v. citing [[Maimonides]] on [[Mishnah]] ''[[Kil'ayim (tractate)|Kil'ayim]]'' 5:8</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150218130708/http://www.matar.ac.il/zmanim/flowers/flowers-1.asp Matar – Science and Technology On-line], the Common Anemone (in Hebrew)</ref>
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 as ''bardelas'' ({{lang|he|ברדלס|rtl=yes}}), which in Mishnaic Hebrew meant '[[hyena]]',<ref>Maimonides' commentary and Rabbi [[Ovadiah Bartenurah|Ovadiah of Bartenura]]'s commentary on Mishnah ''Baba Kama'' 1:4; Rabbi [[Nathan ben Abraham I|Nathan ben Abraham]]'s Mishnah Commentary, ''Baba Metzia'' 7:9, s.v. {{lang|he|הפרדלס}}; ''[[Arukh|Sefer Arukh]]'', s.v. {{lang|he|ברדלס}}; Zohar Amar, ''Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings'', Kefar Darom 2015, pp. 177–178; 228</ref> but in Modern Hebrew it now means '[[cheetah]]'; or ''shezīph'' ({{lang|he|שְׁזִיף|rtl=yes}}) which is now used for '[[plum]]', but formerly meant '[[jujube]]'.<ref>Zohar Amar, ''Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings'', Kfar Darom 2015, p. 157, s.v. {{lang|he|שזפין}} {{OCLC|783455868}}, explained to mean 'jujube' (''Ziziphus jujuba''); [[Solomon Sirilio]]'s Commentary of the Jerusalem Talmud, on ''Kila'im'' 1:4, s.v. {{lang|he|השיזפין}}, which he explained to mean in Spanish {{lang|es|azufaifas}} ('jujubes'). See also Saul Lieberman, Glossary in ''Tosephta'' - based on the Erfurt and Vienna Codices (ed. M.S. Zuckermandel), Jerusalem 1970, s.v. {{lang|he|שיזפין}} (p. LXL), explained in German as meaning {{lang|de|Brustbeerbaum}} ('jujube').</ref> The word {{transliteration|he|kishū’īm}} (formerly 'cucumbers')<ref>Thus explained by Maimonides in his Commentary on [[Mishnah]] ''Kila'im'' 1:2 and in Mishnah ''Terumot'' 2:6. See: Zohar Amar, ''Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings'', Kefar Darom 2015, pp. 111, 149 (Hebrew) {{OCLC|783455868}}; Zohar Amar, ''Agricultural Produce in the Land of Israel in the Middle Ages'' (Hebrew title: {{lang|he|גידולי ארץ-ישראל בימי הביניים}}), [[Ben-Zvi Institute]]: Jerusalem 2000, p. 286 {{ISBN|965-217-174-3}} (Hebrew)</ref> is now applied to a variety of [[summer squash]] (''Cucurbita pepo'' var. ''cylindrica''), a plant native to the [[New World]]. Another example is the word {{transliteration|he|kǝvīš}} ({{lang|he|כביש|rtl=yes}}), which now denotes a street or a road, but is actually an [[Aramaic]] adjective meaning 'trodden down' or 'blazed', rather than a common noun. It was originally used to describe a blazed trail.<ref>Compare [[Rashi]]'s commentary on Exodus 9:17, where he says the word {{transliteration|he|mesillah}} is translated in Aramaic {{transliteration|tmr|oraḥ kevīsha}} ('a blazed trail'), the word {{transliteration|tmr|kevīsh}} being only an adjective or descriptive word, but not a common noun as it is used today. It is said that [[Ze'ev Yavetz]] (1847&ndash;1924) is the one who coined this modern Hebrew word for 'road'. See [http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/with-tu-bishvat-near-a-tree-grows-in-zichron-yaakov.premium-1.496141 Haaretz, Contributions made by Ze'ev Yavetz] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924160513/http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/with-tu-bishvat-near-a-tree-grows-in-zichron-yaakov.premium-1.496141 |date=2015-09-24 }}; {{cite news | last =Maltz | first =Judy | title =With Tu Bishvat Near, a Tree Grows in Zichron Yaakov | language =en | publisher =Haaretz | date =25 January 2013 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/with-tu-bishvat-near-a-tree-grows-in-zichron-yaakov.premium-1.496141?=&ts=_1490626484939 | access-date =27 March 2017 | archive-date =28 March 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170328021151/http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/with-tu-bishvat-near-a-tree-grows-in-zichron-yaakov.premium-1.496141?=&ts=_1490626484939 | url-status =live }}</ref><ref>Roberto Garvia, ''Esperanto and its Rivals, University of Pennsylvania Press'', 2015, p. 164</ref> The flower ''[[Anemone coronaria]]'', called in Modern Hebrew {{transliteration|he|kalanit}}, was formerly called in Hebrew {{transliteration|he|shoshanat ha-melekh}} ('the king's flower').<ref>{{cite book |last=Amar|first=Z. |author-link=Zohar Amar |title=Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings|date=2015 |location=Kfar Darom|page=156 |language=he |oclc=783455868}}, s.v. citing [[Maimonides]] on [[Mishnah]] ''[[Kil'ayim (tractate)|Kil'ayim]]'' 5:8</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150218130708/http://www.matar.ac.il/zmanim/flowers/flowers-1.asp Matar – Science and Technology On-line], the Common Anemone (in Hebrew)</ref>


For a simple comparison between the Sephardic and Yemenite versions of Mishnaic Hebrew, see [[Yemenite Hebrew#Distinctive pronunciations preserved|Yemenite Hebrew]].
For a simple comparison between the Sephardic and Yemenite versions of Mishnaic Hebrew, see [[Yemenite Hebrew#Distinctive pronunciations preserved|Yemenite Hebrew]].


== Classification ==
== Classification ==
Modern Hebrew is classified as an [[Afroasiatic languages|Afroasiatic language]] of the [[Semitic languages|Semitic family]], the [[Canaanite languages|Canaanite]] branch of the [[Northwest Semitic languages|Northwest Semitic]] subgroup.<ref name=e18>{{e18|heb|Hebrew}}</ref><ref name="Weninger, Stefan 2011">Weninger, Stefan, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet CE Watson, Gábor Takács, Vermondo Brugnatelli, H. Ekkehard Wolff et al. ''The Semitic Languages''. An International Handbook. Berlin–Boston (2011).</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Semitic Languages |author=Robert Hetzron |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1997 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RWhvl4hD7S4C&q=modern+ |isbn=9780415057677 |access-date=2020-11-01 |archive-date=2023-02-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230223090156/https://books.google.com/books?id=RWhvl4hD7S4C&q=modern+ |url-status=live }}{{failed verification|reason=Searching the online source does not show Hebrew, Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, and Canaanite in close proximity; page needed|date=September 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics |author=Hadumod Bussman |publisher=Routledge |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O0-9Iw0Qh6EC&pg=PA199 |page=199 |isbn=9781134630387}}</ref> While Modern Hebrew is largely based on [[Mishnaic Hebrew|Mishnaic]] and [[Biblical Hebrew|Biblical]] Hebrew as well as [[Sephardi Hebrew|Sephardi]] and [[Ashkenazi Hebrew|Ashkenazi]] liturgical and literary tradition from the [[Medieval Hebrew|Medieval]] and [[Haskalah]] eras and retains its Semitic character in its morphology and in much of its syntax,<ref>Robert Hetzron. (1987). "Hebrew". In ''The World's Major Languages'', ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Patrick R. Bennett |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LfruK29pVl8C |title=Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual |publisher=Eisenbrauns |year=1998 |isbn=9781575060217 |access-date=2015-06-20 |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134746/https://books.google.com/books?id=LfruK29pVl8C |url-status=live }}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2016}} the consensus among scholars is that Modern Hebrew represents a fundamentally new linguistic system, not directly continuing any previous linguistic state.<ref name="Reshef, Yael 2013"/>
Modern Hebrew is classified as an [[Afroasiatic languages|Afroasiatic language]] of the [[Semitic languages|Semitic family]], the [[Canaanite languages|Canaanite]] branch of the [[Northwest Semitic languages|Northwest Semitic]] subgroup.<ref name=e18>{{e18|heb|Hebrew}}</ref><ref name="Weninger, Stefan 2011">Weninger, Stefan, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet CE Watson, Gábor Takács, Vermondo Brugnatelli, H. Ekkehard Wolff et al. ''The Semitic Languages''. An International Handbook. Berlin–Boston (2011).</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Semitic Languages |author=Robert Hetzron |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1997 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RWhvl4hD7S4C&q=modern+ |isbn=9780415057677 |access-date=2020-11-01 |archive-date=2023-02-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230223090156/https://books.google.com/books?id=RWhvl4hD7S4C&q=modern+ |url-status=live }}{{failed verification|reason=Searching the online source does not show Hebrew, Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, and Canaanite in close proximity; page needed|date=September 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics |author=Hadumod Bussman |publisher=Routledge |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O0-9Iw0Qh6EC&pg=PA199 |page=199 |isbn=9781134630387}}</ref> While Modern Hebrew is largely based on [[Mishnaic Hebrew|Mishnaic]] and [[Biblical Hebrew|Biblical]] Hebrew as well as [[Sephardi Hebrew|Sephardi]] and [[Ashkenazi Hebrew|Ashkenazi]] liturgical and literary tradition from the [[Medieval Hebrew|Medieval]] and [[Haskalah]] eras and retains its Semitic character in its morphology and in much of its syntax,<ref>Robert Hetzron. (1987). "Hebrew". In ''The World's Major Languages'', ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Patrick R. Bennett |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LfruK29pVl8C |title=Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual |publisher=Eisenbrauns |year=1998 |isbn=9781575060217 |access-date=2015-06-20 |archive-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701134746/https://books.google.com/books?id=LfruK29pVl8C |url-status=live }}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2016}} 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. <ref name="Reshef, Yael 2013"/>


Modern Hebrew is considered to be a [[koiné 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.<ref name="Reshef, Yael 2013">Reshef, Yael. ''Revival of Hebrew: Grammatical Structure and Lexicon''. Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. (2013).</ref><ref name=e18/> A minority of scholars argue that the revived language had been so influenced by various substrate languages that it is genealogically a hybrid with Indo-European.<ref>{{cite book |author=Olga Kapeliuk |author-link=Olga Kapeliuk |editor=Shlomo Izre'el |editor2=Shlomo Raz |publisher=BRILL |year=1996 |series=Israel Oriental Studies |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wv2eBP9lPskC&pg=PA59 |title=Studies in Modern Semitic Languages |chapter=Is Modern Hebrew the only "Indo-Europeanied" Semitic Language? And what about Neo-Aramaic? |page=59 |isbn=9789004106468}}</ref><ref>Wexler, Paul, ''The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew: A Slavic Language in Search of a Semitic Past'': 1990.</ref><ref>Izre'el, Shlomo (2003). "The Emergence of Spoken Israeli Hebrew." In: Benjamin H. Hary (ed.), ''Corpus Linguistics and Modern Hebrew: Towards the Compilation of The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH)", Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 2003, pp. 85–104.''</ref><ref>See p. 62 in Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2006), "A New Vision for 'Israeli Hebrew': Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language", ''Journal of Modern Jewish Studies'' 5 (1), pp. 57–71.</ref> Those theories 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.<ref name="Weninger, Stefan 2011" /><ref>Yael Reshef. "The Re-Emergence of Hebrew as a National Language" in Weninger, Stefan, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet CE Watson, Gábor Takács, Vermondo Brugnatelli, H. Ekkehard Wolff et al. (eds) ''The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook''. Berlin–Boston (2011). p. 551</ref> Although European languages have had an impact on Modern Hebrew, the impact may often be overstated. Although Modern Hebrew has more of the features attributed to [[Standard Average European]] than Biblical Hebrew, it is still quite distant, and has fewer such features than Modern Standard Arabic.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://corpling.uis.georgetown.edu/amir/pdf/LT_Hebrew_SAE.pdf|author=Amir Zeldes|journal=Linguistic Typology|title=Is Modern Hebrew Standard Average European? The View from European|pages=439–470|volume=17|number=3|year=2013|access-date=2021-07-13|archive-date=2021-05-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507035633/https://corpling.uis.georgetown.edu/amir/pdf/LT_Hebrew_SAE.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
Modern Hebrew is considered to be a [[koiné 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.<ref name="Reshef, Yael 2013">Reshef, Yael. ''Revival of Hebrew: Grammatical Structure and Lexicon''. Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. (2013).</ref><ref name=e18/> A minority of scholars argue that the revived language had been so influenced by various substrate languages that it is genealogically a hybrid with Indo-European.<ref>{{cite book |author=Olga Kapeliuk |author-link=Olga Kapeliuk |editor=Shlomo Izre'el |editor2=Shlomo Raz |publisher=BRILL |year=1996 |series=Israel Oriental Studies |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wv2eBP9lPskC&pg=PA59 |title=Studies in Modern Semitic Languages |chapter=Is Modern Hebrew the only "Indo-Europeanied" Semitic Language? And what about Neo-Aramaic? |page=59 |isbn=9789004106468}}</ref><ref>Wexler, Paul, ''The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew: A Slavic Language in Search of a Semitic Past'': 1990.</ref><ref>Izre'el, Shlomo (2003). "The Emergence of Spoken Israeli Hebrew." In: Benjamin H. Hary (ed.), ''Corpus Linguistics and Modern Hebrew: Towards the Compilation of The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH)", Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 2003, pp. 85–104.''</ref><ref>See p. 62 in Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2006), "A New Vision for 'Israeli Hebrew': Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language", ''Journal of Modern Jewish Studies'' 5 (1), pp. 57–71.</ref> Those theories 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.<ref name="Weninger, Stefan 2011" /><ref>Yael Reshef. "The Re-Emergence of Hebrew as a National Language" in Weninger, Stefan, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet CE Watson, Gábor Takács, Vermondo Brugnatelli, H. Ekkehard Wolff et al. (eds) ''The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook''. Berlin–Boston (2011). p. 551</ref> Although European languages have had an impact on Modern Hebrew, the impact may often be overstated. Although Modern Hebrew has more of the features attributed to [[Standard Average European]] than Biblical Hebrew, it is still quite distant, and has fewer such features than Modern Standard Arabic.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://corpling.uis.georgetown.edu/amir/pdf/LT_Hebrew_SAE.pdf|author=Amir Zeldes|journal=Linguistic Typology|title=Is Modern Hebrew Standard Average European? The View from European|pages=439–470|volume=17|number=3|year=2013|access-date=2021-07-13|archive-date=2021-05-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507035633/https://corpling.uis.georgetown.edu/amir/pdf/LT_Hebrew_SAE.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
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== Alphabet ==
== Alphabet ==
{{Main|Hebrew alphabet|Cursive Hebrew}}
{{Main|Hebrew alphabet|Cursive Hebrew}}
Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the [[Hebrew alphabet]], which is an [[abjad]], or consonant-only script of 22 letters based on the "square" letter form, known as ''Ashurit'' (Assyrian), which was developed from the [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic script]]. A [[Cursive Hebrew|cursive]] script is used in handwriting. When necessary, vowels are indicated by diacritic marks above or below the letters known as ''[[Niqqud|Nikkud]]'', or by use of ''[[Matres lectionis#Usage in Hebrew|Matres lectionis]]'', which are consonantal letters used as vowels. Further diacritics like [[Dagesh]] and [[Shin (letter)#Sin and Shin Dot|Sin and Shin dots]] are used to indicate variations in the pronunciation of the consonants (e.g. ''bet''/''vet'', ''shin''/''sin''). The letters "{{Script/Hebrew|צ׳}}", "{{Script/Hebrew|ג׳}}", "{{Script/Hebrew|ז׳}}", each modified with a [[Geresh]], represent the consonants {{IPAblink|t͡ʃ}}, {{IPAblink|d͡ʒ}}, {{IPAblink|ʒ}}. The consonant {{IPAblink|t͡ʃ}} may also be written as "תש" and "טש". {{IPAblink|w}} is represented interchangeably by a simple vav "ו", non-standard double vav "וו" and sometimes by non-standard geresh modified vav "ו׳".
Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the [[Hebrew alphabet]], which is an [[abjad]], or consonant-only script of 22 letters based on the "square" letter form, known as ''Ashurit'' (Assyrian), which was developed from the [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic script]]. A [[Cursive Hebrew|cursive]] script is used in handwriting. When necessary, vowels are indicated by diacritic marks above or below the letters known as ''[[Niqqud|Nikkud]]'', or by use of ''[[Matres lectionis#Usage in Hebrew|Matres lectionis]]'', which are consonantal letters used as vowels. Further diacritics like [[Dagesh]] and [[Shin (letter)#Sin and Shin dot|Sin and Shin dots]] are used to indicate variations in the pronunciation of the consonants (e.g. ''bet''/''vet'', ''shin''/''sin''). The letters "{{Script/Hebrew|צ׳}}", "{{Script/Hebrew|ג׳}}", "{{Script/Hebrew|ז׳}}", each modified with a [[Geresh]], represent the consonants {{IPAblink|t͡ʃ}}, {{IPAblink|d͡ʒ}}, {{IPAblink|ʒ}}. The consonant {{IPAblink|t͡ʃ}} may also be written as "תש" and "טש". {{IPAblink|w}} is represented interchangeably by a simple vav "ו", non-standard double vav "וו" and sometimes by non-standard geresh modified vav "ו׳".


{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" class="wikitable"
!Name
!Name
|{{transliteration|he|[[Aleph (letter)#Hebrew|Alef]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Aleph (letter)#Hebrew alef|Alef]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Beth (letter)#Hebrew Bet / Vet|Bet]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Beth (letter)#Hebrew bet|Bet]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Gimel (letter)#Hebrew gimel|Gimel]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Gimel (letter)#Hebrew gimel|Gimel]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Daleth#Hebrew dalet|Dalet]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Daleth#Hebrew dalet|Dalet]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[He (letter)#Hebrew He|He]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[He (letter)#Hebrew heh|He]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Waw (letter)#Hebrew Waw|Vav]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Waw (letter)#Hebrew waw/vav|Vav]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Zayin#Hebrew zayin|Zayin]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Zayin#Hebrew zayin|Zayin]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Heth (letter)#Hebrew Ḥet|Chet]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Heth (letter)#Hebrew chet|Chet]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Teth#Hebrew Tet|Tet]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Teth#Hebrew tet|Tet]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Yodh#Hebrew yod|Yod]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Yodh#Hebrew yod|Yod]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Kaph#Hebrew kaf|Kaf]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Kaph#Hebrew kaf|Kaf]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Lamedh#Hebrew Lamed|Lamed]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Lamedh#Hebrew lamed|Lamed]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Mem#Hebrew mem|Mem]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Mem#Hebrew mem|Mem]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Nun (letter)#Hebrew nun|Nun]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Nun (letter)#Hebrew nun|Nun]]}}
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|{{transliteration|he|[[Ayin#Hebrew ayin|Ayin]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Ayin#Hebrew ayin|Ayin]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Pe (Semitic letter)#Hebrew pe|Pe]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Pe (Semitic letter)#Hebrew pe|Pe]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Tsade#Hebrew Tsadi|Tzadi]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Tsade#Hebrew tsadi|Tzadi]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Qoph#Hebrew Qof|Kof]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Qoph#Hebrew qof|Kof]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Resh#In Hebrew|Resh]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Resh#Hebrew resh|Resh]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Shin (letter)#Hebrew Shin / Sin|Shin]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Shin (letter)#Hebrew shin/sin|Shin]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Taw (letter)#Hebrew tav|Tav]]}}
|{{transliteration|he|[[Taw (letter)#Hebrew tav|Tav]]}}
|-
|-
! style="font-size:smaller"| Printed letter
! style="font-size:smaller"| Printed letter
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| א
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|א}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ב
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ב}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ג
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ג}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ד
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ד}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ה
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ה}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ו
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ו}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ז
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ז}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ח
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ח}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ט
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ט}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| י
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|י}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| כ<br/>ך
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|כ}}<br/>{{script|Hebr|ך}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ל
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ל}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| מ<br/>ם
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|מ}}<br/>{{script|Hebr|ם}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| נ<br/>ן
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|נ}}<br/>{{script|Hebr|ן}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ס
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ס}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ע
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ע}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| פ<br/>ף
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|פ}}<br/>{{script|Hebr|ף}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| צ<br/>ץ
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|צ}}<br/>{{script|Hebr|ץ}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ק
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ק}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ר
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ר}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ש
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ש}}
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| ת
| style="height:40px; font-size:150%; vertical-align:top;"| {{script|Hebr|ת}}
|-
|-
! style="font-size:smaller"| Cursive letter
! style="font-size:smaller"| Cursive letter
Line 171: Line 168:
|{{IPAslink|v}} {{IPAslink|u}}, {{IPAslink|o}}, {{IPAslink|w}}
|{{IPAslink|v}} {{IPAslink|u}}, {{IPAslink|o}}, {{IPAslink|w}}
|{{IPAslink|z}}
|{{IPAslink|z}}
|{{IPA|/}}{{IPA link|χ}}~{{IPA link|x}}{{IPA|/}}
|{{IPA|/}}{{IPA link|χ}}~{{IPA link|ħ}}{{IPA|/}}
|{{IPAslink|t}}
|{{IPAslink|t}}
|{{IPAslink|j}}, {{IPAslink|i}}, {{IPA|/}}{{IPA link|e}}({{IPA link|i̯}}){{IPA|/}}
|{{IPAslink|j}}, {{IPAslink|i}}, {{IPA|/}}{{IPA link|e}}({{IPA link|i̯}}){{IPA|/}}
|{{IPAslink|k}}, {{IPA|/}}{{IPA link|χ}}~{{IPA link|x}}{{IPA|/}}
|{{IPAslink|k}}, {{IPA|/}}{{IPA link|χ}}{{IPA|/}}
|{{IPAslink|l}}
|{{IPAslink|l}}
|{{IPAslink|m}}
|{{IPAslink|m}}
Line 214: Line 211:
== Phonology ==
== Phonology ==
{{Main|Modern Hebrew phonology}}
{{Main|Modern Hebrew phonology}}
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 has pharyngeals. It has 5 to 10 vowels, depending on whether diphthongs and vowels are counted, varying with the speaker and the analysis.
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 has [[pharyngeals]]. It has 5 to 10 vowels, depending on whether diphthongs and vowels are counted, varying with the speaker and the analysis.


== Morphology ==
== Morphology ==
Line 224: Line 221:


=== Word order ===
=== Word order ===
The word order of Modern Hebrew is predominately SVO ([[subject–verb–object]]). Biblical Hebrew was originally [[verb–subject–object]] (VSO), but drifted into SVO.<ref>Li, Charles N. ''Mechanisms of Syntactic Change''. Austin: U of Texas, 1977. Print.</ref> Modern Hebrew maintains classical syntactic properties associated with VSO languages: it is [[preposition and postposition|prepositional]], rather than postpositional, in making case and adverbial relations, [[auxiliary verb]]s precede main verbs; main verbs precede their complements, and noun modifiers ([[adjective]]s, [[determiner]]s other than the [[definite article]] {{lang|he|ה-|ha|the}}, and [[noun adjunct]]s) follow the head noun; and in [[genitive case|genitive]] constructions, the possessee noun precedes the possessor. Moreover, Modern Hebrew allows and sometimes requires sentences with a predicate initial.
The word order of Modern Hebrew is predominately SVO ([[subject–verb–object]]). Biblical Hebrew was originally [[verb–subject–object]] (VSO), but drifted into SVO.<ref>Li, Charles N. ''Mechanisms of Syntactic Change''. Austin: U of Texas, 1977. Print.</ref> 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.{{Clarify|reason=Isn't אֶת always needed anyway?|date=May 2024}} Modern Hebrew maintains classical syntactic properties associated with VSO languages: it is [[preposition and postposition|prepositional]], rather than postpositional, in marking case and adverbial relations, [[auxiliary verb]]s precede main verbs; main verbs precede their complements, and noun modifiers ([[adjective]]s, [[determiner]]s other than the [[definite article]] {{lang|he|ה-|ha|the}}, and [[noun adjunct]]s) follow the head noun; and in [[genitive case|genitive]] constructions, the possessee noun precedes the possessor. Moreover, Modern Hebrew allows and sometimes requires sentences with a predicate initial.


== Lexicon ==
== Lexicon ==
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Modern Hebrew has loanwords from [[Arabic]] (both from the local [[Palestinian Arabic|Palestinian dialect]] and from the [[Judeo-Arabic languages|dialects of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries]]), [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]], [[Yiddish]], [[Judaeo-Spanish]], [[German language|German]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[English language|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 as Akkadian. Mishnaic Hebrew borrowed many nouns from Aramaic (including Persian words borrowed by Aramaic), as well as from Greek and to a lesser extent Latin.<ref>The Latin "familia", from which English "family" is derived, entered Mishnaic Hebrew - and thence, Modern Hebrew - as "pamalya" (פמליה) meaning "entourage". (The original Latin "familia" referred both to a prominent Roman's family and to his household in general, including the entourage of slaves and freedmen which accompanied him in public - hence, both the English and the Hebrew one are derived from the Latin meaning.)</ref> 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:
Modern Hebrew has loanwords from [[Arabic]] (both from the local [[Palestinian Arabic|Palestinian dialect]] and from the [[Judeo-Arabic languages|dialects of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries]]), [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]], [[Yiddish]], [[Judaeo-Spanish]], [[German language|German]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[English language|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 as Akkadian. Mishnaic Hebrew borrowed many nouns from Aramaic (including Persian words borrowed by Aramaic), as well as from Greek and to a lesser extent Latin.<ref>The Latin "familia", from which English "family" is derived, entered Mishnaic Hebrew - and thence, Modern Hebrew - as "pamalya" (פמליה) meaning "entourage". (The original Latin "familia" referred both to a prominent Roman's family and to his household in general, including the entourage of slaves and freedmen which accompanied him in public - hence, both the English and the Hebrew one are derived from the Latin meaning.)</ref> 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:


{|class=wikitable style="white-space:nowrap; text-align:center;"
{|class=wikitable style="text-align:center;"
|-
|-
!colspan=3|loanword!!colspan=3|derivatives!!colspan=3|origin
!colspan=3|loanword!!colspan=3|derivatives!!colspan=3|origin
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!Hebrew!![[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]!!meaning!!Hebrew!![[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]!!meaning!!language!!spelling!!meaning
!Hebrew!![[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]!!meaning!!Hebrew!![[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]!!meaning!!language!!spelling!!meaning
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|ביי}}||{{IPA|/baj/}}||goodbye||colspan=3|&nbsp;||rowspan=3|[[English language|English]]||colspan=2|bye
|{{lang|he|בַּי}}||{{IPA|/baj/}}||goodbye||colspan=3|&nbsp;||rowspan=3|[[English language|English]]||colspan=2|bye
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|אגזוז}}||{{IPA|/eɡˈzoz/}}||[[exhaust system|exhaust<br/>system]]||colspan=3|&nbsp;||colspan=2|exhaust<br/>system
|{{lang|he|אֶגְזוֹז}}||{{IPA|/eɡˈzoz/}}||[[exhaust system]]||colspan=3|&nbsp;||colspan=2|exhaust<br/>system
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|דיג׳יי}}||{{IPA|/ˈdidʒej/}}||[[Disc jockey|DJ]]||{{Script/Hebrew|דיג׳ה}}||{{IPA|/diˈdʒe/}}||to DJ||colspan=2|[[dict:DJ#Verb|to DJ]]
|{{lang|he|דיג׳יי}}||{{IPA|/ˈdidʒej/}}||[[Disc jockey|DJ]]||{{lang|he|דיג׳ה}}||{{IPA|/diˈdʒe/}}||to DJ||colspan=2|[[wikt:DJ#Verb|to DJ]]
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|ואללה}}||{{IPA|/ˈwala/}}||really!?||colspan=3|&nbsp;||rowspan=3|[[Arabic]]||{{lang|ar|والله|rtl=yes}}||[[wikt:really#Interjection|really!?]]
|{{lang|he|וַאלְלָה}}||{{IPA|/ˈwala/}}||really!?||colspan=3|&nbsp;||rowspan=3|[[Arabic]]||{{lang|ar|والله|rtl=yes}}||[[wikt:really#Interjection|really!?]]
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|כיף}}||{{IPA|/kef/}}||fun||{{Script/Hebrew|כייף}}||{{IPA|/kiˈjef/}}||to have fun<ref group=w>{{cite web |author=bitFormation |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/arabic.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Arabic |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2014-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011050943/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/arabic.php |url-status=live }}</ref>||{{lang|ar|كيف|rtl=yes}}||pleasure
|{{lang|he|כֵּיף}}||{{IPA|/kef/}}||fun||{{Script/Hebrew|כַּיֵּף}}||{{IPA|/kiˈjef/}}||to have fun<ref group=w>{{cite web |author=bitFormation |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/arabic.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Arabic |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2014-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011050943/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/arabic.php |url-status=live }}</ref>||{{lang|ar|كيف|rtl=yes}}||pleasure
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|תאריך}}||{{IPA|/taʔaˈriχ/}}||date||{{Script/Hebrew|תארך}}||{{IPA|/teʔeˈreχ/}}||to date||{{lang|ar|تاريخ|rtl=yes}}||date, history
|{{lang|he|תַּאֲרִיךְ}}||{{IPA|/taʔaˈʁiχ/}}||date||{{lang|he|תֶּאֱרַךְ}}||{{IPA|/teʔeˈreχ/}}||to date||{{lang|ar|تاريخ|rtl=yes}}||date, history
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|חנון}}||{{IPA|/χnun/}}||geek, wimp,<br> nerd, "square"||colspan=3|&nbsp;||[[Moroccan Arabic]]||{{Script/Arabic|خنونة‎}}||snot
|{{lang|he|חְנוּן}}||{{IPA|/χnun/}}||geek, wimp,<br> nerd, "square"||colspan=3|&nbsp;||[[Moroccan Arabic]]||{{Script/Arabic|خنونة}}||snot
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|אבא}}||{{IPA|/ˈaba/}}||dad|| colspan="3" |&nbsp;||[[Aramaic language|Aramaic]]||{{Script/Hebrew|אבא}}||the father/my father
|{{lang|he|אַבָּא}}||{{IPA|/ˈaba/}}||dad|| colspan="3" |&nbsp;||[[Aramaic language|Aramaic]]||{{Script/Hebrew|אבא}}||the father/<wbr/>my father
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|דוּגרִי}}||{{IPA|/ˈdugri/}}||forthright|| colspan="3" |&nbsp;||[[Ottoman Turkish language|Ottoman Turkish]]||{{Script/Arabic|طوغری}}<br>doğrı||correct
|{{lang|he|דוּגרִי}}||{{IPA|/ˈdugʁi/}}||forthright|| colspan="3" |&nbsp;||[[Ottoman Turkish language|Ottoman Turkish]]||{{Script/Arabic|طوغری}}<br>doğrı||correct
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|פרדס}}||{{IPA|/parˈdes/}}||orchard|| colspan="3" |&nbsp;||[[Avestan language|Avestan]]||{{Script/Avestan|𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌⸱𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀}}||garden
|{{lang|he|פַּרְדֵּס}}||{{IPA|/paʁˈdes/}}||orchard|| colspan="3" |&nbsp;||[[Avestan language|Avestan]]||{{Script/Avestan|𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌⸱𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀}}||garden
|-
|-
|{{lang|he|אֲלַכְסוֹן}}
|{{Script/Hebrew|אלכסון}}
|{{IPA|/alaχˈson/}}
|{{IPA|/alaχˈson/}}
|diagonal
|diagonal
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|slope
|slope
|-
|-
|{{lang|he|וִילוֹן}}
|{{Script/Hebrew|וילון}}
|{{IPA|/viˈlon/}}
|{{IPA|/viˈlon/}}
|curtain
|curtain
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|veil, curtain
|veil, curtain
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|חלטורה}}||{{IPA|/χalˈtura/}}||shoddy job||{{Script/Hebrew|חלטר}}||{{IPA|/χilˈteʁ/}}||to moonlight||rowspan=2|[[Russian language|Russian]]||[[wikt:халтура|халтура]]||shoddy work<ref group=w name=from_russian>{{cite web |author=bitFormation |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/russian.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Russian |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2014-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010235722/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/russian.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
|{{lang|he|חַלְטוּרָה}}||{{IPA|/χalˈtuʁa/}}||shoddy job||{{lang|he|חִלְטֵר}}||{{IPA|/χilˈteʁ/}}||to moonlight||rowspan=2|[[Russian language|Russian]]||[[wikt:халтура|халтура]]||shoddy work<ref group=w name=from_russian>{{cite web |author=bitFormation |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/russian.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Russian |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2014-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010235722/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/russian.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|בלגן}}||{{IPA|/balaˈɡan/}}||mess||{{Script/Hebrew|בלגן}}||{{IPA|/bilˈɡen/}}||to make a mess||[[wikt:балаган|балаган]]||chaos<ref group=w name=from_russian/>
|{{lang|he|בָּלָגָן}}||{{IPA|/balaˈɡan/}}||mess||{{lang|he|בִּלְגֵּן}}||{{IPA|/bilˈɡen/}}||to make a mess||[[wikt:балаган|балаган]]||chaos<ref group=w name=from_russian/>
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|תכל׳ס}}||{{IPA|/ˈtaχles/}}||directly/<br>essentially||colspan=3|&nbsp;||rowspan=2|[[Yiddish]]||{{Script/Hebrew|תכלית}}||goal <span style="font-size:smaller; line-height:normal;">(Hebrew word, only pronunciation is Yiddish)</span>
|{{lang|he|תַּכְלֶ׳ס}}||{{IPA|/ˈtaχles/}}||directly/<br>essentially||colspan=3|&nbsp;||rowspan=2|[[Yiddish]]||{{lang|yi|תכלית}}||goal<br/><small>(Hebrew word, only pronunciation is Yiddish)</small>
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|חרופ}}||{{IPA|/χʁop/}}||deep sleep||{{Script/Hebrew|חרפ}}||{{IPA|/χaˈʁap/}}||to sleep deeply||{{Script/Hebrew|כראָפ}}||snore
|{{lang|he|חְרוֹפּ}}||{{IPA|/χʁop/}}||deep sleep||{{lang|he|חָרַפּ}}||{{IPA|/χaˈʁap/}}||to sleep deeply||{{lang|yi|כראָפ}}||snore
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|שפכטל}}||{{IPA|/ˈʃpaχtel/}}||[[putty knife]]||colspan=3|&nbsp;||rowspan=2|[[German language|German]]||Spachtel||putty knife
|{{lang|he|שְׁפַּכְטֵל}}||{{IPA|/ˈʃpaχtel/}}||[[putty knife]]||colspan=3|&nbsp;||rowspan=2|[[German language|German]]||Spachtel||putty knife
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|גומי}}||{{IPA|/ˈɡumi/}}||[[rubber]]||{{Script/Hebrew|גומיה}}||{{IPA|/ɡumiˈja/}}||rubber band||Gummi||rubber
|{{lang|he|גּוּמִי}}||{{IPA|/ˈɡumi/}}||[[rubber]]||{{lang|he|גּוּמִיָּה}}||{{IPA|/ɡumiˈja/}}||rubber band||Gummi||rubber
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|גזוז}}||{{IPA|/ɡaˈzoz/}}||carbonated<br/>beverage||colspan=3|&nbsp;||[[Turkish language|Turkish]]<br/><small>from</small><br/>[[French language|French]]||gazoz<ref group=w>{{cite web |author=bitFormation |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/turkish.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Turkish |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2014-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010235727/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/turkish.php |url-status=live }}</ref><br/><small>from</small><br/>[[wikt:eau|eau]] [[wikt:gazeuse|gazeuse]]||carbonated<br/>beverage
|{{lang|he|גָּזוֹז}}||{{IPA|/ɡaˈzoz/}}||carbonated<br/>beverage||colspan=3|&nbsp;||[[Turkish language|Turkish]]<br/><small>from</small><br/>[[French language|French]]||gazoz<ref group=w>{{cite web |author=bitFormation |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/turkish.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Turkish |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2014-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010235727/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/turkish.php |url-status=live }}</ref><br/><small>from</small><br/>[[wikt:eau|eau]] [[wikt:gazeuse|gazeuse]]||carbonated<br/>beverage
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|פוסטמה}}||{{IPA|/pusˈtema/}}||stupid woman||colspan=3|&nbsp;||[[Judaeo-Spanish|Ladino]]||{{Script/Hebrew|פּוֹשׂטֵימה‎}}<br>postema||inflamed wound<ref group=w>{{cite web |author=bitFormation |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/ladino.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Ladino |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2005-02-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050208124255/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/ladino.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
|{{lang|he|פּוּסְטֵמָה}}||{{IPA|/pusˈtema/}}||stupid woman||colspan=3|&nbsp;||[[Judaeo-Spanish|Ladino]]||{{lang|lad-Hebr|פּוֹשׂטֵימה}}<br>postema||inflamed wound<ref group=w>{{cite web |author=bitFormation |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/ladino.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Ladino |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2005-02-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050208124255/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/ladino.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|אדריכל}}||{{IPA|/adʁiˈχal/}}||[[architect]]||{{Script/Hebrew|אדריכלות}}||{{IPA|/adʁiχaˈlut/}}||[[architecture]]||[[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]||𒀵𒂍𒃲 ||temple servant<ref group=w>{{cite web |author=אתר השפה העברית |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/akkadian.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Akkadian |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2014-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010235650/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/akkadian.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
|{{lang|he|אַדְרִיכָל}}||{{IPA|/adʁiˈχal/}}||[[architect]]||{{lang|he|אַדְרִיכָלוּת}}||{{IPA|/adʁiχaˈlut/}}||[[architecture]]||[[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]||{{lang|akk|𒀵𒂍𒃲}} ||temple servant<ref group=w>{{cite web |author=אתר השפה העברית |url=http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/akkadian.php |title=Loanwords in Hebrew from Akkadian |publisher=Safa-ivrit.org |access-date=2014-08-26 |archive-date=2014-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010235650/http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/akkadian.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
|-
|-
|{{Script/Hebrew|צי}}
|{{lang|he|צִי}}
|{{IPA|/t͡si/}}
|{{IPA|/t͡si/}}
|fleet
|fleet
Line 342: Line 339:
[[Category:Canaanite languages]]
[[Category:Canaanite languages]]
[[Category:Hebrew language|Hebrew]]
[[Category:Hebrew language|Hebrew]]
[[Category:Hebrew words and phrases]]
[[Category:Jewish languages]]
[[Category:Jewish languages]]
[[Category:Language revival]]
[[Category:Language revival]]

Latest revision as of 18:05, 30 October 2024

Modern Hebrew
Hebrew, Israeli Hebrew
עברית חדשה
Render of the word "shalom" in Modern Hebrew, including vowel diacritics
RegionSouthern Levant
EthnicityIsraeli Jews
Native speakers
9 million (2014)[1][2][3]
  • L1: 5 million
  • L2: 4 million
Early forms
Hebrew alphabet
Hebrew Braille
Signed Hebrew (national form)[4]
Official status
Official language in
 Israel
Regulated byAcademy of the Hebrew Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1he
ISO 639-2heb
ISO 639-3heb
Glottologhebr1245
Hebrew-speaking world:[5][6]
  >50% of the population speaks Hebrew
  25–50% of the population speaks Hebrew
  <25% of the population speaks Hebrew

Modern Hebrew (Hebrew: עִבְרִית חֲדָשָׁה [ʔivˈʁit χadaˈʃa] or [ʕivˈrit ħadaˈʃa]), also called Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. Developed as part of the revival of Hebrew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is the official language of the State of Israel and the only Canaanite language still spoken as a native language. The revival of Hebrew predates the creation of the state of Israel, where it is now the national language. Modern Hebrew is often regarded as one of the most successful instances of language revitalization.[7][8]

Hebrew, a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family, was spoken since antiquity and the vernacular of the Jewish people until the 3rd century BCE, when it was supplanted by Western Aramaic, a dialect of the Aramaic language, the local or dominant languages of the regions Jews migrated to, and later Judeo-Arabic, Judaeo-Spanish, Yiddish, and other Jewish languages.[9] Although Hebrew continued to be used for Jewish liturgy, poetry and literature, and written correspondence,[10] it became extinct as a spoken language.

By the late 19th century, Russian-Jewish linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda had begun a popular movement to revive Hebrew as a living language, motivated by his desire to preserve Hebrew literature and a distinct Jewish nationality in the context of Zionism.[11][12][13] Soon after, a large number of Yiddish and Judaeo-Spanish speakers were murdered in the Holocaust[14] or fled to Israel, and many speakers of Judeo-Arabic emigrated to Israel in the Jewish exodus from the Muslim world, where many adapted to Modern Hebrew.[15]

Currently, Hebrew is spoken by approximately 9–10 million people, counting native, fluent, and non-fluent speakers.[16][17] Some 6 million of these speak it as their native language, the overwhelming majority of whom are Jews who were born in Israel or immigrated during infancy. The rest is split: 2 million are immigrants to Israel; 1.5 million are Israeli Arabs, whose first language is usually Arabic; and half a million are expatriate Israelis or diaspora Jews.

Under Israeli law, the organization that officially directs the development of Modern Hebrew is the Academy of the Hebrew Language, headquartered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Name

[edit]

The most common scholarly term for the language is "Modern Hebrew" (עברית חדשה). Most people refer to it simply as Hebrew (עברית Hebrew pronunciation: [Ivrit]).[18]

The term "Modern Hebrew" has been described as "somewhat problematic"[19] as it implies unambiguous periodization from Biblical Hebrew.[19] Haiim B. Rosén [he] (חיים רוזן) supported the now widely used[19] term "Israeli Hebrew" on the basis that it "represented the non-chronological nature of Hebrew".[18][20] In 1999, Israeli linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposed the term "Israeli" to represent the multiple origins of the language.[21]: 325 [18]

Background

[edit]

The history of the Hebrew language can be divided into four major periods:[22]

Jewish contemporary sources describe Hebrew flourishing as a spoken language in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, during about 1200 to 586 BCE.[23] Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew remained a spoken vernacular following the Babylonian captivity, when Old Aramaic became the predominant international language in the region.

Hebrew died out as a vernacular language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining after the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 CE, which devastated the population of Judea. After the exile, Hebrew became restricted to liturgical and literary use.[24]

Revival

[edit]

Hebrew had been spoken at various times and for a number of purposes throughout the Diaspora, and during the Old Yishuv it had developed into a spoken lingua franca among the Jews of Palestine.[25] Eliezer Ben-Yehuda then led a revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Modern Hebrew used Biblical Hebrew morphemes, Mishnaic spelling and grammar, and Sephardic pronunciation. Many idioms and calques were made from Yiddish.[citation needed] Its acceptance by the early Jewish immigrants to Ottoman Palestine was caused primarily by support from the organisations of Edmond James de Rothschild in the 1880s and the official status it received in the 1922 constitution of the British Mandate for Palestine.[26][27][28][29] 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 words gerev (sing.) and garbayim (pl.) are now applied to 'socks', a diminutive of the Arabic ğuwārib ('socks').[30][31] In addition, early Jewish immigrants, borrowing from the local Arabs, and later immigrants from Arab lands introduced many nouns as loanwords from Arabic (such as nana, 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 poet Haim 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 as bardelas (ברדלס), which in Mishnaic Hebrew meant 'hyena',[32] but in Modern Hebrew it now means 'cheetah'; or shezīph (שְׁזִיף) which is now used for 'plum', but formerly meant 'jujube'.[33] The word kishū’īm (formerly 'cucumbers')[34] is now applied to a variety of summer squash (Cucurbita pepo var. cylindrica), a plant native to the New World. Another example is the word kǝvīš (כביש), which now denotes a street or a road, but is actually an Aramaic adjective meaning 'trodden down' or 'blazed', rather than a common noun. It was originally used to describe a blazed trail.[35][36] The flower Anemone coronaria, called in Modern Hebrew kalanit, was formerly called in Hebrew shoshanat ha-melekh ('the king's flower').[37][38]

For a simple comparison between the Sephardic and Yemenite versions of Mishnaic Hebrew, see Yemenite Hebrew.

Classification

[edit]

Modern Hebrew is classified as an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic family, the Canaanite branch of the Northwest Semitic subgroup.[39][40][41][42] While Modern Hebrew is largely based on Mishnaic and Biblical Hebrew as well as Sephardi and Ashkenazi liturgical and literary tradition from the Medieval and Haskalah eras and retains its Semitic character in its morphology and in much of its syntax,[43][44][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. [45]

Modern Hebrew is considered to be a koiné 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.[45][39] A minority of scholars argue that the revived language had been so influenced by various substrate languages that it is genealogically a hybrid with Indo-European.[46][47][48][49] Those theories 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.[40][50] Although European languages have had an impact on Modern Hebrew, the impact may often be overstated. Although Modern Hebrew has more of the features attributed to Standard Average European than Biblical Hebrew, it is still quite distant, and has fewer such features than Modern Standard Arabic.[51]

Alphabet

[edit]

Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet, which is an abjad, or consonant-only script of 22 letters based on the "square" letter form, known as Ashurit (Assyrian), which was developed from the Aramaic script. A cursive script is used in handwriting. When necessary, vowels are indicated by diacritic marks above or below the letters known as Nikkud, or by use of Matres lectionis, which are consonantal letters used as vowels. Further diacritics like Dagesh and Sin 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 a Geresh, 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()/ /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

Phonology

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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 has pharyngeals. It has 5 to 10 vowels, depending on whether diphthongs and vowels are counted, varying with the speaker and the analysis.

Morphology

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Modern Hebrew morphology (formation, structure, and interrelationship of words in a language) is essentially Biblical.[52] 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 of triconsonantal roots (shoresh) with affixed 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.

Syntax

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The syntax of Modern Hebrew is mainly Mishnaic[52] 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.

Word order

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The word order of Modern Hebrew is predominately SVO (subject–verb–object). Biblical Hebrew was originally verb–subject–object (VSO), but drifted into SVO.[53] 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 is prepositional, 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 the definite article ה-, and noun adjuncts) follow the head noun; and in genitive constructions, the possessee noun precedes the possessor. Moreover, Modern Hebrew allows and sometimes requires sentences with a predicate initial.

Lexicon

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Modern Hebrew has expanded its vocabulary effectively to meet the needs of casual vernacular, of science and technology, of journalism and belles-lettres. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann:

The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax 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.[54]: 64–65 

Loanwords

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Modern Hebrew has loanwords from Arabic (both from the local Palestinian dialect and from the dialects 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 as Akkadian. Mishnaic Hebrew borrowed many nouns from Aramaic (including Persian words borrowed by Aramaic), as well as from Greek and to a lesser extent Latin.[55] 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/my 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
eau gazeuse
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
  1. ^ bitFormation. "Loanwords in Hebrew from Arabic". Safa-ivrit.org. Archived from the original on 11 October 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  2. ^ a b bitFormation. "Loanwords in Hebrew from Russian". Safa-ivrit.org. Archived from the original on 10 October 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  3. ^ bitFormation. "Loanwords in Hebrew from Turkish". Safa-ivrit.org. Archived from the original on 10 October 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  4. ^ bitFormation. "Loanwords in Hebrew from Ladino". Safa-ivrit.org. Archived from the original on 8 February 2005. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  5. ^ אתר השפה העברית. "Loanwords in Hebrew from Akkadian". Safa-ivrit.org. Archived from the original on 10 October 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.

See also

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References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Hebrew". UCLA Language Materials Project. University of California. Archived from the original on 11 March 2011. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
  2. ^ Dekel 2014
  3. ^ "Hebrew". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 14 May 2020. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  4. ^ Meir & Sandler, 2013, A Language in Space: The Story of x Sign Language
  5. ^ אוכלוסייה, לפי קבוצת אוכלוסייה, דת, גיל ומין, מחוז ונפה [Population, by Population Group, Religion, age and sex, district and sub-district] (PDF) (in Hebrew). Central Bureau of Statistics. 6 September 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 May 2018. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  6. ^ "The Arab Population in Israel" (PDF). Central Bureau of Statistics. November 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  7. ^ Grenoble, Leonore A.; Whaley, Lindsay J. (2005). Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-0521016520. Hebrew is cited by Paulston et al. (1993:276) as 'the only true example of language revival.'
  8. ^ Huehnergard, John; Pat-El, Na'ama (2019). The Semitic Languages. Routledge. p. 571. ISBN 9780429655388. Archived from the original on 1 July 2023. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  9. ^ Language Contact and the Development of Modern Hebrew. BRILL. 16 November 2015. pp. 3, 7. ISBN 978-90-04-31089-6.
  10. ^ Schwarzwald, Ora (Rodrigue) (2012). "Modern Hebrew". In Weninger, Stefan; Khan, Geoffrey; Streck, Michael P.; Watson, Janet C. E. (eds.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. De Gruyter. p. 534. doi:10.1515/9783110251586.523. ISBN 978-3-11-025158-6.
  11. ^ Mandel, George (2005). "Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer [Eliezer Yizhak Perelman] (1858–1922)". Encyclopedia of modern Jewish culture. Glenda Abramson ([New ed.] ed.). London. ISBN 0-415-29813-X. OCLC 57470923. Archived from the original on 1 July 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023. 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.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  12. ^ Fellman, Jack (19 July 2011). The Revival of Classical Tongue : Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-087910-0. OCLC 1089437441. Archived from the original on 1 July 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  13. ^ Kuzar, Ron (2001), Hebrew and Zionism, Berlin, Boston: DE GRUYTER, doi:10.1515/9783110869491.vii, archived from the original on 1 July 2023, retrieved 10 May 2023
  14. ^ Solomon Birnbaum, Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache (4., erg. Aufl., Hamburg: Buske, 1984), p. 3.
  15. ^ Berdichevsky, Norman (21 March 2016). Modern Hebrew: The Past and Future of a Revitalized Language. McFarland. pp. 39, 65, 73, 77, 81, 101. ISBN 978-1-4766-2629-1.
  16. ^ Klein, Zeev (18 March 2013). "A million and a half Israelis struggle with Hebrew". Israel Hayom. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  17. ^ Nachman Gur; Behadrey Haredim. "Kometz Aleph – Au• How many Hebrew speakers are there in the world?". Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  18. ^ a b c Dekel 2014; quote: "Most people refer to Israeli Hebrew simply as Hebrew. Hebrew is a broad term, which includes Hebrew as it was spoken and written in different periods of time and according to most of the researchers as it is spoken and written in Israel and elsewhere today. Several names have been proposed for the language spoken in Israel nowadays, Modern Hebrew is the most common one, addressing the latest spoken language variety in Israel (Berman 1978, Saenz-Badillos 1993:269, Coffin-Amir & Bolozky 2005, Schwarzwald 2009:61). The emergence of a new language in Palestine at the end of the nineteenth century was associated with debates regarding the characteristics of that language.... Not all scholars supported the term Modern Hebrew for the new language. Rosén (1977:17) rejected the term Modern Hebrew, since linguistically he claimed that 'modern' should represent a linguistic entity that should command autonomy towards everything that preceded it, while this was not the case in the new emerging language. He also rejected the term Neo-Hebrew, because the prefix 'neo' had been previously used for Mishnaic and Medieval Hebrew (Rosén 1977:15–16), additionally, he rejected the term Spoken Hebrew as one of the possible proposals (Rosén 1977:18). Rosén supported the term Israeli Hebrew as in his opinion it represented the non-chronological nature of Hebrew, as well as its territorial independence (Rosén 1977:18). Rosén then adopted the term Contemporary Hebrew from Téne (1968) for its neutrality, and suggested the broadening of this term to Contemporary Israeli Hebrew (Rosén 1977:19)"
  19. ^ a b c Matras & Schiff 2005; quote: The language with which we are concerned in this contribution is also known by the names Contemporary Hebrew and Modern Hebrew, both somewhat problematic terms as they rely on the notion of an unambiguous periodization separating Classical or Biblical Hebrew from the present-day language. We follow instead the now widely-used label coined by Rosén (1955), Israeli Hebrew, to denote the link between the emergence of a Hebrew vernacular and the emergence of an Israeli national identity in Israel/Palestine in the early twentieth century."
  20. ^ Haiim Rosén (1 January 1977). Contemporary Hebrew. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 15–18. ISBN 978-3-11-080483-6.
  21. ^ Zuckermann, G. (1999), "Review of the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary", International Journal of Lexicography, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 325-346
  22. ^ Hebrew language Archived 2015-06-11 at the Wayback Machine Encyclopædia Britannica
  23. ^ אברהם בן יוסף ,מבוא לתולדות הלשון העברית (Avraham ben-Yosef, Introduction to the History of the Hebrew Language), page 38, אור-עם, Tel Aviv, 1981.
  24. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Ángel and John Elwolde: "There is general agreement that two main periods of RH (Rabbinical Hebrew) can be distinguished. The first, which lasted until the close of the Tannaitic era (around 200 CE), is characterized by RH as a spoken language gradually developing into a literary medium in which the Mishnah, Tosefta, baraitot and Tannaitic midrashim would be composed. The second stage begins with the Amoraim and sees RH being replaced by Aramaic as the spoken vernacular, surviving only as a literary language. Then it continued to be used in later rabbinic writings until the tenth century in, for example, the Hebrew portions of the two Talmuds and in midrashic and haggadic literature."
  25. ^ Tudor Parfitt; The Contribution of the old Yishuv to the Revival of Hebrew, Journal of Semitic Studies, Volume XXIX, Issue 2, 1 October 1984, Pages 255–265, https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/XXIX.2.255 Archived 2023-07-01 at the Wayback Machine
  26. ^ Hobsbawm, Eric (2012). Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-39446-9., "What would the future of Hebrew have been, had not the British Mandate in 1919 accepted it as one of the three official languages of Palestine, at a time when the number of people speaking Hebrew as an everyday language was less than 20,000?"
  27. ^ Swirski, Shlomo (11 September 2002). Politics and Education in Israel: Comparisons with the United States. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-58242-5.: "In retrospect, [Hobsbawm's] question should be rephrased, substituting the Rothschild house for the British state and the 1880s for 1919. For by the time the British conquered Palestine, Hebrew had become the everyday language of a small but well-entrenched community."
  28. ^ Palestine Mandate (1922): "English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine"
  29. ^ Benjamin Harshav (1999). Language in Time of Revolution. Stanford University Press. pp. 85–. ISBN 978-0-8047-3540-7.
  30. ^ Even-Shoshan, A., ed. (2003). Even-Shoshan Dictionary (in Hebrew). Vol. 1. ha-Milon he-ḥadash Ltd. p. 275. ISBN 965-517-059-4. OCLC 55071836.
  31. ^ Cf. Rabbi Hai Gaon's commentary on Mishnah Kelim 27:6, where אמפליא (ampalya) was used formerly for the same, and had the equivalent meaning of the Arabic word ğuwārib ('stockings'; 'socks').
  32. ^ Maimonides' commentary and Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura's commentary on Mishnah Baba Kama 1:4; Rabbi Nathan ben Abraham's Mishnah Commentary, Baba Metzia 7:9, s.v. הפרדלס; Sefer Arukh, s.v. ברדלס; Zohar Amar, Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings, Kefar Darom 2015, pp. 177–178; 228
  33. ^ Zohar Amar, Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings, Kfar Darom 2015, p. 157, s.v. שזפין OCLC 783455868, explained to mean 'jujube' (Ziziphus jujuba); Solomon Sirilio's Commentary of the Jerusalem Talmud, on Kila'im 1:4, s.v. השיזפין, which he explained to mean in Spanish azufaifas ('jujubes'). See also Saul Lieberman, Glossary in Tosephta - based on the Erfurt and Vienna Codices (ed. M.S. Zuckermandel), Jerusalem 1970, s.v. שיזפין (p. LXL), explained in German as meaning Brustbeerbaum ('jujube').
  34. ^ Thus explained by Maimonides in his Commentary on Mishnah Kila'im 1:2 and in Mishnah Terumot 2:6. See: Zohar Amar, Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings, Kefar Darom 2015, pp. 111, 149 (Hebrew) OCLC 783455868; Zohar Amar, Agricultural Produce in the Land of Israel in the Middle Ages (Hebrew title: גידולי ארץ-ישראל בימי הביניים), Ben-Zvi Institute: Jerusalem 2000, p. 286 ISBN 965-217-174-3 (Hebrew)
  35. ^ Compare Rashi's commentary on Exodus 9:17, where he says the word mesillah is translated in Aramaic oraḥ kevīsha ('a blazed trail'), the word kevīsh being only an adjective or descriptive word, but not a common noun as it is used today. It is said that Ze'ev Yavetz (1847–1924) is the one who coined this modern Hebrew word for 'road'. See Haaretz, Contributions made by Ze'ev Yavetz Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine; Maltz, Judy (25 January 2013). "With Tu Bishvat Near, a Tree Grows in Zichron Yaakov". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 28 March 2017. Retrieved 27 March 2017.
  36. ^ Roberto Garvia, Esperanto and its Rivals, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015, p. 164
  37. ^ Amar, Z. (2015). Flora and Fauna in Maimonides' Teachings (in Hebrew). Kfar Darom. p. 156. OCLC 783455868.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link), s.v. citing Maimonides on Mishnah Kil'ayim 5:8
  38. ^ Matar – Science and Technology On-line, the Common Anemone (in Hebrew)
  39. ^ a b Hebrew at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  40. ^ a b Weninger, Stefan, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet CE Watson, Gábor Takács, Vermondo Brugnatelli, H. Ekkehard Wolff et al. The Semitic Languages. An International Handbook. Berlin–Boston (2011).
  41. ^ Robert Hetzron (1997). The Semitic Languages. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780415057677. Archived from the original on 23 February 2023. Retrieved 1 November 2020.[failed verification]
  42. ^ Hadumod Bussman (2006). Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics. Routledge. p. 199. ISBN 9781134630387.
  43. ^ Robert Hetzron. (1987). "Hebrew". In The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  44. ^ Patrick R. Bennett (1998). Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 9781575060217. Archived from the original on 1 July 2023. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  45. ^ a b Reshef, Yael. Revival of Hebrew: Grammatical Structure and Lexicon. Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. (2013).
  46. ^ Olga Kapeliuk (1996). "Is Modern Hebrew the only "Indo-Europeanied" Semitic Language? And what about Neo-Aramaic?". In Shlomo Izre'el; Shlomo Raz (eds.). Studies in Modern Semitic Languages. Israel Oriental Studies. BRILL. p. 59. ISBN 9789004106468.
  47. ^ Wexler, Paul, The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew: A Slavic Language in Search of a Semitic Past: 1990.
  48. ^ Izre'el, Shlomo (2003). "The Emergence of Spoken Israeli Hebrew." In: Benjamin H. Hary (ed.), Corpus Linguistics and Modern Hebrew: Towards the Compilation of The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH)", Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 2003, pp. 85–104.
  49. ^ See p. 62 in Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2006), "A New Vision for 'Israeli Hebrew': Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language", Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 5 (1), pp. 57–71.
  50. ^ Yael Reshef. "The Re-Emergence of Hebrew as a National Language" in Weninger, Stefan, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet CE Watson, Gábor Takács, Vermondo Brugnatelli, H. Ekkehard Wolff et al. (eds) The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin–Boston (2011). p. 551
  51. ^ Amir Zeldes (2013). "Is Modern Hebrew Standard Average European? The View from European" (PDF). Linguistic Typology. 17 (3): 439–470. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
  52. ^ a b R. Malatesha Joshi; P. G. Aaron, eds. (2013). Handbook of Orthography and Literacy. Routledge. p. 343. ISBN 9781136781353. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  53. ^ Li, Charles N. Mechanisms of Syntactic Change. Austin: U of Texas, 1977. Print.
  54. ^ Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003), Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1403917232 [1] Archived 2019-06-13 at the Wayback Machine
  55. ^ The Latin "familia", from which English "family" is derived, entered Mishnaic Hebrew - and thence, Modern Hebrew - as "pamalya" (פמליה) meaning "entourage". (The original Latin "familia" referred both to a prominent Roman's family and to his household in general, including the entourage of slaves and freedmen which accompanied him in public - hence, both the English and the Hebrew one are derived from the Latin meaning.)

Bibliography

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