Search results
The vast majority of the Hebrew Bible ( Tanach) is written in Hebrew. (Some of the last books of the Bible, Daniel and Ezra, contain significant chunks of Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Jewish people during their Babylonian exile.) Read: Aramaic, the Yiddish of the Middle East. 3.
- Hebrew Is the Holy Tongue
- Can You Say “Yes” in Hebrew?
Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature. The first dated book printed in Hebrew was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria, Italy) in 1475.
- History
- Causes
- Name
- The Hebrew and Aramaic Elements
- Script
The linguistic history of the Jews accurately mirrors their dispersion over the world. The prehistory of the Hebrews took place in the Aramaic sphere, and the impact of that tongue on the first "Jewish" language, Hebrew, was so strong that it has been called a fusion of Canaanite and Aramaic. The lifespan of Hebrew covers roughly the period of the ...
New languages have perpetually come into being in the course of history. The causes are common to all linguistic development: migration, involving separation from the original language territory; divergence, through the growth of different political centers; and intermingling of populations, through conquest or pacific interpenetration. Of these ca...
The correct designation for the various linguistic structures of the Jews is Jewish languages. All other names make no sense in modern linguistic scholarship; the terms "dialects," "jargons," "mixed languages," "corrupted languages," "Creolized languages," "Judeo-…," etc. are to be rejected for the following reasons. Jewish languages are not jargon...
In the Jewish languages, Hebrew and Aramaic elements form part of an uninterrupted development in speech and writing: they represent the present linguistic stage of a continuous process, previous stages of which crystallized into the languages of the Bible, Mishnah, Gemara, Midrash, liturgy, etc. In other words, they are connected with the sphere o...
The Hebrew script is not included as part of the Hebrew and Aramaic elements, because language and script are independent of each other. Thus the script constitutes evidence of itsown for the religious basis of the Jewish languages. It is a fact that the alphabet in which a language is written is, broadly speaking, decided by the religion of those ...
The Lithuania-born visionary turned an ancient language into a spoken one. Hebrew. Why Hebrew is of Central Importance in Judaism. Hebrew is the sacred language of Jewish scripture and prayer and also the language of the modern Jewish state.
- Shalom (shah-LOME) שלום. Perhaps the best-known Hebrew word today is shalom, which means “peace” or “wellbeing.” It also can be used for both “hello” and “goodbye.”
- Todah (toe-DAH) תודה. Hebrew for gratitude or acknowledgement, this is the modern word for “thank you.” In Temple times, a Jew who felt grateful for G‑d’s salvation from danger would bring a korban todah, a “sacrifice of gratitude.”
- Torah (toe-RAH) תורה. Literally “guide” or “instruction,” the Torah refers to the Five Books of Moses which contain G‑d’s instructions. More broadly, Torah refers to the entire corpus of Jewish spiritual scholarship.
- Mitzvah (mitz-VAH) מצוה. Literally “commandment,” mitzvah refers to any of the 613 commandments in the Torah, especially giving charity. Since a Jew is obligated to follow the commandments after reaching the age of majority, a boy’s 13th birthday is his “bar mitzvah” and a girl’s 12th birthday is her “bat mitzvah.”
May 11, 2023 · Today, Hebrew is a thriving language—used by millions of speakers around the world to communicate all their thoughts and desires. That may have seemed almost impossible less than 150 years ago,...
Aug 18, 2021 · Explains how Jews distinguished themselves linguistically from non-Jews, including the integration of Hebrew and Aramaic words, influences from Jewish languages spoken before the most recent migration, archaisms, and linguistic innovations. Discusses migration patterns, translation traditions, and writing.
