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May 11, 2023 · The Jewish people were once known as Hebrews for their language, which flourished from roughly the 13th to second centuries B.C.—when the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament, was...
- Allie Yang
The revival of the Hebrew language took place in Europe and the Southern Levant region toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, through which the language's usage changed from purely the sacred language of Judaism to a spoken and written language used for daily life in Israel.
Hebrew has evolved over time. In Modern Hebrew (Ivrit), lo is “no” and ken is “yes.”. In Mishnaic Hebrew (which was current around 2,000 years ago), the word for “yes” was hen. And going back to Biblical Hebrew, it does not appear that there was any word at all for “yes.”.
While the exact origins of the Yiddish language are still shrouded in some uncertainty, all agree that it has its origins in the 9th–10th centuries, when the first Jews settled in the Rhineland and the Palatinate (in present-day Germany).
In this period, Hebrew did not disappear, but it became the language of scripture and liturgy while other languages were spoken in the street. Also in this period, Jews began to write Hebrew in a new script heavily influenced by Aramaic, a precursor of the modern Hebrew script.
Jews over the ages generally refrained from using Biblical Hebrew, the “Holy Tongue,” for day-to-day speech. Hebrew was therefore reserved for holy, spiritual speech such as prayer and Torah scholarship, while Yiddish became the language of regular conversation. 2
Sep 11, 2023 · While Rabbinic Hebrew was spoken between Jews of different Jewish communities, Yiddish was spoken at the marketplace with the Arabs.
