Talk:Modern Hebrew language

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The new state of affairs, whereby Hebrew language points to an historical discussion of the various dead-language ancestors of Hebrew from 2000-3000 years ago, and Modern Hebrew language points to the modern spoken language, is ridiculous. Dozens of articles pointing to Hebrew language in the same sense as articles using English language (e.g., specifying the language of a country or a language a word is written in) now point to the wrong page. I would recommend a different approach - the Hebrew language must describe the current spoken language, and also mention the antique languages. It must not start with mentioning antiquities like Canaan, which implies the language is dead and only spoken in places that don't exist. Seperate pages about Modern Hebrew language and Ancient Hebrew language can exist to extend the discussion on these subjects. See Greek language for a possible example. Nyh 07:38, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mustafaa and I wrote the new article, and I implied nothing of the sort. I may have been unclear, but I addressed the issue from a scientific linguistic basis, not a political basis. Also, to say that the default assumed form of Hebrew is Israeli Hebrew is pro-Israel POV. I'm not anti-Israel (I'm a LDS Ephrathite), but Hebrew is regarded just as important as a historical and religious language as it is regarded as a modern vernacular. Hebrew is rich in history, and rich in heritage to Abrahamic religions alike, and some of us felt that the previous Hebrew article focused too much on only the Modern Israeli dialect, and was too uncomfortably monolithic to edit to reflect the greater variety of Hebrew that exists and has existed. The new Hebrew article addresses as many varieties as possible, and links them to separate pages, including Israeli Hebrew. But in retrospect, I may have been unclear about the modern nature of Hebrew, reducing it to a dry academic mention. I have since edited the article making the Israeli form far more accessible from a link near the top of the article. I don't pretend that the issues surrounding Hebrew are not controversial nor divisive, but I think the new base page organizes the issues well, and is thus far less POV and far more NPOV. - Gilgamesh 08:21, 4 July 2004 (UTC)
Lately I'm been really annoyed by people doing changing like you did now - in the pretext of "NPOV", the factual relevance of articles is destroyed. If you ask a person on the street what is "Hebrew", if you look at ISO standards what is "Hebrew", and so on, the answer will always be the same: "Hebrew" is the dialect spoken by people who consider themselves Hebrew-speakers. There were in fact other ancient dialects that evolved into the current Hebrew, and they were even called "Hebrew", but this is not current Hebrew, nobody speaks to them, and nobody refers to them as "Hebrew". Calling the modern Hebrew an "Israeli" "dialect" is just as silly as devoting most of the "English language" page to the history of Old English, and then mentioning in passing that the only surviving dialect is the one spoken in England; The only reason the Hebrew language article exists and gets pointed to (look at the links to it) is the spoken language of that name, which, let's face it, is spoken mainly in Israel... I'll shut up now, and let you people which don't speak Hebrew mess with the Hebrew article ;-)
Well, we can call Standard English a dialect, because Standard English is a dialect, and there are other extinct or endangered dialects such as Yola and Scots (descended from the Northumbrian dialect). But honestly, Hebrew has special significance to many cultures and religions that English, even as a lingua franca, does not quite have. English is not everyone's language, but Hebrew is a foundation of easily half of the world's religious and cultural heritage, through the very presence and weight of Abrahamic religion; as such, the whole Hebrew language really belongs to all of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha'i, etc.. The State of Israel should not get a monopoly for what is both a religious and secular language, just as the Vatican can't have a monopoly for Latin which is both a religious and a scientific language. - Gilgamesh 02:49, 5 July 2004 (UTC)

Hello. I've edited the Morphology section significantly. I'm not a linguist, but I study classical languages, and have a decent understanding of Hebrew grammar. --Ijon

Hi, I (uriyan) wrote the majority of the latest (as of October 3rd 2001) edition of this article. But it still needs some work since I am far from being a language scholar. Also, could anyone explain to me why it was necessary to insert the old article fragments? They're already included (in modified form) in other section (particularly Introduction and History and Phonology).

I was wondering that myself. My guess is that you didn't have a /Talk explaining what you did, and where you moved the old text, and people here are a bit paranoid about new people coming in and excising major portions of text.

Well, I was just wondering whether someone with more knowledge than me could take a look at my article (and also delete the redunant parts - I'm not sure whether it is ethical to replace someone else's texts with my own, if there isn't a complete consensus).

Well, I made some changes to the Phonology pages in order to be more consistent with the IPA and to improve my phrasing.

Very nice to have Unicode letters on the Phonology pages now. A question: What about the arrangement of the consonants in the chart? It would be nice to use the standard IPA layout as shown in [1] so that we can compare languages. The IPA handbook by Cambridge University Press does this for many languages. -- Hannes Hirzel

I'll see what I can do; however due to my not being a language scholar, any help (links, suggestions) will be appreciated. --Uriyan

I'd like to clean up the main page (Hebrew language), since most of the information is redunant anyway. If there are any other (contradicting) opinions, please state them here. --Uriyan

Just go ahead and clean it up, and people'll correct you if they don't like it. --AV

Ok, I finished the modifications. I've been considering to add a poem (a translation from Leah Goldberg), but I'm afraid its copyrighted. Any ideas about the Israeli copyright law? --Uriyan

Nice editing, but I don't like the new first paragraph: it fails to mention that Hebrew is a resurrected Semitic language, a continuation of Biblical/Talmudic Hebrew, and not just some Semitic language that sprung into existence in the 20th century. I think mentioning its roots in the very first paragraph is important.
Leah Goldberg is a no-no, sorry, you'll have to receive explicit permit from copyright holders as well as the translator to be able to publish it. BTW, if you're interested in publishing Hebrew poetry on the Web, you might like http://www.benyehuda.org , a promising project that a friend of mine is trying to get on its feet. --AV
Well, to an extent Hebrew is a new language (Bibleical Hebrew being quite distinct in its vocabulary, grammar, idiomatic constructions etc.). However, I'll try to represent the fact that the Hebrew that we know now is a revived ancient language. --Uriyan.

Someone should add somewhere either here or under Hebrew alphabet a link to mater lectionis, and also some discussion of what dagesh lene are -- something i've always wanted to know. -- Simon J Kissane

By mater lectionis, do you mean the letters alef and waw inserted to lengthen vowels? It is described in Phonology. I don't quite understand what you'd meant by dagesh lene. Dgeshim in general are also described in Phonology as "emphases", but perhaps you mean something else. --Uriyan.
Uriyan, dagesh lene is the dagesh that changes the sound in bet, kaf, etc. Dagesh forte is the one that's supposed to double the consonant (in gimel, etc.) but does nothing in modern Hebrew. Mater lectionis are all consonant letters that are used for something else other than describing consonants: e.g. vav/yod for vowels, heh at the end of the word, etc.
SJK, these topics really belong to something like Biblical Hebrew, they don't lend themselves very well to an article on Modern Hebrew. Maybe we should create something like Biblical Hebrew, or better yet History of Hebrew or maybe even History of Hebrew orthography, the possibilities are endless ;) --AV
Ah, well, these topics are covered in Phonology, though I've translated "dagesh lene" ("dagesh xazaq") as "light emphasis" and "dagesh fortis" ("dagesh xalash") as "heavy emphasis". I am not accustomed to using Latin terms for describing Hebrew phonology in English. I'll change Phonology to include them, though. --Uriyan
Right. Also, I think it incorrect to claim that ph/p is the only remaining case among consonants changed by dagesh that's still incapable of creating a minimal pair. I think it doesn't qualify either - not due to merging, but due to the fact that /ph/ became possible at the beginning of a word in modern Hebrew: cf. festival, fashla, etc. --AV
Good point, I've changed the phrasing (note however "fashla" and "festival" are not words with Hebrew roots). --Uriyan
I've heard that borrow words, lose dagesh, as a rule, even if the sound changes, an example: 'Fistuk' - modern hebrew for Pistachio. A counter example is 'Post-modern' (or post-anything), so better ask the academy on this one.

Also, I beleive the split to modern/biblical hebrew articles is required, too many phonetical + grammatical differences, I think it would yield more focused writing as-well

No, this is a wrong "rule", I don't know where you got it from. 'Fistuk' and Pistachio both come from the same Arabic word 'Fustuk' meaning nut ('Fustuk Halebi', or nuts from Haleb, are what we call pistachios). Words that have been recently adopted into Hebrew keep their dgeshim, even if they come at a completely unexpected place (e.g., consider the word Jeep). Words that have been adopted much earlier, say from greek or Arameic, sometimes change to adopt a more Hebrew-like structure. If anything, 'Fistuk' should have been 'Pistuk', because Pe gets a dagesh kal when it's the first letter of the word.

Considering the fact that subpages no longer exist, do you think it'd be better to unite all the subarticles under a single title? --Uriyan

Just started looking through the article. There are a couple of points that I question here. For example, in Phonology, it lists five vowels in Hebrew. Actually, Biblical Hebrew had 11, and Modern Hebrew has at least six. The long and short vowels, which are generally ignored in modern spoken Hebrew, did exist and continue to exist in some form in liturgical Ashkenazi Hebrew (for instance, the difference between a tseireh and a segol). Furthermore, there are six letters that take the dagesh hazak: bet, gimel, daled, kaf, pe, and tav. While only the bet, kaf, and pe are now distinguished, there are distinct difference that were lost with the gimel, daled, and tav (which is disitinguished, again, in liturgical Ashkenazi Hebrew). I do not want to go making any changes until I hear some other thoughts on the matter. User:Danny

Well, I wrote most of the article in order to describe modern Hebrew, as it is spoken and used in everyday life. I omitted interesting historical phenomena both because I intended the article for the unprofessional reader and because I didn't have too much time or skills for proper research into them. I did mention the existence of the long vowels, and that gimel, dalet and tav can take an emphasis (my translation for dagesh), which is mute in modern Hebrew.
Since you probably have more qualification than I do in the field of language, I trust that you'll be able to improve. I think you can just go ahead and modify it. --Uriyan

About transcribing Hebrew, there are two ISO standards for transcribing: one phonemic (ISO-259-3)[1] and one transliteration (some other part of ISO-259).

[1] http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/users/ornan/ornan1.html

The article is a bit self-contradictory:

Derived languages: Yiddish and Ladino

and

It is interesting to note that the dialects that the Jews have adopted from their environment, namely Ladino and Yiddish were not directly connected to Hebrew.

Bogdan | Talk 19:33, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I do not wish to complain, but this article doesn't mention enough about the individual dialects of Hebrew, particularly what is known about Mishnaic Hebrew, Tiberian Hebrew, and the major diaspora dialects with strong cultural traditions (Ashkenazic, Sephardic, Temanic), each before the recent advent of Standard Hebrew, and the finer pronunciation details and varying linguistic reconstruction theories of each. I wanted to add some details, but it seems very difficult to add information to an article that feels so monolithic and steeped in its own editorial subconventions. I am not saying that the article is biased or slanted. Am I making sense? User:Gilgamesh 05:15, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I thoroughly agree - I was thinking about doing something like that myself. More dialects than just Modern Israeli Ashkenazi Hebrew need to be represented, and some idea needs to be given of the sound changes the language has undergone, say by contrasting ancient Greek transcriptions with Tiberian with modern (gomorrha vs `amooraah vs amoRa...) Maybe the best way would be to add new sections for the different varieties? - Mustafaa 05:24, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps... Maybe, until then, a separate article can be created for it. Maybe "Hebrew Dialects" or "History of Hebrew Dialects" or something. There are so many thought-provoking theories floating around, including brilliant comparisons between other Semitic languages (Arabic, Aramaic, etc.) that illustrate evidence of ancient phonology, and they all deserve mention. There's also a page at http://www.omniglot.com that shows the theoretically reconstructed IPA phonology at different points of history, using historical and comparative Semitic linguistics as a study guide; it's by no means the only theory out there. After I've gathered enough research, notes and references, maybe I'll create such a new article, and it could be incorporated (in whole or in part) into the main Hebrew article at a later date. Gilgamesh 6:06, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
The Omniglot page looks OK, though the ch and ch' suggestions strike me as a bit odd. There's also a lot of controversy over how the "emphatics" (teth, qoph, tsade) were realized - as ejectives, pharyngealized, velarized, or different depending which one. Various modern dialects do each of the above. - Mustafaa 02:03, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
(Pardon the rambling that follows -- I wrote this response in a hurry. High-functioning autistics don't have the luxury of 100% clear communication during a conversation or the first draft of a paragraph, etc.) Yes, I'm well aware of those controversies, and I agree that, though emphasis could have been either glottal of pharyngeal, we can't know 100% which. However, there is evidence (comparing Punic and a variety of other Semitic languages) that most if not all of the fricatives were actually affricates (dz, ts, ts’, etc.). Also, I'm inclined to entertain the idea the idea that צ ṣādhê may very well have originally had three phonemes that each merged into one, and that שׂ śîn was a lateral fricative (or affricate), preserved by the most conservative Jewish linguistics even as late as the Roman period, just as distinct non-pharyngeal khêth and gháyin were preserved in conservative circles until Judaea's destruction. See, I found another very interesting website about the Proto-Semitic language hypothesis. I love their consonant correspondence chart (JPEG image) -- it just oozes with elegant symmetry, I think. :) But I don't know if I agree with them on the vowels.
...and I even forgot my signature and timestamp this time. :D Gilgamesh 05:50, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
I agree about the latter; that sin remained lateral until quite late is confirmed not just by outcomparison with the South Arabian languages, but also by transcriptions like Chaldean for Heb. kasdi. But, while it's certainly true that sadhe corresponds to three distinct proto-Semitic phonemes, I've never heard of any evidence that they were preserved in Hebrew itself at any time period. And about the fricatives: in Latin transcriptions of Punic, z is written s (sicorathi *zikkarti, sy *ze), so I'm not sure you aren't overgeneralizing; what cases do you have in mind? On the other hand, Demotic transcriptions of Canaanite already use ts for sadhe sometimes; the Latino-Punic texts provide no help, since they write it with a made-up + symbol[2]. - Mustafaa 06:55, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
As for the affricates, I have two sources: Omniglot, and (to be honest) a single post I read at linguistlist; it made me wonder if it could be likely that zayin, lamedh, samekh, shin and sin might be affricates in their daghesh forms. And, if you read the Tanakh with full pointing, you'll notice that, occasionally, a lamedh, a samekh, a shin, etc. will often be given a daghesh at the beginnings of words and after other consonants (plus silent shewa), that would seem redundant if they were fricatives all the time. And I also agree in concept about sadhe -- regardless of whether it derives from three phonemes, only one phoneme is attested, and any further speculation without additional evidence is fantasy, whether it is ultimately true or false. BTW, thanks for the Punic link; it's been very difficult for me to find comprehensive linguistic sites dealing with Phoenician language or Punic language on the Internet. Gilgamesh 08:03, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
I just realized that I may have misunderstood the linguistlist post. Are "taluy" and "tluya" supposed to be Modern Hebrew? (I had assumed they referred to some words "taluy" and "suya" or something.) I'm a buff at historical and comparative linguistics, phonology, morphology, etc., and I study parts of many different languages. But though my knowledge of Hebrew has been blossoming, I'm still a student, and my knowledge of its extended vocabulary and more subtle grammar rules is still limited. ^_^; Gilgamesh 08:16 2 May 2004 (UTC)
I think the post means tluya is the feminine of taluy (the a drops as the stress shifts.) That is odd about the dagesh being put at the beginning of words (unless that's after ha-, in which case it would be totally regular; as you probably know, the dagesh historically represents gemination as well as non-fricativeness.) Can you give me an example? As for the Punic, yeah, it's enough to drive you crazy. There only seem to be like two people working on the language anyway, Krahmalkov and Jongeling. - Mustafaa 08:26, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

(If you don't mind, I'm starting my reply without indentation. There are too many indentations in this dialogue. :P) I have done a quick text search (I have a pointed Tanakh Unicode data set on my hard disk), which found and logged 370 verses in the Tanakh that each contain at least one of the following:

  • verse contains shewa waw daghesh
  • verse begins with zayin daghesh
  • verse contains shewa zayin daghesh
  • verse contains space zayin daghesh
  • verse begins with yodh daghesh
  • verse contains shewa yodh daghesh
  • verse contains space yodh daghesh
  • verse begins with lamedh daghesh
  • verse contains shewa lamedh daghesh
  • verse contains space lamedh daghesh
  • verse begins with samekh daghesh
  • verse contains shewa samekh daghesh
  • verse contains space samekh daghesh
  • verse begins with sadhe daghesh
  • verse contains shewa sadhe daghesh
  • verse contains space sadhe daghesh
  • verse begins with shin daghesh shin-dot
  • verse contains shewa shin daghesh shin-dot
  • verse contains space shin daghesh shin-dot
  • verse begins with shin daghesh sin-dot
  • verse contains shewa shin daghesh sin-dot
  • verse contains space shin daghesh sin-dot

You can find such verses at Bereshith 3:14, 12:18, 15:6, 18:13, 18:25, 19:2, 19:14, 20:6, 20:9, 21:23, 21:26, 23:11, 25:22, 25:33, 26:10...and so on. Also, I just remembered another piece of evidence -- the diverged Hebrew dialect used liturgically by the Samaritans (in Holon and Nablus) pronounces geminations of fricatives as affricates. An example is Manatch for Menassheh. Gilgamesh 10:08, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Weird! I'll have to have a look. The Samaritan case has parallels though - in Kabyle Berber, geminate sibilants often become fricatives (thus Arabic Hassab is borrowed as Hettseb). - Mustafaa 20:02, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

So we've got: kii `asiithaa-zzooth; mah-zzooth; etc... At first sight, it looks to me like a contraction of some sort (especially since the former has no h written, and the latter has short rather than long a.) But I'll keep looking... - Mustafaa 20:11, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I've been working on the article List of Hebrew names, and I think it's gotten to the point where I would appreciate some good neutral critical review and expansion. Until now, 99% of the article has been done by me (Gilgamesh), and 1% of it by Mustafaa. There's not enough editors, and I'm beginning to burn out. - Gilgamesh 06:16, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Do Gilgamesh and Mustafa "own" Hebrew on Wikipedia?

Here is a dialogue with users Mustafa and Gligamesh that deserves to be posted here for anyone concerned with where they have "taken" all articles pertaining to Hebrew language and its "categorization": See Is Hebrew a "Cananite Language" on User talk:IZAK

The term Canaanite languages has a precise linguistic meaning. The ancient Hebrews may not have been "Canaanites", but their language belongs to the Canaanite subfamily of Northwest Semitic. This linguistic classification is not in any way controversial, and has no bearing on the ethnic classification of the Jews. - Mustafaa 04:53, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Hebrew wikipedia agrees, by the way. - Mustafaa 04:57, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • The citation you quote from the "Hebrew" wikipedia is way off. It has almost no information and is accepting a FALSE categorization, as Hebrew is the language of the Torah, Tanakh, and Mishnah which go back for two to four thousand years. No-one knows what Ammonite, Edomite or Cananite is, as today all there is, is almost only Arabic in those areas, and Arabic is a Hebrew derivative. Hebrew is a uniquely defined language that has survived in all its fullness, whereas nothing or very little is known about Canaanites and their languages barring what the Torah (Bible) records. IZAK 05:27, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Edomite, Moabite, and Ammonite are all known from several inscriptions, the most important of which I have linked to in their respective articles. These reveal - unsurprisingly - that these languages were extremely similar to Hebrew and to Phoenician. Because of the common geographical location of these languages in Canaan, linguists have chosen to call them "Canaanite languages". This in no way implies categorizing the Hebrews as ethnically Canaanite, any more than calling languages "Semitic" implies accepting that their speakers actually descend from Shem. - Mustafaa 05:33, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A citation, from Les Langues Chamito-Sémitiques" (ed. D. Cohen), Paris 1988:

[Kena`an...] est à l'origine du terme cananéen par lequel on désigne l'ensemble des langues sémitiques qui ont été en usage dans la région, soit essentiellement l'hébreu et le phénicien (avec son extension punique) et, pour ceux qui y reconnaissent une langue autonome, le moabite. (although he later includes brief entries on the less well attested languages, including that of El Amarna, Edomite, and Ammonite).
[Kena`an]... is the origin of the term "Canaanite" by which one designates the group of Semitic languages which were in use in the region, mainly Hebrew, Phoenician (including Punic), and, for those who consider it a separate language, Moabite. - Mustafaa 05:39, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And finally, a source more familiar to non-linguists: the Encyclopedia Britannica. - Mustafaa 05:41, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Ah, yes, the key phrase you use is "linguists have chosen to call them "Canaanite languages"...So now the question is, what if one rejects the notions of these "linguists" and abides instead by the notions of say, "THEOLOGIANS" or more specifically HEBREW Theologians, who would utterly reject the speculations and hypothesis of these "Linguists"? To go just by the views of "linguists" would be to violate NPOV on Wikipedia as one needs to constantly present the views of the classical HEBREWS (aka as Jews) who abide by the classical teachings of Judaism, which teach that Hebrew was the language of Creation and of all humanity at one point. It was at the Tower of Babel that all the people were dispersed and were divided by (newly) conflicting tongues, or is this too much for you to "swallow"? IZAK 05:49, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This has been a lot of exercise today. IZAK, you need to understand, and please read because I will say this once because I am not very comfortable with long essays and paragraphs. - Linguistics is a very well-established science of comparing languages and how they split from each other, a process that never stops. I personally do not dispute the history of the Book of Genesis; I personally (by POV) believe that Terah was a descendant of Eber (founder of the Hebrews), and Abraham was Terah's son, and Lot was Terah's grandson. Ben-ammi and Moab were Lot's sons, and Esau and Jacob were Abraham's grandsons. Ishmael too, is an Eberite in a such a context. However, these distinctions do not translate into parallel linguistic splits. That does not deny that these people existed, but it's far more likely (and scholarly-accepted) that the languages that became associated with them were languages they adopted from other peoples. In the case of Abraham and his children in Canaan, they adopted the local Canaanite language for local communication. Samples of all four Canaanite languages adopted by Hebrew peoples are attested, written in early scripts related to Hebrew. Phoenician and Punic are also well-attested Canaanite languages, closely related to Hebrew, but the Phoenicians actually were Canaanites, and not Hebrews. (The Punic language survived until well into the Roman Empire, and was a favorite literary language of Augustine of Hippo. Now, the Canaanite dialects adopted by Abraham's family and Lot's family in Canaan only became "Hebrew" because they didn't stop speaking it for a very very long time, and it became the language associated with them, and the prophets of the Bible wrote in it. As for what language Abraham spoke before he settled in Canaan (the pre-Abrahamic Hebrew language), we can't say; that's why there are theories at Hebrew language. This is all well-established in the pages of the Torah and the Bible, as linguistic relations between the four Hebrew peoples and the Phoenicians and Carthaginians are well-attested in the scientific world. The truth is, people of the biblical Hebrew family adopted different languages where they settled. Canaanite languages by the children of Isaac and Lot, Arabian languages by the children of Ishmael, and later, old dialects of Aramaic, Arabic, Spanish and German by the Jewish diaspora for their daily discourse. But scientifically, the interrelated languages of Hebrews in Canaan are all Canaanite languages no more or less related to each other than the languages spoken by the ethnic Canaanites themselves, and are only also called "Hebrew languages" because they were biblical peoples in the Holy Land who spoke the same language. Since the Torah is theology, we can present it as a POV belief, but not as NPOV fact without concrete scientific proof. As such, we can't actually (yet) prove the historicity of Terah or Abraham (though we can still keep trying), and the distinction "Hebrew" remains an unscientific one. (That's why the Hebrew language articles were both in "Category:Canaanite languages" and "Category:Hebrew language", because one is scientific and the other is religious.) Now please, I understand and appreciate your religious passions, but keep in mind we can only mention theology as a POV, and that the only fact allowed in Wikipedia is NPOV science. - Gilgamesh - 05:53, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

  • Gilgamesh: I appreciate your time and efforts. But really this is all "theology" as were it not for the Bible this discussion and the mere names "Ammonite", "Edomite", "Cananite" would not even be known today. The so-called POV theology has been around for thousands of years. A few years ago some academics with nothing better to do commnenced the process of chopping up anything too "religious" that came into their line of fire and proceeded to impose their arbitrary POV so-called "categories" which are just sheer nonsense and make a mockery of well-estblished religiously reliable facts. Now, there are also sometimes fellow-travelers to the anti-religious academics who latch onto the teachings of the "linguists" (in this case), and whilst having their own agenda (of promoting Jesus or Allah or whatever) claim to share the views of the secular scholars when all they really want to do is to diminish the UNIQUE role and history of the Hebrew people and their language, and in this case "Hebrew" has ALWAYS been synonymous with "Jew"...now you are coming along and telling the world in effect that "Not all Hebrews are the Jews and not all Jews come from Hebrews", which is a patent lie and attempt at distortion of the contination of Jewish=Hebrew identity which so frustrates the anti-Semites and anti-Zionists that they will do ANYTHINg to cast aspersions on the cherished traditions of the teachings of the Torah and Judaism that tell us that the Hebrews are the Jews and that the Jews are the Hebrews and that they alone spoke what we call today the Hebrew language, which they preserved for 2,000 years in the their Talmudic and scholarly texts and which they revived as a spoken language in Israel BECAUSE the Hebrew that was part of them never ceased to exist at all. IZAK 06:21, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think Gilgamesh's point is that, since `Ivri comes from Eber, it should refer to all descendants of Eber, and thus that "Not all Hebrews are the Jews" (although all Jews are Hebrews) is exactly what the Torah implies. Is your point that Ivri does not mean "descendants of Eber"? If so, could you expand on it? - Mustafaa 06:34, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mustafaa: Also not too complicated: See: Why are the Jews called "Hebrews"?: "The word "Hebrew" comes from the Hebrew word "Ivri." Jews are called Hebrews because their ancestor and founder, Abraham, is called (Genesis 14:13) "Abraham the Ivri." The word Ivri means "from the [other] side," and Abraham came to the Land of Canaan from Mesopotamia which was "on the other side" of the Euphrates. Additionally, Abraham, with his monotheistic beliefs, was on one side while the rest of the world was on the other (pagan) side." IZAK 06:46, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

IZAK, I don't dispute that you believe what you believe, and I never disputed that the Jews were Hebrews. But even the Tanakh says that not all Hebrews were Jews (but all Jews were Hebrews, which I never contested). But at some point religious belief is inadmissible in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a medium of the scientific method. You're allowed not to like that, and you're allowed to speak your mind to other people and tell them how much you don't like it. I encourage it. But the rules are made by Wikipedia, not me, and facts are only admissible if the scientific method attests to them; otherwise, it's just belief and can only be mentioned as such. And even if Wikipedia were a religious discussion center, there's still the matter that nearly all religions disagree on certain points, and they would still have to compromise and cooperate in maintaining a single archive. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for everyone, not merely an encyclopedia for Rabbinical Jews, nor for fundamentalist Christians, nor for conservative Islamists, nor even for militant Atheists. It's for everyone, and everyone is welcome to make NPOV edits at Wikipedia. - Gilgamesh 06:41, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

Gilagamesh: I do not dispute what you say. When FACTS are misrepresented then it is is only right to correct them. And to accept only an "assertion" that something is so, is no subsitute for intellectual honesty. We have before us ancient TORAH texts, not "rabbinical" texts, but classical well-preserved and reliable texts revered by hundreds of millions of people, not just Jews and not just by "fundamentalists" as being reliable. This is as scientific and NPOV as a scientist looking into a petri dish which he should stick to doing as he is out of his depth when he applies "petrie dish" methods and theories to black-and white texts that say what they mean and mean what they say. A lawyer in law school would be expected to read, study and explain the statutes and laws, we would not care how well he conducted experiments with his legal ideas because that's not what you do with legal ideas and the language of law. Similarly, to chop up and insert speculations about the language of the Torah and what the words mean is not meant as a "Sunday afternoon stroll" in the hocus-pocus world of anti-religious secular academics and their cohorts. IZAK 06:59, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm frankly at a loss for words. This is like claiming that every biology article we write should include a Creationism section, or that every cosmology article should include a disclaimer stating that the world was created in six days - except that those doctrines are specifically claimed by the Bible, whereas Bereshit does not say which language was spoken before Babel. - Mustafaa 05:59, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Darling:Just LOOK at the language of the original Torah! What is it? And of course it is HEBREW. Does it have to say "By the way, we are now speaking Hebrew" when it is obvious that ONLY Hebrew is being spoken. And yes, when touching upon Biblically related "hot-potato" subjects like the oririgins of languages and the origin of life (which NO "scientist" can "know" as there were no scientists to take notes). We can only work with the primary texts and in this case the Torah and the Tanakh are the most reliable texts we have, unless we want to look at the Rosetta stone forever.... IZAK 06:21, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Um, I don't know what you think I meant, but of course the language of the Torah is Hebrew. Who was arguing about that? - Mustafaa 06:26, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • This is the point:The language ALL humanity spoke prior to the Tower of Babel was the Hebrew of the Torah, it's not that complicated. That why all languages have TRACES of Hebrew in them. Linguists agree that all languages are derived from one ancient "unkown" "core language". In Judaism, this is NOT a "mystery", that one core language was the ancient Hebrew of the Torah, which subsequently becomes reserved for the Hebrew people only commencing with Abraham, as a devotee of the HEBREW God who spoke with him and it is Abraham who brought it to Canaan and NOT the other way around. Now, is that not a beauty of reason and logic, and not mere "theology"  :-) IZAK 06:38, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
IZAK, the theories you are supporting are protestant and not Jewish in origin. I have always learned that Judaism is nt a mystery religion but one which is in harmony with scientific discoveries. Can you name one orthodox Jewish published source which advocates the ideas you are promoting? I am curious because it seems such theories may have been purposefully kept hidden from me since I was originaly agnostic and attracted to the scientific nature of orthodox Judaism to rediscover my roots. To be honest I find the "logic" you are using to be a little disturbing from a Jewish perspective. From a Jewish theological POV, the holy tongue is holy only because that is the language in which the Torah came through Moses. I have never heard of a Jewish argument that Hebrew was the language of Eden, though I have heard this from certain fringe protestant groups. Likewise Hebrews are the children of Eber, hence Abraham was also called Hebrew, he was not the first, though this idea is again very common among protestants. So once again I think it is very important for you to support your perspective as Jewish by producing some traditional sources. The use of the terms Hamitic and Semitic in linguistics is outmoded and inaccurate. Hebrew and Naharaim "Children of Eber" for example are the only "Semitic" peoples in the whole Afro-asiatic language family (also being the northernmost members) -so where are the other Shemites? Obviously the use of such terms for categorising languages has come anf should very soon be gone. Classifying languages by region is much more logical than supposed "race".Zestauferov 02:21, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Zest: Just for the record, the main discussion is at Talk:Hebrew languages, but since you raise the matter here I will show you just a few sources where this subject is discussed in classical Judaic terms, and NOT "Protestant", (if the Protestants "borrowed" from Judaism they are no less "guilty" than the Catholics or Moslems): Uniqueness of the Hebrew language according to Judaism: The following are a few sources both from university professors and rabbis on the subject of Hebrew as the Lashon Kakodesh ("Holy Tongue/Language") and why it's important:

  • Article by Dr. Mayer Gruber, Associate Professor in the Department of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Ben-Gurion University:

Hebrew is the original language of humanity and the language spoken by God

  • Article by By Alvin I. Schiff, Ph.D., Irving I. Stone Distinguished Professor of Education Azrieli Graduate School, Yeshiva University President, National Center for the Hebrew Language:

Why Hebrew is Fundamental

  • Article by Rabbi Bar-Hayim, head of the Makhon Ben Yishai Institute for Tora Research in Jerusalem:

Lashon Haqodesh (Loshon Ha Kodesh)

"Rambam (Maimonides)is of the opinion that there is no intrinsic sanctity in 'Lashon Hakodesh' but rather its sanctity is derived from its lack of vulgar and coarse language. Though he speaks of the "kedushah" of Hebrew (Kedushat Halashon), Rambam does not mean that there is a sacred quality in the language. He uses "kedushah" in the sense of moral restraint, pointing out that Hebrew has avoided coining words for the reproductive organs nor for semen, nor for urination or excretion, excepting in indirect language or for the act of intercourse. Ramban (Nachmanides) however states that Hebrew is a holy language because it was the vehicle used by G-d to create the world and communicate with man, through the Torah. He states that according to Rambam Hebrew should have been only been called the 'modest language' not a Holy Language.... I am of the opinion that this is the same reason why our Rabbis call the language of the Torah "The Sacred Language," because the words of the Torah, and the prophecies, and all words of holiness were all expressed in that language. It is thus the language in which the Holy One, blessed be He, spoke with His prophets, and with His people. In this tongue He is called by His sacred names. In that tongue He created His world, and called the names shamayim (heavens), eretz (earth) and all that is in them, His angels and all His hosts - he called them all by name. In that language He called the names of the holy ones that are in the earth: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Solomon, and others."

Thankyou very much for the sources, I must say they came as quite a dissappointing surprise to me. I was aware of the Maimonides view and was in agreement with it. It seems there is much that has been kept from me for apparently obvious reasons. Thankyou again IZAK.Zestauferov 10:03, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Yeah... The language of the Torah is Hebrew. I don't know how that can be disputable. I mean, there's a possibility other parts of it were written in other languages originally and then translated to Hebrew, but the texts as they were issued by Moses and later in written form by Ezra were in the Biblical Israelite Hebrew dialect. - Gilgamesh 06:30, 7 July 2004 (UTC)
  • Gilagamesh:Kindly restrain yourself from making up "theories", just stick to the facts as they are presented to us in the "primary documents" of the Torah, otherwise you will start to believe in Science fiction that we come from space aliens and that Steven Spielberg is writing the scripts as we speak ...IZAK 06:38, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mustafaa's calling it a day from this discussion and so am I. But I am afraid I must be blunt here and now: If you continue to flout the rules of Wikipedia, you'll invite trouble, probably at the administration level. You need to adhere to the editing rules the rest of us adhere to, or you'll find yourself not being able to edit here anymore. - Gilgamesh 06:45, 7 July 2004 (UTC)

  • Oh I see, now you are resorting to scare tactics. I am not "flouting" the rules of Wikipedia and I never have! You have inserted your own POV and grow impatient when your categorization is changed in spite of its erroneous nature. My edit record is excellent. It's your bias that is determining your reaction as you refuse to see or consider a broader more rounded approach to the subject at hand and hence to the truth. What can you do. IZAK 07:08, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This matter is now in Mediation see: Request for assistance in a conflict between users regarding Canaanite and Hebrew linguistics articles Thank you. IZAK 09:39, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This is the dumbest debate I have seen here yet. Is anyone seriously questioning that there are subdivisions of the Semitic languages or that Hebrew is more closely related to certain Semitic languages than others? That Moabite is more closely related to Hebrew than Aramaic or Arabic? Is this a debate over how to interpret biblical texts literally to form cogent linguistic arguments? If so I am pretty shocked. Danny 11:42, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Danny. Statements such as those by IZAK that blindly support the literal meaning of the Hebrew religious texts have no place here. It is a big world, and lots of the world's peoples have creation myths that they believe in just as strongly as IZAK apparently does in his; which should cause any rational person to at least question that perhaps such stories are not intended to be taken literally by anyone. To do so immediately signals that your belief is the only one that matters over everyone else, an attitude that is disrespectful and belongs not in an encyclopedia of knowledge. There is room here for a theological POV, but in language studies, I would prefer to get my information from linguists, not from 2000+ year old texts written with a very clear POV in the first place.-Marshman 06:21, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Marshman:"It takes two to tango", perhaps it is the one who "blindly" follows the purely secular viewpoint who is not being rational by rejecting the best original primary sources there are, in their original language yet. IZAK 07:19, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Not really. The Canaanite linguistics is pretty well-established in the scientific world, though IZAK disputes this. The main dispute is over the category of "Hebrew" languages which is a theological distinction. (Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite and Biblical Israelite Hebrew are attested to have very few differences from each other.) More talk has resumed in Talk:Hebrew language. - Gilgamesh 17:28, 7 July 2004 (UTC)
  • Please note that all further discussions on this topic are taking place at : Talk:Hebrew languages. Thank you. IZAK 02:46, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] More Modern Hebrew suggestions

Hello!

I was reading the Modern Hebrew article and I had a few very minor suggestions but I didn't want to edit the article because I'm a newbie and hardly an expert like most of you, and this entry is obviously very sensitive. So I thought I'd mention them here and people could weigh in on whether they thought the changes should be made or not. Don't flame me, I'm just suggesting. Pardon my transliterating, every time I try to type Hebrew it comes out as *%$#@()HFG@#.

1) Under "Modern Hebrew" it says that Hebrew is "an easy language to learn." But under "Outside of Israel" it says that Ashkenazi Jews "find it difficult to learn and use Hebrew as a colloquial spoken language." I feel like this somehow implies that the only people for whom Hebrew is difficult are Jews.

2) Under "Modern Hebrew" it mentions Russian influence on Hebrew first. I'm very ignorant in this area, but I see English and Arabic a lot more, myself. What, aside from the ending -acja, is from Russian? As for Arabic, it's true that a lot of Hebrew's bad words come from Arabic, but perhaps "kus emek" is not the right phrase to use to demonstrate Arabic influence. Isn't it kind of like saying in the English language article, "English has many words derived from Anglo-Saxon, such as fuck, cunt and whore." Maybe yalla ("come on, let's go") would be less offensive?

this is indeed in poor taste (unless in a specific discussion), it's not asif there's a shortage of Arabic loanwords

3) Under "Sounds/Vowels" the change from be-, le-, ke- to bi-, li-, ki- before a moving schwa is mentioned. This is a "classicizing" pronounciation and radio and TV announcers will use it, and it will be written that way, but most Israelis will continue to say be-, le-, ke- (e.g. be-krav, le-shmira). I have no problem with Wikipedia focusing on a classicizing pronounciation, but then it should be consistent.

classifying this pronounciation as "radio/TV" is plain wrong. This is highly dialectal. However your point does emphasize the fact that no real classification effort of modern israelli hebrew into dialects has not been made yet (jan 2005), which should be mentioned in the article.

For instance, under "sounds/vowels" it should mention that bet, pe, and kaf lose their daghesh after be-, le-, ke- (as in "bikhlal" and "bevakasha"). That only happens in classicizing style and in stock phrases like the two mentioned. And under "Grammar" it uses the sentence: "ha-chatul ha-qatan akhal et ha-gvina." But in classicizing style, ha- before ayin, chet and he becomes he-, so it should be "he-chatul ha-qatan," but this is not mentioned in the article.

4) Under "Sounds/Vowels" it does not mention that most European Hebrew speakers pronounce resh as an uvular r, as in French.

5) Under "Possession" the article implies that possession suffixes are not very important. I think it should be noted that they are in regular use for family relations and body parts (e.g. yadi, yadkha, avi, avikha). To say that they are also used in "particular idioms in Modern Spoken Hebrew" is kind of an understatement as well, considering that "How are you?" is one of these "particular idioms."

6) Under "Modern Hebrew" it mentions Ben-Yehuda looking for words in foreign dictionaries. But there are three other techniques that he used:

-one is making use of fallow binyanim of existing roots: for example, I don't think the Tanakh ever uses the forms hikhtiv ("dictate") or hitkhatev ("correspond"). And the noun 'inyan ("matter, interest") becomes the verb hitanyen ("be interested").

-two is creating the "action nouns": hitpateach ("develop") creates hitpatchut ("development"), daber ("speak") creates dibur ("speech"). This may have developed before Ben-Yehuda, I'm not sure--but it's a way of creating thousands of new "native" words without seeking foreign roots.

-three is that he supposedly asked his son, the first native Hebrew speaker in centuries, to name objects. This explains the repetitive and onomatopoetic nature of many Hebrew words: e.g. bakbuk (bottle), galgal (wheel).

Thanks for listening!

Matthew Levie

[edit] More Modern Hebrew suggestions

Hello!

I was reading the Modern Hebrew article and I had a few very minor suggestions but I didn't want to edit the article because I'm a newbie and hardly an expert like most of you, and this entry is obviously very sensitive. So I thought I'd mention them here and people could weigh in on whether they thought the changes should be made or not. Don't flame me, I'm just suggesting. Pardon my transliterating, every time I try to type Hebrew it comes out as *%$#@()HFG@#.

1) Under "Modern Hebrew" it says that Hebrew is "an easy language to learn." But under "Outside of Israel" it says that Ashkenazi Jews "find it difficult to learn and use Hebrew as a colloquial spoken language." I feel like this somehow implies that the only people for whom Hebrew is difficult are Jews.

2) Under "Modern Hebrew" it mentions Russian influence on Hebrew first. I'm very ignorant in this area, but I see English and Arabic a lot more, myself. What, aside from the ending -acja, is from Russian? As for Arabic, it's true that a lot of Hebrew's bad words come from Arabic, but perhaps "kus emek" is not the right phrase to use to demonstrate Arabic influence. Isn't it kind of like saying in the English language article, "English has many words derived from Anglo-Saxon, such as fuck, cunt and whore." Maybe yalla ("come on, let's go") would be less offensive?

3) Under "Sounds/Vowels" the change from be-, le-, ke- to bi-, li-, ki- before a moving schwa is mentioned. This is a "classicizing" pronounciation and radio and TV announcers will use it, and it will be written that way, but most Israelis will continue to say be-, le-, ke- (e.g. be-krav, le-shmira). I have no problem with Wikipedia focusing on a classicizing pronounciation, but then it should be consistent.

For instance, under "sounds/vowels" it should mention that bet, pe, and kaf lose their daghesh after be-, le-, ke- (as in "bikhlal" and "bevakasha"). That only happens in classicizing style and in stock phrases like the two mentioned. And under "Grammar" it uses the sentence: "ha-chatul ha-qatan akhal et ha-gvina." But in classicizing style, ha- before ayin, chet and he becomes he-, so it should be "he-chatul ha-qatan," but this is not mentioned in the article.

4) Under "Sounds/Vowels" it does not mention that most European Hebrew speakers pronounce resh as an uvular r, as in French.

5) Under "Possession" the article implies that possession suffixes are not very important. I think it should be noted that they are in regular use for family relations and body parts (e.g. yadi, yadkha, avi, avikha). To say that they are also used in "particular idioms in Modern Spoken Hebrew" is kind of an understatement as well, considering that "How are you?" is one of these "particular idioms."

6) Under "Modern Hebrew" it mentions Ben-Yehuda looking for words in foreign dictionaries. But there are three other techniques that he used:

-one is making use of fallow binyanim of existing roots: for example, I don't think the Tanakh ever uses the forms hikhtiv ("dictate") or hitkhatev ("correspond"). And the noun 'inyan ("matter, interest") becomes the verb hitanyen ("be interested").

-two is creating the "action nouns": hitpateach ("develop") creates hitpatchut ("development"), daber ("speak") creates dibur ("speech"). This may have developed before Ben-Yehuda, I'm not sure--but it's a way of creating thousands of new "native" words without seeking foreign roots.

-three is that he supposedly asked his son, the first native Hebrew speaker in centuries, to name objects. This explains the repetitive and onomatopoetic nature of many Hebrew words: e.g. bakbuk (bottle), galgal (wheel).

Thanks for listening!

Matthew Levie

Great suggestions - why don't you edit the article to reflect that?

One more Hebrew neologism method: roots that reflect both disused Hebrew roots and Western languages. My favorite is the recently coined mufin (from the verb afa, "bake", modelled after the Biblical 'tufin) which of course means "muffin"; but there are other cases. For instance, mishkafaim "spectacles" was actually chosen on the basis not only of the rare root sh-k-f but also on the basis of its similarity to the Yiddish word (shpakuln, if I recall rightly.) - Mustafaa 19:58, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, that's so cute! ^^ "mufin" :Þ - Gilgamesh 20:06, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
More Russian/Slavic stuff in Hebrew, that may or may not have entered it through Yiddish: -chik (katanchik), -nik (kibutznik), budkeh, balagan, samatocha, bardak (see the trend?), chimidan, padla (with an "Aramaic" plural, padlaot), chubchik, and of course the everlasting kebenemat.
The word "bakbuk" most certainly predates EBY, and so does the repetitive pattern of word creation. I dunno about galgal, but gilgul is definitely old ("gilgul neshamot"). - User:i@k5

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[edit] European Influence

I believe that I see a lot of European influence on Modern Hebrew - specifically German - a generous sum of vocabulary and pronunciation such as "scheif" (polishing) which was later transformed into "leshayef" et cetera; and Russian - for example terms from Latin borrowed as "loazit" and share the same pronunciation as the Russian one (my Latin is pretty bad, but I doubt I believe the pronunciation differs.)

I didn't want to merge much of this just yet, since I'm still unsure. Please reply with your opinions :)

[edit] Tutorial on using Hebrew on a Western Word Processor

Could somebody please direct me to some help on how to type Hebrew in Microsoft Word, etc? I do not understand why, when or how the Word Processor decides to reorder the letter sequences left-to-right or right-to-left. It's a real pain to try to type something and then watch the Word Processor decide how the letter sequences were supposed to go. How do you ensure that the Word Processor lets you type and view everything right-to-left instead of left-to-right? Is there an online tutorial for this somewhere? Thank you. --Ep9206 00:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

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