Talk:Hebrew language

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Good article Hebrew language was one of the Language and literature good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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See also Talk:Modern Hebrew language and Talk:Hebrew languages.

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[edit] More useful dictionary links

How about links to English-Hebrew dictionaries which render the Hebrew words in Roman letters? Unless one knows the Hebrew alphabet, the existing links are useless. Tmangray 18:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Respected Schools that teach Hebrew

A list of respected school teaching ancient Hebrew:

(Please help in filling out this list.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.211.144 (talk) 22:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Bar-llan

http://www1.biu.ac.il/

[edit] sources?

I keep trying to add the standard books about the history of Hebrew (ISBN 0521556341, ISBN 0814736904, etc.) and someone or some 'bot keeps removing them. Why?

The first couple of paragraphs could use some citations as well- perhaps just one per paragraph even if it all came from the same place. Bots should be illegal. Swatpig 00:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wexler and Zuckermann

i deleted this text:

Wexler[1] claims that modern Hebrew is not a Semitic language at all, but a dialect of "Judaeo-Sorbian". On his argument, the underlying structure of the language is Slavic, "re-lexified" to absorb much of the vocabulary and inflexional system of Hebrew, in the same way as a creole. Ghilad Zuckermann[2] takes an intermediate view: "Israeli" is a separate language from Hebrew, and has a basically European syntax, but should be regarded as a hybrid between the Hebrew and European models. The identity of the European substrate/adstrate has varied: in the time of the Mandate and the early state, the principal contributors were Yiddish and modern standard German, while today it is American English.

this is linguistic nonsense, especially the bit about "judeo-sorbian". neither of these are even close to being mainstream linguistic views or appear in any journal. references from personal websites are not credible sources.

Benwing 07:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Well done. --HIZKIAH (User • Talk) 11:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

You can call it what you like, but just because you don't agree with (or don't understand) Paul Wexler does not give you the right to censor his opinion. And he is not a personal web site. --Redaktor 00:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

massive relexification/decreolization is not a generally accepted linguistic theory. we don't need to include every fringy idea just because someone said it. Benwing 06:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Calling a particular theory a fringy idea is POV --Redaktor 09:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
no it isn't. how else to distinguish between mainstream and non-mainstream views? do we need to publish every theory out there, regardless of how little support it has? but i'm fine with your latest edits. your language "not accepted by most linguists" is exactly what i meant by "fringy". Benwing 07:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The mentions of Wexler and Zuckermann were there to raise the question of Europeanization, rather than to advocate their views, and the original paragraph made it clear that they were in a minority (and Zuckermann is less extreme than Wexler). Both are bona fide linguistic scholars: Wexler is cited with respect by Saenz-Badillos and Zuckermann's essay flags a forthcoming book: it is not a question of some lone unscientific crank with a website.

The point is not whether their theories are "true" or "false": they agree with everyone else on questions of verifiable fact, and the issue is one of characterization. All agree that both the vocabulary and the nuts and bolts of accidence are derived from classical Hebrew. The point being made is that a speaker of modern Hebrew sounds less like a native speaker of a live Semitic language such as Arabic than like a foreigner trying to translate into such a language out of a European language, so that you can "hear" the German, Yiddish, English or Polish through it. Whether that affects the "Semitic" categorization of the language is not a question of fact but of point of view. In the same way, no one would deny that French is a Romance language, but there is a strong argument for saying that structurally it is not so much an organic derivative of Vulgar Latin as a creole in which Latin is calqued on Celtic.

I'm clearly not going to win on this; but perhaps we can restore the mention of Zuckermann when his book comes out. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

this is fine with me. mostly what i object to are people who do not have a linguistic background inserting ideas that seem interesting to them in an attempt to give them more credence. i don't know what your background is, but i'm a linguistics grad student, and among most linguists that i know, creolization theories of latin, arabic and the like have a very bad reputation, and they would not agree with your claim that there "is a strong argument" for Latin being a creole. to the extent that linguistics is a science, is is *NOT* just a "point of view" whether a language is a creole; the term "creole" implies a specific sort of historical development, and to argue for such a development you have to present specific evidence showing that this is true. the reason why creolization theories have such a bad reputation is that most of the people making these assertions (e.g. Versteegh for Arabic) have presented limited and often questionable evidence that anything like creolization ever actually happened, and seem to be basing their theories mostly on romantic notions of how things must have proceeded when speakers of different languages came together. Benwing 02:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I never said Latin was a creole. I said that the evolution of French showed a slight analogy to one. Similarly with Hebrew.
My way of explaining it would be this. The first generation, Ben Yehuda and Co, devised a highly prescriptive and grammatical model for modern Hebrew, based on Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew as far as possible. This was then learnt, imperfectly, by mother-tongue German and Yiddish speakers, so that their Hebrew often gave the impression of a word-for-word translation rather than showing any real feeling for the language. These modes of speech then got "stuck", and were imitated by their children, and thus became standard in the speech of later generations of mother-tongue Hebrew speakers. In short, I think Wexler and Zuckermann grotesquely exaggerate, but their work is useful in highlighting some features of modern Hebrew that are usually overlooked. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Good explanation, though it's more complicated: people were writing books and newspapers in Hebrew in Europe for hundreds of years before the period we're talking about, and their use of the language influenced the way it was later spoken. But why mention German speakers? They were negligible in number and influence. The vast majority of early 20th-century Hebrew speakers were native speakers of Yiddish, and of the rest a lot more were speakers of Russian or Polish than of German. Immigrants from Germany were notorious in Israel for not learning to speak Hebrew no matter how long they had been there (though of course many did). Herzl, a German speaker, never learned Hebrew. According to the Hebrew Wikipedia, when the Jews in Germany organized to build a technical school in Haifa, they appointed as the director of the project Shmaryahu Levin, who was born in Minsk, Russia! Were there any prominent Hebrew writers who were native German speakers? Could it be that German creeps in here because Yiddish doesn't seem like a separate, real language?
sorry, i misspoke; i meant to say "romance languages" rather than latin. in a situation like french (or english after the danish invasions or whatever) you had a case where a lot of people learned the language as adults, and as a result the language went through significant modification. "creole" is more than this; the creolization-decreolization theories suggest that the language went through a period where it became radically simplified, and then at a later point the original features of the language were partly reincorporated. it's undeniable that such a process is possible, because it's been observed ... but it's the kind of non-occam's-razor theory that requires a lot of evidence to support. hebrew is certainly a special case, since there were *no* native speakers at a certain point. i read some of zuckermann's writings on his web site, and they're interesting but he doesn't present much hard evidence, at least that i can see. i'd really like to see someone do the work of digging up old recordings and such to figure out what *really* happened.
unfortunately this kind of scientific linguistics really went out of fashion as a result of chomsky, and so when zuckermann makes mostly philosophical rather than scientific arguments, he's just doing what he's been trained to do. at least the pendulum is finally starting to swing the other way, as people have discovered that chomsky-style linguistics is next to useless if you actually want to apply it to anything; documentary, typological and computational linguists, for example, ignore it completely and make much more use of markov networks (famously shot down by a chomsky paper in the 50's and not seen again in linguistics till the late 80's) and of alternative grammar theories such as hpsg, lfg, etc. -- the "bad guys" according to mit, but the only guys who are well-defined.
What is the relevance of that comment? Zuckermann's and Wexler's issues, about history and who spoke what when, have nothing to do with Chomsky's and others' ways of modeling grammatical structures.
anyway, i see that zuckermann's has gotten all over the blogspace, so i wouldn't be averse to you adding him back, as long as you clearly indicate that he and wexler represent decidedly-nonstream views. (the problem before was that it read more like "well, the old stogies said XXX but a new guy wexler established this new consensus and zuckermann established an intermediate position so now we've got three basic camps on the issue".) Benwing 06:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Now done. I hope you think the current version an improvement. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Every person who speaks basic Hebrew, basic Arabic and basic English will tell you that it is nonsense. The cited article is clearly a part of the Palestinian propaganda that tries showing that the Jews have nothing to do in the middle east. 99.135.92.223 (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Ask about it, in English, on the Hebrew Wikipedia Help-deskEddau (talk) 19:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] German and Yiddish

Someone asked why I believed that German, as opposed to Yiddish, was a significant influence on modern Hebrew, given that so few of the early settlers were German speakers (and many of these did not learn Hebrew). This is largely a matter of impression: especially in the case of academic Hebrew, I can often "hear" the German through it; I may also be biased by the fact that I used to live in Haifa! I think the reason is that, even for the Yiddish-speakers, German was the important academic language, in which a lot of the scholarship about Hebrew and Wissenschaft des Judentums was written; and the tendency of the Haskalah was to bring Yiddish closer to standard German. It's true that in many respects (such as the occasional use of min by older speakers to mean "about") the influence of the two languages is indistinguishable, as they use identical constructions and would be calqued into Hebrew in the same way. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 09:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aryan myth and Hebrew language

Romantic scholars further contributed to the Aryan myth. Identifying commonalities among Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and other European languages, Friedrich Schlegel fashioned a misguided linguistic theory that Sanskrit was the shared ancestral language of India and Europe and claimed that this heritage gave the two a foundational unity of thought and worldview. In a similar vein, Max Muller drew from the Rig Veda and other Sanskrit texts then available to derive a linguistic ideal of the Aryan as the founder of European languages, dismissing Jews and the Hebrew language as cut off from European development. For Voltaire, Schlegel, Muller, and other European scholars who contributed to the Aryan fantasy, Jews, along with the Hebrew language, became categorized as "not Aryan," the paramount exemplar of an Aristotelian "not A." Thus, as Figueira astutely observes, mythologizing the Aryan was the culminating move in mythologizing the Jews for European history. Jews became classified as a discarded but necessary Other, against whom the self-striving to live up to the Aryan ideal was defined. Figueira emphasizes that Muller, who figured significantly in popularizing rhe Aryan myth beyond academic circles, strove to distance himself from the racialization of Aryan mythology, but his attempts came too late. Aryan idealization intersected and merged wirh racial theories then spreading throughout Europe, with disastrous consequences for European Jews. Friedrich Nietzsche's contribution to the Aryan myth stands apart in this history. This is in part because, according to Figueira, he used as his principal source a copy of the Laws of Manu, which he was told and erroneously believed ro be the oldest sourcebook of the Aryan world. Like others before him, Nietzsche posited an ancestral Aryan ideal, but he went further than they did to champion the creation of a master race. Still, unlike the explicit anti-Jewish strains of earlier contributors to Aryan mythology, Nietzsche wanted to include Jews in the breeding initiatives that would produce his Ubermensch. Although he charged certain aspects of Jewish history and practice with contributing to cultural degeneracy in the West, Nietzsche admired much about the Jewish people of his day and stood staunchly against German Anti-Semitism.--HIZKIAH (User • Talk) 11:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] number of speakers

In the lead of the article it says that Hebrew is spoken by over seven million people, but then on the side bar it lists the number of speakers as around 15 million. So technically the first sentence is true, but there's an obvious discrepancy. Joshdboz 20:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I would guesstimate that the number of fluent Hebrew speakers is considerably less than 15 million. The population of Israel is about 7 million, almost everybody there speaks Hebrew to some extent or another, Jew, Arab or foreign worker. (Excluding immigrants who never got a grip on the language). If you include the population of Israelis living abroad (primarily in North America) and their children born outside Israel and raised speaking Hebrew, that's maybe another million or so. Then--I would guess of the approximately 10 million non-Israeli Jews living in the Diaspora, a generous estimate would be that maybe only a tenth of those are fluent in modern conversational Hebrew, those would be graduates of Zionist Israel-centric day schools in countries such as the US (which despite having the largest Jewish population has proportionately fewer Jewish Hebrew speakers than other countries with large Jewish populations). Most of the Jews in countries such as Argentina, France and Mexico, have at the decent basic Hebrew conversational skills as a result of local Jewish educational systems that stress acquiring Hebrew. Then, there are very many Orthodox Jews who are comfortable reading the liturgy and sacred texts in Hebrew, and maybe have high reading comprehension skills in Hebrew, but who are not not able to speak modern Israeli ivrit (and often have no desire to do so). These types may be found in large Jewish population centers such as the New York City metropolitan area or Antwerp. So, a few hundred thousand are in that category. Then, maybe there are a few thousand non-Jews worldwide who learn the language out of curiosity, academic interest etc. ... and have gained conversational ability, but all in all, I would say the number of speakers worldwide is between 9 and 10 million at most and not 15 million.
I would agree completely on this guesstimate. But as is done for other languages, we should list separately the total number of speakers and the 'first language' speakers, which in the case of Hebrew probably would be closer to 4,5 - 5 million, as the among the 7,2 million Israeli citizen, less than 5,5 million are Jewish; the rest being 'Arab Israelis' who usually speak Arab. Not even all the Jewish Israeli population speaks Hebrew as first language, there is a significant Russian population which has immigrated in the last 10 years, they do not speak Hebrew as their mother tongue. There are more Russian newspapers in Israel than Hebrew.... Outside Israel, almost nobody speaks Hebrew as first language. So we should put, maybe: Speakers: First language: 4,5-5 million. Total: 9-10 million (which is already a high estimate). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.103.225.214 (talk) 23:38, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

When I first saw "15 million" speakers I thought, no way. Upon further consideration, I wonder. Through the late sixties, more people left Israel than moved there. While many of them were immigrants who never really learned Hebrew well, many of them were 'veteran' Israelis, who moved back to the US or Europe. So, maybe 10 or even 11 million isn't so off.~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimwell (talk • contribs) 03:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The early estimation is not correct. Non-Jews who live in Israel are estimated as 20% of the Israeli population. A large group of them is the group of non-Jews who immigrated to Israel with a Jewish family member and they may speak Hebrew very well. Out of Israel, Hebrew is spoken by as a foreign language also by Palestinians in the Palestinian authority and by Bedouin in Sinai.

I suggest not giving a one number estimation to the number of Hebrew speakers. You cannot estimate it properly. Eddau (talk) 20:16, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Long-winded, confusing, inaccurate article.

It's not clear to me how this article earned the accolade of 'good article'. A lot of microanalyzing, but unfortunately fails to deliver the big picture. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.68.95.65 (talk) 23:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Mexico

What about Mexico? it should be listed in the Considerably Minorities List like Panama or Uruguay for example. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.16.159.13 (talk) 21:48, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Liturgical use of Hebrew

I noticed the article lists only four types of liturgical Hebrew. There are more, and Galitzianer Hebrew is the most commonly used pronunciation among Ashkenazim, not what is commonly called Ashkenazi Hebrew. (Going by number of people affiliated with groups that use it in synagogue.) Also, to say Ashkenazi Hebrew was influenced by Yiddish is very simplistic and overlooks the fact that there are 3 or more dialects of Yiddish, and 3 or more pronunciations of Hebrew used by ashkenazim. In the case of SOuthern Yiddish, their Yiddish was "corrupted" by their Hebrew pronunciation, making it far more unintelligable to German speakers than Litvishik Yiddish. Then ther is Dutch Hebrew which pronounces the aying as a NG. Basejumper 18:58, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Quite right. But these are all sub-variants of Ashkenazi Hebrew, and should be noted in that article, rather than in this one which is necessarily brief. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 09:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Southern-Yiddish-speakers' Hebrew didn't change their Yiddish; sound changes internal to their Yiddish applied equally to the Hebrew words they pronounced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.74.185 (talk) 20:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two separate articles?

Should there logically be two separate articles - one on Ancient Hebrew and one on Modern? Obviously Modern Hebrew is related to Ancient, but it's not the same language.--Jack Upland 19:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought they were the same language, i.e. Ancient Hebrew words are the same in modern Hebrew but more modern words have been added. If you are a native Hebrew speaker, can't you read the Torah and understand it without having a modern translation? I always thought it was like Ancient vs. modern Greek. Same language, with just a more limited vocabulary. Is this not the case? I agree with the person before, old English which was way way different than modern English today and they are the same article. Ancient Hebrew and Modern Hebrew are the same I see no difference with them. They use the same grammar, punctuation, etc. The only difference is that Modern Hebrew has more vocabulary to fit modern times, that is it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elleng (talk • contribs) 15:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Ancient Greek and Modern Greek do point to separate articles.
To quote Ghilad Zuckermann[1], "The reason Israelis can be expected to understand the book of Isaiah – albeit with difficulties – is surely because they study the Old Testament at school for eleven years, rather than because it is familiar to them from their daily conversation. Furthermore, Israelis read the bible as if it were Israeli and often therefore misunderstand it." —Preceding unsigned comment added by JWB (talk • contribs) 23:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Very true: if one read the Song of Songs in modern Hebrew one would think that the woman was declaring undying love for her uncle, rejoicing that the autumn has passed (so it is now midwinter!) and begging to be comforted with potatoes. But that is only the same sort of misunderstanding as when modern English people read Chaucer (for example, in Chaucer "girl" means a young person of either sex.)

Nevertheless, the differences between Biblical and modern Hebrew are nothing like those between Ancient and Modern Greek. Modern Greek has lost a great deal of the ancient inflectional system, and many very basic words are different (enas instead of eis for "one", ine instead of esti for "is"): the differences are almost as great as between Latin and Italian, or Sanskrit and Hindi. Absolutely nothing like that has happened in modern Hebrew, which was a conscious revival of the ancient language, albeit with many vocabulary items and turns of phrase borrowed from European languages. The different views on the characterisation of modern Hebrew (including Wexler and Zuckermann) are fairly set out in this article: splitting the article would be to concede that theirs is the only correct view and that the question is no longer open for discussion. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 09:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

In fact there is not just one, but three separate articles already: Biblical Hebrew language, Mishnaic Hebrew language, Medieval Hebrew; and Template:Jewish language lists this article (Hebrew language) as Modern (Hebrew). And I doubt the creators of these were saying that Wexler and Zuckermann are correct.
Most of the other sections of this article also have subarticles. If this article gets too long, some detail can be pushed out into the subarticles. --JWB 10:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
No one is saying that there shouldn't be a subarticle on modern Hebrew, incorporating and expanding what this article has to say on the subject, in the same way as the articles on Mishnaic Hebrew etc.: in fact this might be a good idea. What I am objecting to is the proposal to split this article into two, removing everything related to modern Hebrew into a separate article on the ground that it is a different language. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 16:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
For Greek, there is an overall survey article Greek language as well as the Ancient and Modern articles.
I think making Modern Hebrew a subarticle instead of a redirect and maintaining a summary in Hebrew languages would satisfy everyone, and allow more space for expansion of material on Modern Hebrew. --JWB 20:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I meant to say Hebrew language. It turns out there is actually a separate Hebrew languages which may or may not deserve to be a separate article. --JWB 20:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Hebrew languages is a different question: it is there to include Edomite, Moabite etc. It is like the difference between "Latin" and "Italic languages". It certainly should remain as a separate article, though it could be renamed something like "Southern Canaanite languages". The subarticle suggestion is fine: let's go for it. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 09:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
This page needs to stay as it is though. Epson291 06:02, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Wait Wait Wait, Ancient Hebrew and Modern Hebrew are totally different. I speak ancient hebrew and there are huge grammatical differences. you can somewhat understand ancient hebrew if you speak modern but it is not like Greek and Ancient Greek.

[edit] Other side

I heard that Hebrew means from the other side, other side referring to the other side of the Euphrates. But I don't understand from which side one must look, the mediterranean side or the Iranian side if you will. Can someone help me? Mallerd 16:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, in which language? the Hebrew word for hebrew, Ivrit,does not mean from the other side in hebrew. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.107.53.54 (talk) 16:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The Hebrew name for Hebrew, "Ivrit", is derived from "Ivrim" (the Hebrew word for "Israelites") meaning simply "the language of the Israelites". Neither word means "side". However, both of these words are constructed from the root consonants ע (/ʕ/,), ב (/v/) and ר (/r/). This means that they may be etymologically related to words such as /ever/ ("side"), /ma'avar/ ("passage"), /avar/ ("to pass", v.i. or "to go over"), /he'evir/ ("to pass", v.t.) and others. As far as I remember, it is traditionally said that the Israelites' name "Ivrim" was given to them because they entered the promised land of Israel by crossing, e.i. passing over the Jordan River. Dan Pelleg (talk) 15:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation :) it is a shame that I can't remember where I've heard it :( I'll put it in wiktionary :) Mallerd (talk) 18:33, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh my god, it turns out that it was wiktionary itself that confused me. It was not euphrate, but jordan river,

referring to the Ibri people, known in the Middle East for their place of origin relative to the major culture of the time, they were called Ibri meaning the people from over on the other side of the Jordan river

So, who gave the Ibri people their name? Mallerd (talk) 18:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Good question! Who gave the Swedes or the Japanese or any people their names? Dan Pelleg (talk) 09:02, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Are you mocking me? If you look at the meaning of the word Ibri it is clear that it is an exonym, I've asked around about this and it is presumed that it were either the Phoenicians who called them that way because they already lived there or immigrants from the other side of the river who came to live with the Ibri people in a later period when the Ibri had already settled there and referred to them as Ibri. Mallerd (talk) 15:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Ibri is an exonym. But it also probably referred to a larger group than just the Israelites: hence the laws about a "Hebrew slave" (who, being from an associated group, was treated more favourably than a "Canaanite slave"). Similarly in Roman law "Latins" was a wider category than "Romans", and was used specifically for related Italian peoples who had some but not all of the privileges of citizenship. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 09:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Mallerd, I didn’t intend to mock you at all! Sorry if it came over like that. It didn’t occur to me that one could possibly trace back the inventor of a name of a language or a people. I wouldn’t rely though on the word’s original meaning being identical to it’s modern ones. It could have had some other related meaning or a completely different one, or even have originated from a language from a different family. For instance: The bible claims that Moses’ name’s etymology is like that of the Hebrew word “masha” [ma'ʃa], “to withdraw out of water”, but many modern scholars believe its origin is ancient Egyptian, which isn’t even Semitic. Dan Pelleg (talk) 00:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

"Hebrew" (עברית) in Hebrew DOES mean "from the other side" (מעבר). Other side referring to the other side of the Euphrates. This was the language Abraham brought with him when he immigrated from the other side of the Euphrates to Hevron. Moreover, if you remember Joseph story, when Joseph was a slave, his lady master referred to him as "that Hebrew slave" (העבד העברי הזה).

If you have any question about Hebrew, ask it in English on the Hebrew Wikipedia's Help desk.99.135.92.223 (talk) 23:30, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Sirmy, are you suggesting that Ibri could be a term devised by their sovereigns? Many sources about etymology go no further back than Hebrew language (they do say that the Ibri people crossed the Jordan river and not the Euphrates, so perhaps the sovereigns are the Phoenicians, like Stephen G. Brown said). I accept your apology, Dan Pelleg. I am certainly aware of the possibility that a name or any other word for that matter has only the meaning it has today. It is useful however, if you are reading old texts, which I do. see this entry I created, nowadays it is much broader: economy. I still think it's strange that the Ibri people used an exonym to identify themselves. Anonymous contributor, it is certain now that Hebrew does mean "from the other side", my question was who gave the Hebrews their name. Mallerd (talk) 14:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Eth

The word eth should be discussed.

It is said to denote the accusative of the sentence. However, Gesenius (or his editor) in one of his lexicons says on page XCII, he had previously supposed it to be a sign of the accusative, but now thinks it had the significance of 'self' and could be translated in Greek as 'autos'. "The Theological Word Book of the Old Testament" (1980) Harris et al. Moody p83 says 'More important than indicating the accusative the function of 'et is to emphasize the word to which it is attached'.

Equating 'autos' and 'eth seems to be what some manuscipts of Mark 10:7 did in translating the passage from Genesis where 'et is used before 'faher' and 'mother'; some manuscipts have 'autos' in both places.

To go back to Gesenius; he says (pXCII) the word was preserved in the language of common life (and it would be harder to imagine that this is a sign of the accusative; but easy to imagine each speaker adding subjective value to something by emphasising it).

A reference in the index to the Babylonian Talmud, claims that a certain Rabbi was very couragous in saying he didn't know what the word meant. The Babylonian Talmud / translated into English with notes, glossary, and indices, under the editorship of I. Epstein. Publisher London : Soncino Press, [1961] Please see index under eth for the quotation of the brave rabi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.181.251.66 (talk) 15:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC) 203.10.59.12 00:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Etymologically, I am sure that it is the same as Arabic aya(t), which means "sign" or "proof" (also represented by Hebrew ot; and et followed by a pronominal suffix does indeed become ot-). In Arabic the word (or its masculine equivalent, ayy-, "which") is used both to add emphasis and, sometimes, to bolster up an accusative. Literally, it would mean something like "the whichness of", and thus "the self of", i.e. "that very one".
The rabbis, however, confused it with the other et, meaning "with", hence Aquila's translation of the first verse of Genesis as sun tois ouranois kai sun te ge (with the heavens and with the earth). Thus they sometimes interpreted it as a word of extension, connoting "the thing expressed, and something else unspecified".
It now survives only as the sign of a definite accusative, and Ben Gurion and others took the view that the word was so confusing that it ought to be eliminated. There is a modern howler "yesh li et ha-sefer" for "I have the book", where "yesh li" is treated as a translation of "I have", so as to take the accusative, even though grammatically "the book" is the subject of the sentence (as if in Latin you said Est mihi librum instead of Est mihi liber).
This is all very technical, and should go in a specialised article on Hebrew grammar or particles, rather than in the main Hebrew language article. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 08:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

165.228.160.56 07:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC) In 'Hebrew and Chaldee lexicon to the Old Testament scriptures/ translated with additions and corrections from te author's thesaurus and other works by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles', London, Bagster, 1846 p XCII Gesennius or his editor, says, (I think):

"In the Arabic these answer to ,,, ayat(?) ... used reflectively 'I have beaten myself'..." and (this must be Tragelles) this is more probable than that which I lately supposed that et, ot ... are i.q. 'a sign', which however is the opinion of Ewald ...

My own motive is that 'et' is placed before many things (including nominatives) and if it is emphatic it implies value. For example Cain uses it of himself, Daniel uses it of the trouble Israel has received. If we can see value in these things: 'It's all good'. But I am a novice.

In consulting "An introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax" by Bruce K Waltke and M O'Connor, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake Indiana, 1990 pp177-178; there is the following passage: "...(1) ...sign of the accusative ... (2) More recent grammarians regard it as a marker of emphasis used most often which definite nouns in the accusative role. The apparent occurrences with the nominative are most problematic ... AM Wilson late in the nineteenth century concluded from his exhaustive study of all the occurrences of the debated particle that it had an intensive or reflexive force in some of its occurences. Many grammarians have followed his lead. (reference lists studies of 1955, 1964, 1964, 1973, 1965, 1909, 1976.) On such a view, eth is a weakened emphatic particle corresponding to the English pronoun 'self' ... It resembles Greek 'autos' and latin 'ipse' both sometimes used for emphasis, and like them it can be omitted from the text, without obscuring the grammar. This explanation of the particle's meaning harmonizes well with the facts that the particle is used in Michnaic Hebrew as a demonstrative and is found almost exclusively with determinate nouns."

(I am not a student of this college) 165.228.114.24 01:01, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

To do with the etemology of the word, Gesennius' Lexicon is available on-line at the 'Blue Letter Bible' and he makes a note at the end of strong's number 834 asher in which he says d and t are often used in demonstratives, wometimes with an added first vowel. Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for 'aher (Strong's 0834)". Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2007. < http:// cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm? Strongs=H834&Version=KJV >


165.228.114.24 03:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article status being reassessed.

This article does not seem to meet the good article criteria at this time, specifically criteria 2 (b) seems to be lacking. Many parts of this article have unverifiable statements which are not supported by inline citations where they seem to need them. Please see comments at good article reassessment if you would like to improve this article. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The article has now been delisted, although there may not be much to do to meet the criteria, in which case the article can be renominated. The GAR discussion is linked from the article history template above. Geometry guy 21:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why can't I add my link?

I want to ad the link www.JewStrong.org but it was removed. I do not understand how this is not relevant to an article about Hebrew...it contains many many more sources that can help with ones research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbabrams2 (talk • contribs) 23:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

You didn't add a link to a page about the Hebrew language. You added a link to a site that appears to be a list of links to other sites about Jews and Judaism, not about the Hebrew language. If you would like to add an external link to this article, please limit yourself to links to pages specifically about the Hebrew language, the subject of this article. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 23:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section 2.1

There is definatly something wrong with this section heading (grammatically) but I'm not sure what to change it to. Prior to it's current title, 'Similar to an the adopted Semitic, Canaanite dialect', it was called 'Canaanite dialect' and before that it was known as 'Hebrew as a distinct Canaanite dialect'. What should it changed to? —Preceding unsigned comment added by RMFan1 (talk • contribs) 18:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

It should remain the same. Since the origin of Hebrew is debated. No one can truly prove that Hebrew was a Canaanite dialect. Some it from: - Aramiac. - Akkadian/Sumerian. - Arabic. According to the Biblical view, it came from older Hebrew, and was the first tongue thus Akkadian/Sumerian were dialects of Hebrew.

We as profession scholars sometimes forget to say netural, when speaking secularally of history, and that we only state the fact, not things that just assumed by most scholars even.

Phoenicans originally spoke a Hamitic (Afro). Here one reference says:

Canaanite Language. Although the Bible record clearly shows the Canaanites to be Hamitic, the majority of reference works speak of them as of Semitic origin. This classification is based on the evidence of a Semitic language spoken by the Canaanites. The evidence most frequently appealed to is the large number of texts found at Ras Shamra (Ugarit) written in a Semitic language or dialect and considered to date from as far back as the 14th century B.C.E. However, Ugarit apparently did not come within the Biblical boundaries of Canaan. An article by A. F. Rainey in The Biblical Archaeologist (1965, p. 105) states that on ethnic, political, and, probably, linguistic bases “it is now clearly a misnomer to call Ugarit a ‘Canaanite’ city.” He gives further evidence to show that “Ugarit and the land of Canaan were separate and distinct political entities.” Hence, these tablets provide no clear rule by which to determine the language of the Canaanites.

Many of the Amarna Tablets found in Egypt do proceed from cities in Canaan proper, and these tablets, predating the Israelite conquest, are written mainly in cuneiform Babylonian, a Semitic language. This, however, was the diplomatic language of the entire Middle East at that time, so that it was used even when writing to the Egyptian court. Thus, it is of considerable interest to note the statement in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (edited by G. A. Buttrick, 1962, Vol. 1, p. 495) that “the Amarna Letters contain evidence for the opinion that non-Semitic ethnic elements settled in Palestine and Syria at a rather early date, for a number of these letters show a remarkable influence of non-Semitic tongues.” (Italics ours.) The facts are that there is still uncertainty as to the original language spoken by the first inhabitants of Canaan.

It is true, however, that the Bible account itself appears to show that Abraham and his descendants were able to converse with the people of Canaan without the need of an interpreter, and it may also be noted that, while some place-names of a non-Semitic type were used, most of the towns and cities captured by the Israelites already bore Semitic names. Still, Philistine kings in Abraham’s time and also, evidently, David’s time, were called “Abimelech” (Ge 20:2; 21:32; Ps 34:Sup), a thoroughly Semitic name (or title), whereas it is nowhere contended that the Philistines were a Semitic race. So, it would appear that the Canaanite tribes, over a period of some centuries from the time of the confusion of tongues at Babel (Ge 11:8, 9), apparently changed over to a Semitic tongue from their original Hamitic language. This may have been because of their close association with the Aramaic-speaking peoples of Syria, as a result of Mesopotamian domination for a period of time, or for other reasons not now apparent. Such a change would be no greater than that of other ancient nations, such as the ancient Persians, who, though of Indo-European (Japhetic) stock, later adopted the Semitic Aramaean language and writing.

“The language of Canaan” referred to at Isaiah 19:18 would by then (eighth century B.C.E.) be the Hebrew language, the principal language of the land. --

  • Many Aramiac speaking people of Syria area and also in the levant.
  • Aramiac was the diplomatic language/linga franca.
  • Also remembering that the powerful neighbouring:
  • Edomites
  • Moabites
  • Ammonites
  • Midianites
  • Zimranites
  • Jokshanites
  • Medanites
  • Ishbakites
  • Shuahites
  • spoke a dialects of Hebrew.
  • Ishmaelites, & non-Ishmealite Arabs spoke Arabic, some probably also spoke Hebrew and Egyptian.
  • Hebrew and Arabic would be proably good to know business languages, which very close to the near by Aramiac.
  • Canaanites were people usually connected to trade, logically the second languages would been a must.

[edit] Hebrew and Arabic

I can understand Hebrew without education .. Hebrew are like Arabic language ...--89.138.198.96 (talk) 04:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew language#Indicating stress

There's a logical flaw in this paragraph: "For example, the word ochlah, her food, is written in the same way as āchěla, she ate, but meteg on the first syllable shows that āchěla is intended" and then "These signs are used, if at all, only in texts with niqqud" – if "meteg" is only used with niqqud, then according to this explanation there's obviously no need for it at all, since the niqqud makes the pronunciation of each word unequivocal. Dan Pelleg (talk) 23:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

No. If the word were written with niqqud, but meteg did not exist, either pronunciation would be possible, as one could read either kamatz katan-sheva nahh or kamatz gadol-sheva na'. The meteg makes it clear that it is the latter. The paragraph then goes on to state that, since meteg is only there to show you how to pronounce the niqqud, there will never be a text with meteg but without niqqud. Clearer now? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 09:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Role of intonation, tone, or pitch in asking a question

I think the main article could be improved if there were a sentence or two describing how questions are framed in the Hebrew language. Is the whole sentence uttered at a different tone or pitch, or is it just the last word that is said differently? Does tone, pitch, or intonation have a role in uttering a question whose answer is yes/no, or is there a particle of some kind for that sort of thing?198.177.27.15 (talk) 01:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

You should emphasize certian syllable, called syllable stress. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.211.144 (talk) 01:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Death of Hebrew?

Did Hebrew really cease to be spoken as a native language? I have never understood if this is the case. Aaker (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Consonant inventory flawed?

As far as I know(and I'm a native speaker) there is no uvular trill in standard hebrew (except foreign speakers who mispronounce the uvular fricative). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.130.19.24 (talk) 13:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)