HEBREW LANGUAGE

ית ִע�ְב�ִר�

ORIGINS OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

ORIGINS OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

There are about 70 Semitics languages and they strongly resemble other Afro Asiatic languages like ancient Egyptian, Berber and Cushitic language.

Semitic languages can be traced as back as 5 thousand years BCE.

Shear a common ancestor which is called Proto-Semitic.

No records of Proto-Semitic, searchers compared the many Semitic languages and were able to deduce the Proto-Semitic phonology

MIDDLE EAST

HEBRAIC: INFLUENCE OF ARAMAIC

HEBRAIC: INFLUENCE OF ARAMAIC

The Sumerian refugees could have also contributed to the modification of the language. The destruction of the kingdom of Israel created a big transfer of Samarians in Judah and its surroundings.

HEBRAIC: INFLUENCE OF ARAMAIC

Many Dialect of Hebrew that was spoken trough out time. We call those dialects the Pre-Exilic Hebrew and within it, we find different varieties

Proto- Hebrew: closest to the Canaanite dialect. Spoken during 1200-1000 B.C.E.

Pre-exilic Classical Biblical Hebrew. It was spoken around 950-586 B.C.E. before the destruction of the first temple. THIS dialect was spoken in Jerusalem.

HEBRAIC: INFLUENCE OF ARAMAIC

After the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, after some time, Aramaic became their everyday spoken language . Still at the time of Christ, Aramaic was the language used by the Hebrews . The sad outcome was that Hebrew died around 200 years after Christ and was no longer spoken at all (but this has been debated because it was still used for religious services purposes)

HEBRAIC: INFLUENCE OF ARAMAIC

Revived to supply a language to the Jews that moved back to Israel in 1948.

Extraordinary phenomenon to linguists because it was the resurrection of an ancient language

HEBRAIC: INFLUENCE OF ARAMAIC

After the destruction of the first temple (587 BCE) the elites where all gone and Jerusalem was left deserted.

Most of the people fled to Babylon where the main spoken language was Aramaic.

Some Jews from Babylon who where Aramaic speakers or could speak both languages returned to try and rebuilt Jerusalem but under Persian control.

Some scholars declared that Hebrew was completely replaced by Aramaic. However, persons like Segal,Greenfield and Levine say that Hebrew was spoken in southern Palestine until 135 CE. This can also be verifies in history. We know that during this period of time, the Romans evicted or killed the Jews in Palestine where Hebrew was still spoken, the result was that Aramaic and Greek completely took over of what we know as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. The Arabic that we know of today was already starting to be spoken.

MODERN ISRAELI HEBREW

-Modern Israeli Hebrew was created in late 19th century. It was a mixture of Biblical Hebrew, Mishnaic Hebrew, also the influence of Yiddish (German language of Jewish origins). -Their written Hebrew, they simply used their literary models however, with some modifications.-When it comes to the use of tenses and subordination in sentence structure the influence of Yiddish was predominant. It is possible to conclude that the founding speakers of Israeli Hebrew were native speakers of Yiddish a language. This is one of the major differences between Mechanic Hebrew and modern Israeli Hebrew. The new words created for Modern Hebrew are strongly influenced by Europeans language mainly German and Russian.

Works Cited

Gezundhait, Henriette. Language and communication. 1998-2004. Département d'études françaises de l'Université de Toronto. 19 octobre 2009.http://www.linguistes.com/langue/intro.htm

Steinberg, David. History of the Ancient and Modern Hebrew Language. 2009. 19 Octobre 2009 http://www.adath-shalom.ca/history_of_hebrew.htm#historysectEmory resources on the Middle East. http://mesas.emory.edu/gmesc/pdf/6_AraHeb_Unit_Part_1.pdf

Khalaf Salim Gearge. "Semitic Languages (and the Phoenician language)" 1996. Tapani Harviainen. 25 October 2009. http://phoenicia.org/semlang.html