Redirected from Hebrew language/Introduction and History
|
Numerous older tablets were found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Ancient Egyptian. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian writing. Less ancient samples of Old Hebrew include the tablets found near Lakhish and the famous Shiloah inscription which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BC.
The most famous work originally written in Hebrew is the Bible. Although the texts of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) were written down relatively late, perhaps as late as 500 BC, it is apparent that some of them date back to as early as the 9th century BC. We can know less, however, about the more ancient Hebrew language of the early texts due to the editing that the texts must have undergone in the process of being written down.
The formal language of the Babylonian Empire[?] was Aramaic (its name is related to "Aram Naharayim", Mesopotamia). The Persian Empire, which had captured Babylonia a few decades later under Cyrus, adopted Aramaic as the official language. Aramaic is also a Semitic language, quite similar to Hebrew. Aramaic has contributed many words and expressions to Hebrew, mainly since it was the language of the Talmud and other religious works.
In addition to numerous words and expressions, Hebrew has also borrowed the Aramaic writing. Although original Aramaic letter forms were derived from the same Phoenician alphabet that was used in ancient Israel, they have changed significantly both in the hands of the Mesopotamians and of the Jews, coming to the forms familiar to us today at around the first century A.D.. Writings of that era (most notably, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran) are written in a script very similar to the "square" one still used today.
Hebrew was not used as a spoken language for about 2300 years. However the Jews have always devoted much effort to maintaining high standards of literacy among themselves, the main purpose being to let any Jew read the Hebrew Bible and the accompanying religious works in the original. 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 (former being based on Spanish and Arabic borrowings, latter being a remote dialect of Middle High German), however both were written from right to left using Hebrew script. Hebrew was also used as a language of communication among Jews from different countries, particularly for the purpose of international trade.
While at first many considered his work as fancy, the need for a common language was soon understood by many. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. Later it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that still exists today. The results of his work and the Committee's were published in a dictionary (The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew). Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by the beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population in Palestine.
Russian influence is particularly evident in Hebrew. For example, the Russian suffix -acia is used in nouns where English has the suffix -ation. It is so both in direct borrowings from Russian, for example "industrializacia", industrialization, and in words that do not exist in Russian (thus, colloquial English "cannibalization" turns into Hebrew "canibalizatcia"). English influence is also very strong, perhaps due to the thirty years of British rule under the Mandate and the dense ties with the United States. Finally, Arabic, being the language of numerous Sephardic Jewish immigrants, has also had an important influence on Hebrew.
Modern Hebrew is printed with a script known as "square". It is the same script, ultimately derived from Aramaic, that was used for copying of Bible books in Hebrew for two thousands years. This script also has a cursive version, which is used for handwriting.
Modern Hebrew has a rich jargon, which is a direct result of the flourishing youth culture. The two main features of this jargon are the Arabic borrowings (for example, "sababa", "excellent"), and the obfuscated idioms (thus, "sof haderekh", "end of the road", "pzaza", "bomb" and "xaval a'l hazman", "a waste of time" all mean "wonderful").
Due to the relatively small size of the vocabulary, numerous foreign borrowings and simple inflexional rules, Hebrew is an easy language to learn. Foreign accents are usually treated with patience by Israeli Hebrew speakers.
Hebrew has been the language of numerous poets, which include Rahel[?], Hayim Nahman Byalik[?], Shaul Tchernihovsky[?], Lea Goldberg, Avraham Shlonsky[?] and Natan Alterman[?]. Hebrew was also the language of hundreds of authors, one of whom is the Nobel Prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump