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Hebrew
Last update: Saturday 11th of February 2012
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| Hebrew עברית ‘Ivrit | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pronunciation: | IPA: (standard Israeli (Ashkenazi)), (standard Israeli (Sephardi)), (Oriental), (Ashkenazi) | |
| Spoken in: | Israel and other countries, including Argentina,Brazil, Chile, Canada, France, Panama, United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay | |
| Total speakers: | around 7 million, (United States: 195,375).1 1United States Census 2000 PHC-T-37. Ability to Speak English by Language Spoken at Home: 2000. Table 1a. | |
| Language family: | Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic Canaanite Hebrew | |
| Writing system: | Hebrew abjad | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language of: |  Israel | |
| Regulated by: | Academy of the Hebrew Language האקדמיה ללשון העברית (HaAqademia LaLashon Ha‘Ivrit) | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | he | |
| ISO 639-2: | heb | |
| ISO 639-3: | heb | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Hebrew (עִבְרִית, ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Jewish communities around the world. In Israel, it is the de facto language of the state and the people, as well as being one of the two official languages (together with Arabic), and is spoken by a majority of the population.
The core of the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible תנ"ך) is written in Classical Hebrew, and much of its present form is specifically the dialect of Biblical Hebrew that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, near the Babylonian exile. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lĕshôn Ha-Qôdesh (לשון הקודש), "The Holy Tongue", since ancient times.
Most linguists agree that after the 6th century BCE when the Neo-Babylonian Empire destroyed Jerusalem and exiled its population to Babylon and the Persian Empire allowed them to return, the Biblical Hebrew dialect prevalent in the Bible came to be replaced in daily use by new dialects of Hebrew and a local version of Aramaic. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled the Jewish population of Jerusalem and parts of the Bar Kokhba State, Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language, but remained a major literary language. Letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, and laws were written in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms.
Hebrew, long extinct outside of Jewish liturgical and scholarly purposes, was revived as a literary and narrative language by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of the mid-19th century. Near the end of that century the Jewish linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, owing to the ideology of Zionism, began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken and written language. Eventually it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time, such as Ladino (also called Judezmo), Yiddish, Russian, and other languages of the Jewish diaspora.
Because of its large disuse for centuries, Hebrew lacked many modern words. Several were adapted as neologisms from the Hebrew Bible or borrowed from Yiddish and other languages by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of the newly declared State of Israel.
Although the article is somewhat inaccurate in that the Talon robot is already going armed to Iraq, there is a point to be made in the manner the new devices are introduced to the troops - and in the way these advances come back to the US as part of the collaboration process between US and Israel.
Hebrew and English bloggers (of whom Aussie Dave is king) talk about blogging.
Winston Churchill suggested Jewish people were "partly responsible for the antagonism" that saw them branded "Hebrew bloodsuckers", according to an article made public for the first time today...The article argues that "the wickedness of the persecutors" was not the sole reason for the ill-treatment of Jews down the ages.
“God, who is sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the father’s by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by (or in) his son” – Hebrews 1:1-12.
A study by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has shown that particles in air pollution are causing serious problems with precipitation over hills in semi-arid regions, creating dire consequences for water resources in many parts of the world.