Hebrew Language. The word Hebrew ('ibri) is an adjective, formed, according to the Old Testament, from Heber ('iber), a descendant of Shem (Gen. x. 22-24), who was the ancestor of Abraham (Gen. xi. 12-26). The Septuagint, however, already renders Gen. xiv. 13, 'Abraham the crosser' (i.e. of 'the river,' though Origen explains the name from 'crossing' Mesopotamia towards Canaan), and Aquila translates 'the dweller on the other side,' probably of the Euphrates, though it might be the Jordan. The word 'Hebrew' is used both of individuals and the people when antithesis to other nationalities is expressed (Jon. i. 9; Phil. iii. 5; Gen. xxxix. 14; xl. 15; Exod. i. 16; ii. 6, &c.), 'Israel' being more a domestic name, often having religious significance. As a national name, Israel belonged specially to the northern kingdom, of which it is used freely in the Moabite Inscription (e.g. lines 5, 11, 14).
The phrase 'Hebrew language' does not occur in the Old Testament. In the earliest reference to the speech (Isa. xix. 18) it is called the 'language of Canaan,' and in another passage, referring to events of the same period, 'Judean' or Jewish (2 Kings, xviii. 26, 28; Isa. xxxvi. 11, 13; cf. Neh. xiii. 24). This passage is interesting as showing the linguistic attainments of the Assyrian officials and others of this age. The Rabshakeli could speak Hebrew, and Hezekiah's officers understood Aramaic, which appears to have been the language of diplomacy and commerce at this time, a position to which it would naturally attain, from the fact that the Aramean peoples lay along the great trade routes between east and west. The name 'Hebrew' is first used of the language of the Old Testament in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus (c. 130 B.C.), and then in the New Testament (Rev. ix. 11). After the dissolution of the Jewish state Aramaic more and more made encroachment in Palestine, Dan. ii. 4-vii. 28, Ezra, iv. 8-vi. 18, and Jer. x. 11 being written in that dialect, to which also belong the words Jegar-Sahadutha, 'heap of witness' (Gen. xxxi. 47). Gradually it superseded Hebrew as the spoken language, and, though mixed with elements of Hebrew, was the dialect in use in the time of our Lord, as it had been for a long time previously. All the words reported as spoken by him (such as talitha kouni or koun, lemà shebaktani) are Aramaic. The name Hebrew was thus given to two languages, the ancient Hebrew, and the more modern Aramaic in actual use, though chiefly to the latter (John v. 2): 'their proper tongue,' to which Akeldama belongs (Acts, i. 19), is Aramaic. Which of the two languages is meant, Acts, xxi. 40, xxii. 2, xxvi. 14, may be doubtful.
The Hebrew language is one of the family of speeches since Eichhorn's time usually called Shemitic or Semitic, the peoples speaking them being in the main descendants of Shem. The family has four great divisions: (1) the Northern or Aramaic (Syriac or Eastern, and so-called Chaldee or Western Aramaic and Samaritan); (2) Middle or Hebrew (including Phœnician and Moabite); (3) Southern or Arabic (embracing Sabean or South Arabic, and Ethiopic); (4) To these must now be added an Eastern or Assyro-Babylonian division (see SEMITIC LANGUAGES). Hebrew shares with its sister-languages these and other peculiarities: roots with three consonants; vowels having no significance as stem-letters; two verbal forms for the expression of tense; two genders; the attachment of the oblique cases of personal pronouns to nouns and verbs in the form of suffixes; an inability, except in proper names, to form compounds, whether verbal or nominal; and a syntax distinguished by simple co-ordination of clauses by means of and, where other languages subordinate with a multiplicity of conjunctions. At a remote period we must suppose primitive Semitic spoken by a united, homogeneous people, which afterwards separated in various directions, each section retaining and developing some of the originally common elements of the tongue, until gradually, under many influences of climate and conditions of life, the great dialects acquired distinctness from one another. In this way some primitive elements would be retained by one family and others by another, while each would move along new lines of development, due to its idiosyncracies and circumstances, as Hebrew, for example, expresses 'west' by 'sea.' Even in the earliest form in which we observe Hebrew it shows marks of linguistic decadence. It has almost entirely renounced nominal case-endings; given up the use of the dual, except in a few nouns; is in process of substituting the reflexive for the passive (a process completed in Aramaic and Ethiopic); and has lost the consciousness of the strict sense of its elementary moods. In short, literary Hebrew is already nearly at the same level as vulgar Arabic, as distinguished from inflected Arabic, or as modern English is compared with Anglo-Saxon. On the other hand it has some peculiar excellences, as the greater freedom in regard to the place of words in the sentence, and the singular tense usage known as vav conversive, of which, however, it is now known to have no monopoly, but to share it with the language of Moab.
Beyond differences of pronunciation and usages peculiar to separate localities, 'dialects' can hardly have existed in Hebrew. In the north a shorter form of the relative appears, she or sha (Ass. sha)—e.g. Judges, v. 7. This is common in the Canticles (of disputed date), and in later books, as Ecclesiastes, and usual in post-biblical Hebrew. The Ephraimites appear to have shared the usual Shemitic tendency to confuse sh and s (Judges, xii. 6); and in the south Amos (vi. 8; viii. 8) shows another common failing, that of confusing the gutturals, a thing said to have gone to an extreme in Galilee in the age of Christ, and abundantly exemplified in Assyrian. So far as the literature of the language is concerned, only two periods can be distinguished: (1) from the earliest times to the restoration from exile (538), and (2) from the restoration to our era (see BIBLE). It is true that writers on the borders of the exile, such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, show a tendency to employ Aramaic words and forms; but, on the other hand, writings of the exile period, as Isa. xl.-lxvi. and much else, are splendid examples of Hebrew composition. The restored community in Judah would of course still speak and write Hebrew. In the north of the country, however, the policy of Assyria had long ago settled a number of colonists, speaking mainly Aramaic. When Palestine came under the influence of the Syro-Greek kingdom the Aramaic pressure would become greater. And thus gradually Hebrew receded before the Aramaic, until by the time of the Maccabees, or considerably earlier, the latter had become the spoken language. Among the learned, however, the ancient tongue was still cultivated and written, though naturally not in its ancient purity, nor without many new developments. These new elements are of several kinds: first, nominal and verbal forms, partly absolutely novel, but mostly a great extension of forms occurring rarely in the classical language; and secondly, a considerably altered vocabulary, drawn partly perhaps from a lower stratum of popular speech than that touched by the biblical writers, but greatly from the Aramaic. Examples of this new literary, though degenerate, Hebrew may be seen in its earliest form in Ecclesiastes, and in a much more advanced condition in the Mishna (c. 200 A.D.).
The character in which Hebrew was written was the ancient Semitic alphabet, common over much of the East, the origin of which is traced by some to Egyptian hieroglyphs, and by others to different sources (see ALPHABET). The oldest and most beautiful example of this character is the Moabite Inscription (c. 900 B.C.; see MOAB); a somewhat ruder form appears in the inscription from the Siloam tunnel, probably of the age of Ahaz or Hezekiah (740-700 B.C.; found in 1880; see Proc. Soc. Bib. Archæol. 1882). The latter was executed at their own hand by the workmen who cut the tunnel, and is naturally less artistic, though extremely interesting, as showing how extended the art of writing was at so early a time (Isa. x. 19). In the Moabite monument the same letter appears in several forms, which suggests either great practice on the part of the sculptor, or else that he faithfully copied a model supplied him by the pen, in this case a facile one. The character appears in a bigger, more robust form in the Phœnician inscriptions—e.g. of Eshmunazar. Somewhat modified it is Samaritan; in south Arabia it is Himyaritic or Sabeian; and from there it passed to Abyssinia, and is Ethiopic. The Syriac and Arabic are the same letter in cursive forms. The Aramean influence on southern Palestine introduced not only its dialect but also its script. The present Hebrew square character is in a somewhat ornamental shape—a cursive form of the ancient alphabet adopted by the Arameans; the article ALPHABET shows both the Phœnician and the later square Hebrew character. The monuments show this Aramean cursive in various forms of development. Jewish tradition ascribes its introduction to Ezra, a tradition which expresses merely the facts that a change took place in the letter employed, and that this change was posterior to the return from exile. The use of the letter no doubt crept in gradually, just as the use of the Aramaic dialect did. The ancient letter is still seen on coins of the later Maccabean princes. Some deviations of the Septuagint from our present Hebrew text seem explainable from the supposition that their MSS. were written in the ancient character; while, on the other hand, some discrepancies rather suggest MSS. in the square letter. The words of Christ, 'one jot or tittle,' have been thought to show that the square character, in which y (י or yod) is much the smallest letter of the alphabet, had long been in use.
The history of the language would not be complete without one or two additional facts. (1) In Semitic languages the consonants alone are usually written. Of course, no language could be spoken, and no writing read without vowel-sounds, but no signs for these sounds existed. Certain weak consonants, however—viz. h, w, y, were early used to indicate the place of long vowels, particularly at the end of words, and also of diphthongal sounds (ai = ê, au = ô) in the middle of words. Already in the Moabite stone final vowels are so marked, and occasionally diphthongs within words. Phœnician, on the contrary, uses such signs very little. Ancient Hebrew agreed with Moabite in its practice, as appears from the Siloam inscription. The use of these so-called vowel-letters was probably scanty and fluctuating in early times, but became more regular afterwards. Unfortunately, we have no guarantee that transcribers were careful to preserve the antique spelling. Our present text is too uniform to be supposed to have preserved the varieties of different ages, and it is evident that the MSS. of the Septuagint translators in a multitude of cases were without the medial vowels, and in some cases without the final vowels, now present in the Hebrew text. In the end of the 1st or early in the 2d century a standard text was adopted, and modernising of the spelling in the main ceased. Peculiarities were henceforth registered, not effaced. This period during which the consonantal text was treated extends to the era of the Talmud (c. 500 A.D.). During its course a multitude of works were produced—e.g. Midrashim, or homiletical expositions, especially of the books of the Pentateuch; the Mishna (200 A.D.), a code of traditional law; and the tracts composing the Talmud, which are commentaries on the Mishnic law, but containing much haggadic or edifying matter. (2) Neither Jerome (d. 420) nor the Talmud knows anything but the consonantal text. The example of Syrian scholars and necessity led, however, to the invention of a very complete system of external signs for the vowel-sounds of the language. This is the Massoretic system of points, now printed in our Bibles. Its authors are unknown, and also the age at which it was completed. Minute as it is, it can make little pretension to represent the pronunciation of the ancient living language. The pronunciation of a language during a period of nearly a thousand years in disuse must have undergone changes; the Septuagint pronounces in many cases differently from the present text; and, in point of fact, the vocalisation represents not the pronunciation of a spoken language, but that of the solemn intoned reading in the service of the synagogue.
About the 10th century a new impulse was given to the study of Hebrew by the example of the Arabic grammarians. The interest of the latter was to begin with a purely religious one—i.e. to explain the Koran. Even the earliest collections of poetry had this religious object. The poetry of the desert was accepted as the purest Arabic, and it was collected and studied with the view of illustrating the syntax of the Koran. By-and-by grammar came to be cultivated for its own sake, and the ancient poetry studied for the sake of its intrinsic charms. In emulation of their Arabic confrères, a school of Hebrew grammarians arose, to which belong such names as Sa'dia of the Fayyum, Chayyuj (1000), Abu'l-Walid Merwan ibn Janach, Abenezra (d. 1167), Dav. Kimchi (d. 1235). Where Arabic was not used a neo-Hebraic language was employed by these scholars, greatly a return to biblical Hebrew, and in this many commentaries were composed, as by Abenezra, Kimchi, and Rasli of Troyes (d. 1105). At the revival of letters Christian scholars became apt pupils of the Jews—e.g. John Reuchlin (d. 1522). In the next century the chief seat of Hebrew learning was Switzerland, where flourished Buxtorf the Elder (d. 1629); and in the century following Holland, the most famous representative of the Dutch school being Alb. Schultens. In the 19th century the most distinguished promoters of Hebrew learning have been Gesenius of Halle and Ewald of Göttingen.
The following is Gen. i. 1-3 in Hebrew:
בְּרֵאשִׁית בְּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת הַאָרֶץ:
וְהַאָרֶץ הִיְתָה תְּהִיָּה וְבָהֶּה וְחִשְׁךָ עַל-פְּנֵי תְּהִיָּה וְרִחַ
אֱלֹהִים מִרְחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמַּיִם: וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי-אֹר
וַיְהִי-אֹר:
See Gesenius, Gesch. der Heb. Sprache (1815); Renan, Hist. Gén. des Langues Sémitiques (4th ed. 1863).
MODERN HEBREW.—A few observations may be added, in conclusion, on the use of Hebrew as a spoken and written language among modern Jews. Hebrew has continued down to the present day as the language of the synagogue. Except in the Reform communities of Germany and America, public and even private worship is almost entirely conducted in 'the sacred tongue.' Although the majority of western Jews, particularly among the upper and middle classes, possess but an imperfect acquaintance with it, the authorities manifest a strong disinclination to cease praying in a language which, it is urged, constitutes a powerful link between Israel's present and past, and serves as a bond of union between Jews all the world over. Outside the synagogue, Hebrew can scarcely be said to have survived as a spoken language, except that in Jerusalem and other eastern cities it forms a sort of Lingua Franca among the Jews of various nationalities settled there. As a written and printed language, however, the employment of Hebrew is far more general. It serves as a universal medium of correspondence, both private and official, among Jews in various parts of the world, and particularly between the East and the West. Various weekly journals are also written in it, in Europe as well as in Palestine. Added to this, numerous Hebrew works on all subjects continue to be composed by learned Jews. The Hebrew thus used for modern purposes is usually not the pure Hebrew of the Bible and synagogue, but the rabbinical dialect in which Jewish doctors of the law have studied and commented, written and disputed since the age of the Mishna, and which has been developed and amplified by Jewish philosophers, poets, and grammarians throughout the middle ages. Both kinds of Hebrew—biblical and rabbinical—must be carefully distinguished from the patois dialects affected by Jews in countries where they have not yet been fully emancipated or modernised. In Russia and the adjacent parts of Germany and Austria they speak a jargon composed of Hebrew and corrupt German, called Jüdisch-Deutsch, while in parts of the East a Judeo-Spanish dialect flourishes by its side. The pronunciation of Hebrew differs among the two geographical sections into which Jews are divided, and which are known as Ashkenazim or 'Germans,' and Sephardim or 'Portuguese,' the former being of German and Polish origin, and the latter having migrated from the south of Europe or being still distributed there. The origin of this difference is not exactly known, but it may be assumed that the 'Portuguese' mode of reading originally came from Palestine, where the vocalisation and pronunciation of Hebrew were fixed by the Massorites of Tiberias, and that the German Hebrew originated in the academies of Babylon under the influence of the Eastern-Syrian grammarians. The Sephardic system is hence supposed to be purer than the Ashkenazic.