The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE.[17] Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh (לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש, lit.'the holy tongue' or 'the tongue [of] holiness') since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible, but as Yehudit (transl. 'Judean') or Səpaṯ Kəna'an (transl. "the language of Canaan").[1][note 2]Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to the language as Ivrit, meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit, meaning Assyrian, which is derived from the name of the alphabet used, in contrast to Ivrit, meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.[18]
One of the earliest references to the language's name as "Ivrit" is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach,[note 4] from the 2nd century BCE.[30] The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people;[31] its later historiography, in the Book of Kings, refers to it as יְהוּדִיתYehudit "Judahite (language)".[32]
Archaic Biblical Hebrew, also called Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew, from the 10th to the 6th century BCE, corresponding to the Monarchic Period until the and represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), notably the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). It was written in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. A script descended from this, the Samaritan alphabet, is still used by the Samaritans.
Babylonian exile
Hebrew script used in writing a Torah scroll. Note ornamental "crowns" on tops of certain letters. Standard Biblical Hebrew, also called Biblical Hebrew, Early Biblical Hebrew, Classical Biblical Hebrew or Classical Hebrew (in the narrowest sense), around the 8th to 6th centuries BCE, corresponding to the late Monarchic period and the Babylonian exile. It is represented by the bulk of the Hebrew Bible that attains much of its present form around this time.
Late Biblical Hebrew, from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BCE, corresponding to the and represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible, notably the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Basically similar to Classical Biblical Hebrew, apart from a few foreign words adopted for mainly governmental terms, and some syntactical innovations such as the use of the particle she- (alternative of "asher", meaning "that, which, who"). It adopted the Imperial Aramaic script (from which the modern Hebrew script descends).
Persian period
is a proposed northern dialect of biblical Hebrew, believed to have existed in all eras of the language, in some cases competing with late biblical Hebrew as an explanation for non-standard linguistic features of biblical texts.
Israelian Hebrew
Though early had a VSO ordering, this gradually transitioned to a subject-verb-object ordering. Many Hebrew sentences have several correct orders of words.
Biblical Hebrew
In Hebrew, there is no .
indefinite article
Hebrew sentences do not have to include verbs; the in the present tense is omitted. For example, the sentence "I am here" (אני פהani po) has only two words; one for I (אני) and one for here (פה). In the sentence "I am that person" (אני הוא האדם הזהani hu ha'adam ha'ze), the word for "am" corresponds to the word for "he" (הוא). However, this is usually omitted. Thus, the sentence (אני האדם הזה) is more often used and means the same thing.
copula
Negative and interrogative sentences have the same order as the regular declarative one. A question that has a yes/no answer begins with "האם" (ha'im, an interrogative form of 'if'), but it is largely omitted in informal speech.
In Hebrew there is a specific preposition (אתet) for direct objects that would not have a preposition marker in English. The English phrase "he ate the cake" would in Hebrew be הוא אכל את העוגהhu akhal et ha'ugah (literally, "He ate את the cake"). The word את, however, can be omitted, making הוא אכל העוגהhu akhal ha'ugah ("He ate the cake"). Former Israeli Prime Minister was convinced that את should never be used as it elongates the sentence without adding meaning.
David Ben-Gurion
In spoken Hebrew את ה- et ha- is also often contracted to -תַ' ta-, e.g. ת'אנשיםta-anashim instead of את האנשיםet ha-anashim (the ' indicates non-standard use). This phenomenon has also been found by researchers in the : מעיד אני עלי תשמים… שאני נותן תכבלים ברגליכם, writing תללו instead of את הללו, as well as תדקל and so on.
Bar Kokhba documents
Liturgical use in Judaism
Hebrew has always been used as the language of prayer and study, and the following pronunciation systems are found.
Ashkenazi Hebrew, originating in Central and Eastern Europe, is still widely used in Ashkenazi Jewish religious services and studies in Israel and abroad, particularly in the Haredi and other Orthodox communities. It was influenced by Yiddish pronunciation.
Mizrahi (Oriental) Hebrew is actually a collection of dialects spoken liturgically by Jews in various parts of the Arab and Islamic world. It was derived from the old Arabic language, and in some cases influenced by Sephardi Hebrew. Yemenite Hebrew or Temanit differs from other Mizrahi dialects by having a radically different vowel system, and distinguishing between different diacritically marked consonants that are pronounced identically in other dialects (for example gimel and "ghimel".)
These pronunciations are still used in synagogue ritual and religious study in Israel and elsewhere, mostly by people who are not native speakers of Hebrew. However, some traditionalist Israelis use liturgical pronunciations in prayer.
Many synagogues in the diaspora, even though Ashkenazi by rite and by ethnic composition, have adopted the "Sephardic" pronunciation in deference to Israeli Hebrew. However, in many British and American schools and synagogues, this pronunciation retains several elements of its Ashkenazi substrate, especially the distinction between tsere and segol.
