Biblical Hebrew language

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This article refers to the Biblical Hebrew dialect,

  • the Hebrew dialect that flourished around the 6th century BCE and comprises much of the Hebrew Bible

The term Biblical Hebrew can also refer to other dialects of Hebrew,

  • all dialects found in the Hebrew Bible, including Archaic Biblical, Biblical and Late Biblical Hebrew dialects
  • only the corpus of the Hebrew Bible itself, not including other texts that use the Biblical Hebrew dialect, such as inscriptions
  • the medieval dialect of Tiberian Hebrew, also called Masoretic Hebrew, used to vocalize the Hebrew Bible

As Biblical-Hebrew vocalization is derived from the Masoretic system applied to ancient texts, Biblical Hebrew is somewhat a mixture of these elements. It is the mixed language that is discussed in this article.

Biblical Hebrew, sometimes called Classical Hebrew, is the ancient form of the Hebrew language, in which the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh was written, and which the ancient Israelites spoke.

It is not spoken in its pure form today, although it is studied by religious Jews – as well as Christian theologians, linguists and Israeli archeologigists – for practical application and deeper understanding in their studies of the Torah and its commentaries. Jews usually learn it when studying ancient scriptures.

Modern evolutions, or adaptions, of Classical Hebrew are in active use today, mostly in the form of various modern Jewish dialects of Hebrew, as well as Samaritan Hebrew language, which is used primarily by the Samaritans.

From a linguistic point of view, the Classical Hebrew language is usually divided into two periods: Biblical Hebrew, and Roman Era Hebrew, having very distinct grammatical patterns.

Biblical Hebrew is further divided into the so called 'Golden Age' Hebrew (1200 BCE to 500 BCE) and 'Silver Age' Hebrew (500 BCE to 60 BCE). Silver Age Hebrew has many borrowings from Aramaic, for example the use of the conditional particle illu (אִלוּ) replacing lū (לוּ). Another shibboleth between the two, is the use of the relative pronoun ʾšr (אשר) (introducing a Restrictive clause, 'that') in the earlier period, being replaced with the prefix š- (-ש) in the later, both being used in Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew.

Roman Era Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew, has further grammatical influences from Greek and Parsi, mainly through the dialect of Aramaic which was the Lingua franca of the area at the time.

Contents

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Descendant languages

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Phonology

Template:IPA notice

The phonology as reconstructed for Biblical Hebrew is as follows (from Lambdin, with modifications):

Name Letter Phoneme(s) (IPA)
’ālep̄ א Template:IPA
bêṯ ב [b], [v]
gîmel ג Template:IPA, Template:IPA
dāleṯ ד [d], [[[Voiced dental fricative|Template:IPA]]]
hē ה [h], zero
wāw ו [w], zero
zayin ז [z]
ḥet ח [ħ]
ṭēṯ ט Template:IPA
yōḏ י [j], zero
kap̄ כ, ך [k], [x]
lāmeḏ ל [l]
mēm מ, ם [m]
nûn נ, ן [n]
sāmeḵ ס [s]
‛ayin ע Template:IPA
pēh פ, ף [p, [f]
ṣāḏēh צ, ץ Template:IPA
qōp ק Template:IPA (or possibly [q])
rēš ר [r]
śîn/šîn ש Template:IPA, Template:IPA
tāw ת [t], [θ]

Biblical Hebrew had a vowel system based on the cardinal vowels /i u e o a/, which occurred in short, long, and extra-long forms. I follow Lambdin's use of macrons to mark long vowels and circumflexes to mark extra-long ones. Aside from these vowels, there were also four "reduced" ones, ə, ă, ĕ, and ŏ (all but the schwa, /ə/ seem to have been allophonic).

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Historical sound changes

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Consonantism

As Biblical Hebrew (BH) evolved from Proto-Semitic (PS) it underwent a number of mergersTemplate:Ref,Template:Ref:

*) Greek transcriptions (see also "Various names in Hebrew and Greek".) provide evidence that Biblical Hebrew maintained the proto-Semitic consonants Template:IPA, Template:IPA for longer than the writing system might suggest. Thus Template:IPA (עֲמוֹרָה) is transcribed as Template:IPA (Template:Polytonic) in Greek, whereas Template:IPA (עֵבֶר) is transcribed as Template:IPA (Template:Polytonic) with no intrusive g; since comparative Semitic evidence shows that proto-Semitic *Template:IPA and *Template:IPA both became `ayin (ע) in later Hebrew, this suggests that the distinction was still maintained in Classical times. Similarly Template:IPA (רָחֵל) is transcribed as Template:IPA (Template:Polytonic), whereas Template:IPA (יִצְחָק) becomes Template:IPA (Template:Polytonic).
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Vocalism

in word-final position regularly > Template:IPA
in an open syllable before a following *Template:IPA > BH Template:IPA
before or after א ה ח ע > Template:IPA ("Template:IPA") or, if the adjacent syllable has Template:IPA or Template:IPA, Template:IPA ("Template:IPA") and Template:IPA ("Template:IPA") respectively;
in verbs also in the second syllable of the word if the following syllable is stressed;
in nouns in the second syllable of status constructus > Template:IPA (the consonant carrying the [[Shwa|Template:IPA]] is marked with "Template:IPA" or the following consonant is fricative, indicating that it was preceded by a vowel).
immediately before the stress > Template:IPA (”Template:IPA”);
in closed syllables > Template:IPA
in closed syllables in verbal forms > Template:IPA or, before ה ח ע, Template:IPA;
in syllables that were closed already in Proto-Semitic > Template:IPA ("Philippi’s law")
immediately before the stress > Template:IPA ("Template:IPA")
in closed syllables > Template:IPA ("Template:IPA") or, before a geminated consonant, Template:IPA
*Template:IPA > Template:IPA
*Template:IPA > Template:IPA
*Template:IPA > Template:IPA
*Template:IPA > Template:IPA
*Template:IPA > Template:IPA
*Template:IPA > Template:IPA
*Template:IPA > Template:IPA
*Template:IPA > Template:IPA
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Resources

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Notes

  1. Template:Note Template:Cite book
  2. Template:Note G. Bergsträsser. (1983). Introduction to the Semitic Languages. Translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
  3. ISBN 1565632060 Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon by Francis Brown, S. Driver, C. Briggs
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External links

Template:Jewish languagehe:עברית מקראית

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