Difference between revisions of "Hebrew"

Revision as of 01:03, July 3, 2008

Gottlieb Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur

Hebrew is a language spoken by Jews. Hebrew is a Semitic language, related to Aramaic and Arabic. Like Aramaic and Arabic, it is written from right to left.

The original Hebrew largely died out as a spoken language. Modern Hebrew is spoken in Israel and is a restoration of Ancient Hebrew with many differences to the older form.^[1]

The Old Testament is written almost entirely in Ancient Hebrew, with some portions in Aramaic.

Hebrew Language Structure

Hebrew is a "root" language with basic meanings of words derived from the consonants. This is different than English and other Indo-Eurpean languages where the vowels have equal weight as the consonants. Thus, in Hebrew, the consonants KTB(or V) have something to do with "writing". From this basic root, there is derived KoTeV=writing or author, KaTTav= reporter, KaTuV=written, K'TuVim= Scriptures, KaTaVti= I wrote, eK(kh)ToV=I will write, K'ToVet=inscription or address, and so on. This "root" aspect of Hebrew is common to all Semitic languages. Thus, in Arabic, KTB appears in KaTaBa= "he wrote", maKTuB= "letter", KaaTiB= author, KuTiBat=it (fem.) was written, etc. In Aramaic, KTB appears in KeTaV= "he wrote", KaTVat= "she wrote", KeTuBa= "marriage contract", KeTiVat= was written (feminine), KaaTiV= writing. (In Aramaic the definite article for "the" is A (Aleph) added at the end of a noun rather than at the front. Thus the Hebrew "HaMeLeKH"= the King, becomes in Aramaic MaLKA)

Noun, Adjective and Verb in singular

1. Hebrew expresses the basic meaning of the word in consonants (capital letters in this article). Y,L,D are the 3 consonants for "child", "boy". YeLeD is a boy. The feminine is formed usually by adding an "ah" sound (some of the inner vowels may change). YaLDah is a girl.

2. Verbs follow the same pattern: QaM means "gets up", "arises" for masculine; QaMah is for feminine.

Ha means "the", and it is attached to the word.

HaYeLeD QaM means "The boy gets up". HaYaLDah QaMah means "The girl gets up".

3. There is no word in Hebrew for "is" and "are" in the present tense. Therefore, HaYeled Qam also means "The boy is getting up"; HaYaLDah QaMah also means "The girl is getting up".

Tov means "good". HaYeLeD Tov means "The boy is good", HaYaLDah ToVah means "The girl is good".

Noun, Adjective and Verb in plural

1. Masculine nouns, adjectives and verbs usually are made plural by adding the sound "im" (the i sounds "ee") to the end for masculine, and the sound "ot" to the end for feminine (some of the inner vowels may change).

HaYeLaDim ToVim means "The boys are good". HaYelaDot ToVot means " The girls are good".

Attributive Adjectives

1. The adjective goes after the noun in Hebrew instead of before the noun as in English. You must put the Ha in front of the adjective, as well as in front of the noun.

Example: GaDoL means "big". If you want to say "The big boy is good", you must say: HaYeLeD HaGadol Tov. (It is like you are saying: The boy, the big one, is good.) The big girl is good, Ha YaLDah HaGeDoLah ToVah. The big boys are good, Ha Yeladim HaGeDoLim ToVim. The big girls are good, Ha YeLaDot HaGeDoLot ToVot.

The word "in", and "in" with the word "the"

1. The consonant B means "in" (It has only the slightest vowel sound). It is attached to the next word. Hebrew has no way of saying the word "a". You just leave it out.

Example: House is BaYiT. The big girl is in a house, HaYaLDah HaGeDoLah BBaYiT.

2. When you want to say "in the" it should be BeHa. But this is shortened and becomes Ba.

The big girl is in the house, HaYaLDah HaGeDoLah BaBaYiT. The good children are in the house, Ha YeLaDim HaToVim BaBaYit.

The Hebrew Script

The present day Hebrew printed letters of the Hebrew Bible and modern literature are not Hebrew, but are Aramaic script. The original Hebrew script was much like its close relatives in the middle east - Caananite, Phoenician, and Moabite, and like them Hebrew is fully alphabetic. This means that a sign, though perhaps having originated as a picture (pictograph) or mental concept or action, represents one sound. This was a great advance in literacy as just a few letters had to be learned to produce the limited particular sound issuing from the mouth, rather than myriads of signs having to be learned to represent the myriads of ideas, actions, and concepts. Greek and Latin developed their alphabetic scripts from the semitic.

Hebrew in the Bible

The Hebrew of the Old Testament, though "classical", is not uniform. Some of the Hebrew, as in the Song of Deborah, is very archaic. The narrative portions relating to Deborah are more "modern". The same is true of the poetic Song of Moses and its corresponding narrative. This indicates that the poetic portions were written much earlier than the narrative and very close to the time of the event itself. This suggests that the events were passed on orally and in song to the next generation before they were written down. Deuteronomy displays a type of Hebrew similar to some of the Prophetic literature. What all this indicates is the "freedom" found in the Hebrew language of the Bible. In comparative terms to our modern sense and usage, it would be as if King James English with its magnificent cadences, Revised Standard English, more accessible and approachable to the modern man, and New International English, more familiar to the "man in the street", were to be used in one and the same version of the Bible to fit different "moods" and different usages and succeeding centuries. This evinces a most convincing and natural development of the language just as there is a most convincing and natural development of the culture and of the people of the Bible. Biblical Hebrew is thus shown to be very far different from an artificial or "school room" construct. It is a living language – or, more properly, living languages – used for different purposes and at different times.

Unlike Greek, which has an ample vocabulary, and case ending to determine which words are to be read with which words, what parts of speech (subject, object etc.). Hebrew is a contextual language - that is relatively few words but each word having a variety of meanings. This requires knowledge of the literature, and literatures - that is, knowledge of the context to determine the precise meaning. Biblical Hebrew has a help in this, though, and that is "signs" (t'amey Hamikr'a) that accompany the text, usually above the letters, sometimes to the side, which are divided into two main catagories - conjuctive and disjunctive. The conjuctive tie two words together, the disjuctive indicate that the words are separate in thought. These two catagories of signs also serve as punctuation - full stop (period), semi-stop (coma),and even thought groupings. they were written down by the Masoretes of the 5th cent A.D., that is the people that carried on the earlier tradition of how things were understood. Masoret=tradition. Thus, In Isaiah 9:6, the Hebrew words themselves can bear the meaning "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor of the Mighty God..." or His name shall be called " Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God...". But the T'amey Hamikr'a decide the case. Between "Counsellor" and Mighty God" there is a disjunctive. Therefore His name shall be called Counsellor, the Mighty God..." is correct - according to the understanding that the Masoretes received.

These "signs" also bear traditional melodies that vary according to the various dispersions of the Jews - Babylonian, Yemenite, Ashkenazic, Sephardic,etc. Yet, there are melody lines common to all the dispersions. This could only have occured when all the dispersion were together. That was in the 1st Century before the Exile of the Jews by the Romans at 70 A.D. It is thus possible to reconstruct the melody, in part, that Jesus used when he sang, as was the custom, the prophetic portion in the synagogue. Some of these themes reappear in the Gregorian chant of the Church.

See Also

• Braille for the Hebrew Braille system

References

1. ↑ http://www.adath-shalom.ca/rabin_he.htm