Modern Hebrew: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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== Classification ==

Modern Hebrew is an [[Afroasiatic languages|Afroasiatic language]] of the [[Semitic languages|Semitic family]] and the [[Canaanite languages|Canaanite]] branch of the North-West semitic subgroup.<ref name="Weninger, Stefan 2011"/><ref>Yael Reshef. "The Re-Emergence of Hebrew as a National Language" in Weninger, Stefan, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet CE Watson, Gábor Takács, Vermondo Brugnatelli, H. Ekkehard Wolff et al. (eds) "The Semitic Languages." An International Handbook. Berlin–Boston (2011). p. 551</ref><ref name=e18>{{e18|heb|Hebrew}}</ref><ref name="Weninger, Stefan 2011">Weninger, Stefan, Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet CE Watson, Gábor Takács, Vermondo Brugnatelli, H. Ekkehard Wolff et al. "The Semitic Languages." An International Handbook. Berlin–Boston (2011).</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=RWhvl4hD7S4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=modern%20&f=false The Semitic Languages]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=O0-9Iw0Qh6EC&pg=PA199 Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics]</ref> Though it has been influenced by non-Semitic languages,<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=LfruK29pVl8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual]</ref> Modern Hebrew retains its Semitic character in its morphology and in much of its syntax. A minority of scholars argue that the revived language had been so influenced by various substrate languages that it is genealogically a hybrid.<ref>Izre'el, Shlomo (2003). "The Emergence of Spoken Israeli Hebrew." In: Benjamin H. Hary (ed.), ''Corpus Linguistics and Modern Hebrew: Towards the Compilation of The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH)", Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 2003, pp. 85-104.</ref><ref>Goldenberg, Gideon (1996). "Ha'ivrit kelashon shemit xaya." In: ''Evolution and Renewal: Trends in the Development of the Hebrew Language.'' (Publications of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Section of Humanities.) Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 148-190. (In Hebrew.)</ref><ref>See p. 62 in Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2006), "A New Vision for 'Israeli Hebrew': Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language", ''Journal of Modern Jewish Studies'' 5 (1), pp. 57-71.</ref> As a revived language, there is no clear periodization between Biblical and Modern Hebrew.<ref name=Rosen15>{{cite book|author=Haiim Rosén|title=Contemporary Hebrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PydwqOHyCMAC&pg=PA29|date=1 January 1977|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-080483-6|pages=15–18}}</ref> Modern Hebrew is based on both Mishnaic and Biblical Hebrew, and is commonly seen as a direct continuation of one or both. According to Hertzon (1987),

<blockquote>"It is futile to ask whether Modern Hebrew is the same language as the idiom of the Hebrew Bible. Clearly, the difference between them is great enough to make it impossible for the person who knows one to understand the other without effort. Biblical scholars have to study the modern language if they want to benefit from studies written in Hebrew today and Israelis cannot properly follow Biblical passages without having studied them at school. Yet a partial understanding is indeed possible and the similarities are so obvious that calling them separate languages or two versions of the same tongue would be an arbitrary, purely terminological decision."<ref>Source: Robert Hetzron. (1987). Hebrew. In The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref> </blockquote>

== Phonology ==