History

Hebrew is a Semitic language in the same family as Arabic, Aramaic, and Amharic. Biblical Hebrew was spoken from about the 10^th century BCE until around 200 CE, first in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and then in the various Judean societies under Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman control. As the historical homeland of the peoples of Israel and Judah were under foreign rule for much of their history, Aramaic and Greek were spoken alongside Hebrew centuries before it ceased to be a living language. After the Bar Kokhba Revolt against the Roman Empire around 135 CE, Jews were barred from entering Jerusalem, and among the scattered communities of the Jewish diaspora in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, Hebrew was eventually relegated to the world of liturgical and scholarly usage. It was later revived as Israeli Hebrew within the last couple centuries, and this is the form of the language as spoken in the modern nation of Israel today.

Morphology

English inflection, like other Indo-European languages, modifies words with prefixes, suffixes, and the occasional vowel change. For example, in English, the word “jump” can serve different grammatical purposes through the addition of suffixes: jumps, jumped, jumper. In other cases, the internal vowel is modified – man becomes men and write becomes wrote.

However, in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, words are derived from collections of consonants that act as roots for concepts or ideas. Suffixes and prefixes are used, but the internal patterns of vowels change to fill in the gaps between the consonants. For example, the root M-L-K is associated with monarchy and kingship in Hebrew. From this, we get malak (to reign), melek (king), yimlok (he will reign), and mamlakah (kingdom).

Parts of Speech

Hebrew nouns and adjectives are all inflected for gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular, dual, and plural). There is one article (definite) and two states (absolute and construct). The absolute state is basically just the “normal” state of the word, while the construct is used to show possession or relationship, similar to “of” in English. For example, the phrase “king of Israel” would be written in Hebrew like “king Israel”, with the first noun being in the construct state and the second in the absolute. The “of” is implied by this juxtaposition. For some words, the construct is marked by a change in suffix, and in others, only by a shift in stress.

Hebrew pronouns are added to nouns or verbs as suffixes to show possession or to mark the object of the verb. For example, the Hebrew word for son (“ben”) becomes “my son” when the first person singular ending is added (“b’ni”).

Verbs are conjugated for gender (masculine and feminine), number (singular and plural), and aspect (perfect and imperfect). More or less, perfect verbs represent actions that are completed, and imperfect verbs represent actions that are in progress or yet to be completed. Verbs can be formed into participles, and there are three command forms: first person, or cohortative (“let’s speak”), second person, or imperative (“speak!”), and third person, or jussive (“may he speak”).

Verbs can also conform to different patterns called “binyanim” to show a change in voice or mood.  The major binyanim are:

• Qal (simple active)
• Niphal (simple passive)
• Piel (intensive active)
• Pual (intensive passive)
• Hiphil (causative active)
• Hophal (causative passive)
• Hithpael (reflective)

For example, the qal verb “qatal” becomes the niphal verb “niqtal”, changing the meaning from “to kill” to “to be killed.”