Hebrew



Earth Language

Hebrew (/ˈhiːbruː/; עברית ʿivrit [ʔivˈʁit] ( listen) or [ʕivˈɾit] ( listen)) is a West Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, although the language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Tanakh.The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE". Today it is only spoken by a few scholars and considered to be an extinct language.

Hebrew had ceased to be an everyday spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and immigrants.It survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry.

As a  language, it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel, and by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations, as well as by theologians in Christian seminaries.

The Torah (the first five books), and most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form specifically in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, around the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh (לשון הקדש), "the Holy Language", since ancient times.