Biblical Hebrew, the first-millennium BCE language of most of the Hebrew Bible, was a primary foundation for Modern (or “Israeli”) Hebrew, though there are significant differences between these two stages of the language.
What is Modern Hebrew?
“Modern Hebrew” refers to the spoken variety of Hebrew that arose in the late nineteenth century and is the official language of the State of Israel. Today, it is the native language of millions and is spoken proficiently by many more, both in Israel and around the world.
Postbiblical forms of Hebrew were used throughout the first two millennia CE in religious contexts, for communication between Jewish groups, and as a literary language. For most of that period, Hebrew was not spoken as an everyday mother tongue. This situation changed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when increasing support for the nationalist movement Zionism inspired more Jews to move into Palestine. Reviving Hebrew as a spoken language was seen as a way to strengthen a sense of shared identity among Jewish immigrants from around the world.
One of these immigrants, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, is generally considered to be the “father of Modern Hebrew,” and his children are known as the first native Hebrew speakers of the modern era. He worked together with his wife Hemda and other scholars to expand on the language of written Hebrew sources and develop a wider vocabulary to meet the needs of the modern speaker. Their work equipped like-minded people to adopt Hebrew as the primary language of their everyday lives, which in turn enabled them to raise the next generation in a Hebrew-speaking environment.
How close are Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew?
Basic words such as “person,” “house,” and “go” are the same in both varieties of the language. Whenever possible, Modern Hebrew draws relevant vocabulary from Biblical Hebrew or from later Hebrew writings. Many elements from the closely related and widely spoken Aramaic language entered Hebrew during the late biblical and rabbinic periods (sixth century BCE–fifth century CE) and still remain today. For example, imma “Mom” and abba “Dad” are Aramaic forms.
Life in the modern world, however, requires terminology for concepts and technology that do not appear in the historical record of Hebrew. In such cases, speakers of Modern Hebrew have expanded the definitions of older vocabulary, remixed the language in new and creative ways, or even borrowed from Arabic or from a modern European language. A common strategy is to combine a foreign word, or even a scientific Greek or Latin root, with known Hebrew vocabulary or patterns. For example, since the Biblical Hebrew word for a “wave” of water is gal, the Modern Hebrew word for “microwave” is simply micro-gal.
The modern and biblical stages of Hebrew also differ in syntax, especially in word order and the verbal system. The simple past-tense verb of Modern Hebrew is not the primary form used in biblical narratives, and the modern sentence structure is more similar to spoken English (“The man walked to the house”) than to Biblical Hebrew prose (“Walked the man to the house”). Modern Hebrew has now been spoken as a mother tongue by several generations, and it continues to grow and change as much as any other active language. But it still remains close enough to its historical roots to serve as a helpful starting point for students of Biblical Hebrew.
