Rhonda Heffermann, 15, of Hutchinson, Kan., for her question:
WHEN DID THE HEBREW LANGUAGE ORIGINATE?
Hebrew is a Semitic language originally adopted by the Israelites when they took possession of the land of Canaan west of the Jordan River fn Palestine. The language has also been called the speech of Canaan and Judea, after the kingdom of Judah. Ancient Hebrew, the language of the Bible, was succeeded by Mishnaic Hebrew about 300 B.C.
Modern Hebrew, the only vernacular tongue based on an ancient written form, was developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The language in which most of the Old Testament was written dates as a living language from the 12th to the second century B.C. at least.
The territory of Phoenicia adjoined Canaan, and it is probable that Hebrew, in its earliest form, was almost identical to Phoenician. Of the closely related Hebrew and Phoenician language groups, however, Hebrew is decidedly the more important. From about 300 B.C., the Jews in Palestine came to use Aramaic in both speech and secular writing. Jews outside Palestine spoke the language of the countries in which they had settled.
Hebrew was preserved, however, as the language of ritual and sacred writings and through the centuries has undergone periodic literary revivals.
The original Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants. Vowel signs and pronunciation currently accepted for biblical Hebrew were created by scholars known as Masoretes after the fifth century A.D. These scholars were also thought to have standardized various dialectal differences.
The vocabulary of biblical Hebrew is small. Concrete adjectives are used for abstract nouns. The limitation to two verb tenses (perfect and imperfect) cause an ambiguity regarding time concepts. Various syntactic devices were employed to clarify relations of time.
Mishnaic or rabbinic Hebrew, dating from about A.D. 200, was the language of the Mishnah.
When many Jews returned to Palestine in the 19th century, Hebrew was revived as a spoken language. Modern Hebrew was declared the official language of Israel in 1948.
The language is written from right to left and employs an alphabet of 22 characters. The vocabulary is based on biblical Hebrew and the syntax on Mishnaic Hebrew. Long vowels are generally expressed in writing by unpronounced consonant sounds.
Scriptures, children's books and poetry use the Masoretic points which are dots or dashes to indicate vowels. Pronunciation is modeled on that of the Sephardic Jews who live mainly in Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria.
A great number of new words, particularly scientific terms, were needed in order to adapt the ancient written language to contemporary use. The Lithuanian born scholar Eliezer Ben Yehuda single handedly coined 4,000 new words from biblical Hebrew roots.
The national languages of various immigrants to Israel and Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi, or Eastern European Jews, also influenced modern Hebrew.