Hebrew Studies

Hebrew belongs to the Semitic language family. Present-day Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Traditional Hebrew is used for worship or study in Jewish populations encircling the globe. It is the dominant and one of the official languages of Israel. Hebrew is also spoken as a mother tongue by the Samaritans, though today less than a thousand Samaritans are left. As a foreign language it is studied in large part by Jews and learners of Judaism and Israel, archeologists and linguistic scientists specializing in the Middle East and its cultures, by theologians, and in Christian seminaries.

The contemporary word "Hebrew" is obtained from the word "ivri" which in turn may be derived from the root "`avar" (עבר) which means "to cross over". The affiliated name Ever comes about in Genesis 10:21 and perhaps means "the one who traverses". In the Old Testament "Hebrew" is named Yehudith (יהודית) on account of Judah (Yehuda) was the outlasting kingdom at the time of the citation, late 8th century (Is 36, 2 Kings 18). In Isaiah 19:18, it is as well named the "Language of Canaan".

The heart of the the Hebrew Bible is inscribed in Classical Hebrew, and a lot of its current framework is precisely the language of Biblical Hebrew that intellectuals maintain thrived about the 6th century BCE, about the period of the Babylonian exile. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon HaKodesh or "The Holy Language", ever since archaic times.

Vowel sounds and Points

Like the majority of early Semitic alphabetic handwriting systems, the hebrew alefbet (letters) contains no vowels. Individuals who are fluent in the language do not require vowels to read Hebrew, and nearly all things written in Hebrew in Israel are written deprived of vowels.

Hebrew literacy diminished after the Romans exiled the Jews from the land of Israel. The rabbis identified the requirement to have aids to pronunciation, so they advanced a method of dots and dashes called nikkud. These dots and dashes are inscribed inside, above or below the letter, in paths that do not change the spatial arrangement of the line. Text incorporating these marks is considered to be "pointed" text.

The largest part of the nikkud is used to display vowels. The table at the buttom of this paragraph demonstrates the vowel points, together with their enunciations. Pronunciations are inexact; IThere is some diversity in vowel pronunciation.

Vowel points are exhibited in blue. The character Alef, exhibited in red, is used to depict the location of the points comparative to the letters of the alphabet. The letters shown in purple are technically consonants and would appear in unpointed texts, but they take the role of vowels in this text.



There are several additional nikkud, demonstrated and clarified below.

Patterns of Script

The pattern of script demonstrated earlier is the one most prevalently witnessed in Hebrew books. It is named block print, square text or occasionally Assyrian script.

For religious records, a the likes of torah scrolls or the scrolls inside tefillin and mezuzot, there is an exceptional writing style with "crowns" on many of the characters. This particular technique of handwriting is familiar as STA"M, an abbreviation for "Sifrei Torah, Tefillin and Mezuzot," which is where you will observe that pattern of handwriting. For additional information about the STA"M letters, including drawings and pertinent guidelines, view Hebrew Alphabet used in handwriting STA"M.

There is another pattern used for writing, in much the identicle style that cursive is used for the English alphabet. This contemporary script design is demonstrated at the buttom of this paragraph.



Another design is used in particular texts to differentiate the body of the text from annotation upon the content. This design is familiar as Rashi Script, in respect of Rashi, the finest annotator on the Torah and the Talmud. Rashi himself did not use this writing; it is just termed in his honor. The alefbet under is a sample of Rashi Script.

Numerical Values

Each alphabetical character in the alefbet has a numeric worth. These values can be used as numerals, as the Roman types used some of their letters as numerals. The chart at buttom exhibits each alphabetical character with its analogous numeric value. Notice that last letters have an identicle value as their non-final counterparts.

Hebrew Typefaces and Word Processors

Many fonts included in Windows now have a built-in Hebrew character set. There are Hebrew versions of Times New Roman, Arial, Tahoma and so forth. You can see these using the Character Map tool. Persuading your computer to type these characters, however, can be a bit of a trick!

If your web browser is Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or higher, you should be able to automatically download fonts for viewing Hebrew on the web. Again, using these fonts to type Hebrew is a bit of a trick! If you want to download these fonts or see if these fonts are already downloaded, Look in Microsoft windows manual.