Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, a language in the Canaanite branch of

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

spoken by the

Israelites The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of the Jordan River and east of the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

. The term "Hebrew" (''ivrit'') was not used for the language in the Bible, which was referred to as (''sefat kena'an'', i.e. language of Canaan) or (''Yehudit'', i.e. Judaean), but the name was used in

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

and

Mishnaic Hebrew Mishnaic Hebrew is the Hebrew of Talmudic texts. Mishnaic Hebrew can be sub-divided into Mishnaic Hebrew proper (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which was a spoken language, and Amoraic Hebrew (also c ...

texts. The Hebrew language is attested in inscriptions from about the 10th century BCE, and spoken Hebrew persisted through and beyond the Second Temple period, which ended in the

siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Ju ...

. It eventually developed into

, spoken up until the fifth century CE. Biblical Hebrew as recorded in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' consonantal skeleton, as well as a vocalization system which was added in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

by the

Masoretes The Masoretes ( he, בַּעֲלֵי הַמָּסוֹרָה, Baʿălēy Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily in ...

. There is also some evidence of regional

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...

al variation, including differences between Biblical Hebrew as spoken in the northern Kingdom of Israel and in the southern

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah ( he, , ''Yəhūdā''; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 ''Ya'údâ'' 'ia-ú-da-a-a'' arc, 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 ''Bēyt Dāwīḏ'', " House of David") was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. C ...

. The

consonantal In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and prono ...

text was transmitted in manuscript form, and underwent redaction in the Second Temple period, but its earliest portions (parts of

Amos Amos or AMOS may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Amos Records, an independent record label established in Los Angeles, California, in 1968 * Amos (band), an American Christian rock band * ''Amos'' (album), an album by Michael Ray * ''Amos' ...

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...

Hosea In the Hebrew Bible, Hosea ( or ; he, הוֹשֵׁעַ – ''Hōšēaʿ'', 'Salvation'; gr, Ὡσηέ – ''Hōsēé''), son of Beeri, was an 8th-century BCE prophet in Israel and the nominal primary author of the Book of Hosea. He is t ...

and Micah) can be dated to the late 8th to early 7th centuries BCE. Biblical Hebrew has been written with a number of different

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...

s. From around the 12th century BCE until the 6th century BCE the Hebrews used the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. This was retained by the Samaritans, who use the descendent Samaritan script to this day. However, the Imperial Aramaic alphabet gradually displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet after the exile to Babylon, and it became the source for the Modern Hebrew alphabet. All of these scripts were lacking letters to represent all of the sounds of Biblical Hebrew, although these sounds are reflected in Greek and Latin transcriptions/translations of the time. These scripts originally indicated only consonants, but certain letters, known by the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

term ''matres lectionis'', became increasingly used to mark

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

s. In the Middle Ages, various systems of

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s were developed to mark the vowels in Hebrew manuscripts; of these, only the

Tiberian vocalization The Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian pointing, or Tiberian niqqud (Hebrew: ''haNīqqūḏ haṬəḇērīyānī'') is a system of diacritics (''niqqud'') devised by the Masoretes of Tiberias to add to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible to p ...

is still in wide use. Biblical Hebrew possessed a series of emphatic consonants whose precise articulation is disputed, likely

ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...

pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the Human pharynx, pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can ...

. Earlier Biblical Hebrew possessed three consonants which did not have their own letters in the writing system, but over time they merged with other consonants. The stop consonants developed

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

s under the influence of

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

, and these sounds eventually became marginally

phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

. The pharyngeal and glottal consonants underwent weakening in some regional dialects, as reflected in the modern Samaritan Hebrew reading tradition. The vowel system of Biblical Hebrew changed over time and is reflected differently in the ancient Greek and Latin transcriptions, medieval vocalization systems, and modern reading traditions. Biblical Hebrew had a typical Semitic morphology with

nonconcatenative morphology Nonconcatenative morphology, also called discontinuous morphology and introflection, is a form of word formation and inflection in which the root is modified and which does not involve stringing morphemes together sequentially. Types Apophon ...

, arranging

Semitic root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels ...

s into patterns to form words. Biblical Hebrew distinguished two genders (masculine, feminine), three

numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

(singular, plural, and uncommonly, dual). Verbs were marked for

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

and mood, and had two conjugations which may have indicated

aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...

and/or tense (a matter of debate). The tense or aspect of verbs was also influenced by the conjugation , in the so-called waw-consecutive construction. Unlike modern Hebrew, the default word order for biblical Hebrew was verb–subject–object, and verbs inflected for the number, gender, and

person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

of their subject. Pronominal suffixes could be appended to verbs (to indicate object) or nouns (to indicate possession), and nouns had special

construct state In Afro-Asiatic languages, the first noun in a genitive phrase of a possessed noun followed by a possessor noun often takes on a special morphological form, which is termed the construct state (Latin ''status constructus''). For example, in Arabi ...

s for use in possessive constructions.

Nomenclature

The earliest written sources refer to Biblical Hebrew as "the language of Canaan". The Hebrew Bible also calls the language "Judaean, Judahite" In the

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

, Greek writings use the names ''Hebraios'', ''Hebraïsti'' and in Mishnaic Hebrew we find 'Hebrew' and "Hebrew language". The origin of this term is obscure; suggested origins include the biblical

Eber Eber ( he, , ʿĒḇer; grc-x-biblical, Ἔβερ, Éber; ar, عٰابِر, ʿĀbir) is an ancestor of the Ishmaelites and the Israelites according to the "Table of Nations" in the Book of Genesis () and the Books of Chronicles (). Lineage ...

, the ethnonyms Ḫabiru, Ḫapiru, and ˁApiru found in sources from Egypt and the near east, and a derivation from the root "to pass" alluding to crossing over the Jordan River. Jews also began referring to Hebrew as "the Holy Tongue" in Mishnaic Hebrew. The term ''Classical Hebrew'' may include all pre-medieval dialects of Hebrew, including Mishnaic Hebrew, or it may be limited to Hebrew contemporaneous with the Hebrew Bible. The term ''Biblical Hebrew'' refers to pre-Mishnaic dialects (sometimes excluding Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew). The term ''Biblical Hebrew'' may or may not include extra-biblical texts, such as inscriptions (e.g. the Siloam inscription), and generally also includes later vocalization traditions for the Hebrew Bible's consonantal text, most commonly the early medieval Tiberian vocalization.

History

The archeological record for the prehistory of Biblical Hebrew is far more complete than the record of Biblical Hebrew itself. Early

Northwest Semitic Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze A ...

(ENWS) materials are attested from 2350 BCE to 1200 BCE, the end of the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

. The Northwest Semitic languages, including Hebrew, differentiated noticeably during the Iron Age (1200–540 BCE), although in its earliest stages Biblical Hebrew was not highly differentiated from

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologist ...

and the Canaanite of the Amarna letters. Hebrew developed during the latter half of the second millennium BCE between the Jordan and the

, an area known as

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

. The Israelite tribes established a kingdom in Canaan at the beginning of the first millennium BCE, which later split into the kingdom of Israel in the north and the kingdom of Judah in the south after a disputed succession. The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. The kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The upper classes were exiled into the Babylonian captivity and

Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (, , ), was the Temple in Jerusalem between the 10th century BC and . According to the Hebrew Bible, it was commissioned by Solomon in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited by th ...

was destroyed. Later the Persians made Judah a province and permitted Jewish exiles to return and rebuild the Temple. According to the '' Gemara'', Hebrew of this period was similar to Imperial Aramaic;

Hanina bar Hama Hanina bar Hama (died c. 250) ( he, חנינא בר חמא) was a Jewish Talmudist, halakhist and aggadist frequently quoted in the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud, and in the Midrashim. He is generally cited by the name R. Hanina, but some ...

said that God sent the exiled Jews to Babylon because " he Babylonianlanguage is akin to the '' Leshon Hakodesh''". Aramaic became the common language in the north, in Galilee and

Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first ...

. Hebrew remained in use in Judah; however the returning exiles brought back Aramaic influence, and Aramaic was used for communicating with other ethnic groups during the Persian period. Alexander conquered Judah in 332 BCE, beginning the period of Hellenistic (Greek) domination. During the Hellenistic period Judea became independent under the

Hasmonean dynasty The Hasmonean dynasty (; he, ''Ḥašmōnaʾīm'') was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity, from BCE to 37 BCE. Between and BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously in the Seleucid Empire, and ...

, but later the Romans ended their independence, making

Herod the Great Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renova ...

their governor. One Jewish revolt against the Romans led to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the second Bar Kokhba revolt in 132–135 led to a large departure of the Jewish population of Judea. Biblical Hebrew after the Second Temple period evolved into Mishnaic Hebrew, which ceased being spoken and developed into a literary language around 200 CE. Hebrew continued to be used as a literary and liturgical language in the form of Medieval Hebrew, and Hebrew began a revival process in the 19th century, culminating in

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...

becoming the official language of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. Currently, Classical Hebrew is generally taught in public schools in

, and Biblical Hebrew forms are sometimes used in Modern Hebrew literature, much as archaic and biblical constructions are used in Modern English literature. Since Modern Hebrew contains many biblical elements, Biblical Hebrew is fairly intelligible to Modern Hebrew speakers. The primary source of Biblical Hebrew material is the Hebrew Bible. Epigraphic materials from the area of Israelite territory are written in a form of Hebrew called Inscriptional Hebrew, although this is meagerly attested.: "The extrabiblical linguistic material from the Iron Age is primarily epigraphic, that is, texts written on hard materials (pottery, stones, walls, etc.). The epigraphic texts from Israelite territory are written in Hebrew in a form of the language which may be called Inscriptional Hebrew; this "dialect" is not strikingly different from the Hebrew preserved in the Masoretic text. Unfortunately, it is meagerly attested." According to Waltke & O'Connor, Inscriptional Hebrew "is not strikingly different from the Hebrew preserved in the Masoretic text." The damp climate of Israel caused the rapid deterioration of papyrus and parchment documents, in contrast to the dry environment of Egypt, and the survival of the Hebrew Bible may be attributed to scribal determination in preserving the text through copying. No manuscript of the Hebrew Bible dates to before 400 BCE, although two silver rolls (the Ketef Hinnom scrolls) from the seventh or sixth century BCE show a version of the

Priestly Blessing The Priestly Blessing or priestly benediction, ( he, ברכת כהנים; translit. ''birkat kohanim''), also known in rabbinic literature as raising of the hands (Hebrew ''nesiat kapayim'') or rising to the platform (Hebrew ''aliyah ledukhan'') ...

. Vowel and

cantillation Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy. Cantillation includes: * Chant ...

marks were added to the older consonantal layer of the Bible between 600 CE and the beginning of the 10th century.This is known because the final redaction of the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

, which does not mention these additions, was ca. 600 CE, while dated manuscripts with vocalization are found in the beginning of the tenth century. See The scholars who preserved the pronunciation of the Bibles were known as the

. The most well-preserved system that was developed, and the only one still in religious use, is the Tiberian vocalization, but both Babylonian and Palestinian vocalizations are also attested. The Palestinian system was preserved mainly in piyyutim, which contain biblical quotations.

Classification

Biblical Hebrew is a Northwest Semitic language from the Canaanite subgroup. As Biblical Hebrew evolved from the Proto-Semitic language it underwent a number of consonantal mergers parallel with those in other Canaanite languages.However it is noteworthy that Akkadian shares many of these sound shifts but is less closely related to Hebrew than Aramaic. See There is no evidence that these mergers occurred after the adaptation of the Hebrew alphabet.However, for example, when Old Aramaic borrowed the Canaanite alphabet it still had interdentals, but marked them with what they merged with in Canaanite. For instance 'ox' was written but pronounced with an initial . The same phenomenon also occurred when the Arabs adopted the Nabatean alphabet. See . As a Northwest Semitic language, Hebrew shows the shift of initial to , a similar independent pronoun system to the other Northwest Semitic languages (with third person pronouns never containing ), some archaic forms, such as 'we', first person singular pronominal suffix -i or -ya, and commonly preceding pronominal suffixes. Case endings are found in Northwest Semitic languages in the second millennium BCE, but disappear almost totally afterwards.

Mimation Mimation refers to the suffixed ' (the letter mem in many Semitic abjads) which occurs in some Semitic languages. This occurs in Akkadian on singular nouns. The Northwest Semitic languages formed a dialect continuum in the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

(1200–540 BCE), with Phoenician and Aramaic on each extreme. Hebrew is classed with Phoenician in the Canaanite subgroup, which also includes Ammonite,

Edomite Edom (; Edomite language, Edomite: ; he, Wiktionary:אדום, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian language, Akkadian: , ; Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan (region), Transjordan, located between ...

, and Moabite. Moabite might be considered a Hebrew dialect, though it possessed distinctive Aramaic features. Although Ugaritic shows a large degree of affinity to Hebrew in poetic structure, vocabulary, and some grammar, it lacks some Canaanite features (like the Canaanite shift and the shift > ), and its similarities are more likely a result of either contact or preserved archaism. Hebrew underwent the Canaanite shift, where Proto-Semitic tended to shift to , perhaps when stressed. Hebrew also shares with the Canaanite languages the shifts > , and > , widespread reduction of diphthongs, and full assimilation of non-final /n/ to the following consonant if word final, i.e. /bat/ from *bant. There is also evidence of a rule of assimilation of /y/ to the following coronal consonant in pre-tonic position, shared by Hebrew, Phoenician and Aramaic. Typical Canaanite words in Hebrew include: "roof" "table" "window" "old (thing)" "old (person)" and "expel". Morphological Canaanite features in Hebrew include the masculine plural marker , first person singular pronoun , interrogative pronoun , definite article (appearing in the first millennium BCE), and third person plural feminine verbal marker .

Eras

Biblical Hebrew as preserved in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' cantillation Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy. Cantillation includes: * Chant ...

are later additions reflecting a later stage of the language. These additions were added after 600 CE; Hebrew had already ceased being used as a spoken language around 200 CE. Biblical Hebrew as reflected in the consonantal text of the Bible and in extra-biblical inscriptions may be subdivided by era. The oldest form of Biblical Hebrew, Archaic Hebrew, is found in poetic sections of the Bible and inscriptions dating to around 1000 BCE, the early Monarchic Period. This stage is also known as Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew, and is the oldest stratum of Biblical Hebrew. The oldest known artifacts of Archaic Biblical Hebrew are various sections of the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Song of Moses The Song of Moses is the name sometimes given to the poem which appears in Deuteronomy of the Hebrew Bible, which according to the Bible was delivered just prior to Moses' death on Mount Nebo. Sometimes the Song is referred to as Deuteronomy 32 ...

( Exodus 15) and the

Song of Deborah According to the Book of Judges, Deborah ( he, דְּבוֹרָה, ''Dəḇōrā'', "bee") was a prophetess of the God of the Israelites, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel and the only female judge mentioned in the Bible. Many scholars ...

( Judges 5). Biblical poetry uses a number of distinct lexical items, for example for prose 'see', for 'great'. Some have cognates in other Northwest Semitic languages, for example 'do' and 'gold' which are common in Canaanite and Ugaritic. Grammatical differences include the use of , , and as relative particles, negative , and various differences in verbal and pronominal morphology and syntax. Later pre-exilic Biblical Hebrew (such as is found in prose sections of the Pentateuch,

Nevi'im Nevi'im (; he, נְבִיאִים ''Nəvīʾīm'', Tiberian: ''Năḇīʾīm,'' "Prophets", literally "spokespersons") is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the '' Tanakh''), lying between the Torah (instruction) and Ketuvim ( ...

, and some

Ketuvim The Ketuvim (; hbo, , Modern: ''Kəṯūvīm'', Tiberian: ''Kăṯūḇīm'' "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), after Torah (instruction) and Nevi'im (prophets). In English translations of the Hebrew Bi ...

) is known as 'Biblical Hebrew proper' or 'Standard Biblical Hebrew'. This is dated to the period from the 8th to the 6th century BCE. In contrast to Archaic Hebrew, Standard Biblical Hebrew is more consistent in using the definite article , the accusative marker , distinguishing between simple and waw-consecutive verb forms, and in using particles like and rather than

asyndeton Asyndeton (, ; from the el, ἀσύνδετον, "unconnected", sometimes called asyndetism) is a literary scheme in which one or several conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses. Examples include '' veni, vidi, vic ...

. Biblical Hebrew from after the Babylonian exile in 587 BCE is known as 'Late Biblical Hebrew'. Late Biblical Hebrew shows Aramaic influence in phonology, morphology, and lexicon, and this trend is also evident in the later-developed Tiberian vocalization system. Qumran Hebrew, attested in the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

from ca. 200 BCE to 70 CE, is a continuation of Late Biblical Hebrew. Qumran Hebrew may be considered an intermediate stage between Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, though Qumran Hebrew shows its own idiosyncratic dialectal features.

Dialects

Dialect variation in Biblical Hebrew is attested to by the well-known

shibboleth A shibboleth (; hbo, , šībbōleṯ) is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwo ...

incident of Judges 12:6, where Jephthah's forces from

Gilead Gilead or Gilad (; he, גִּלְעָד ''Gīləʿāḏ'', ar, جلعاد, Ǧalʻād, Jalaad) is the ancient, historic, biblical name of the mountainous northern part of the region of Transjordan.''Easton's Bible Dictionary'Galeed''/ref> ...

caught Ephraimites trying to cross the Jordan river by making them say ''šibboleṯ'' ('ear of corn') The Ephraimites' identity was given away by their pronunciation: ''sibboleṯ''. The apparent conclusion is that the Ephraimite dialect had for standard . As an alternative explanation, it has been suggested that the proto-Semitic phoneme , which shifted to in most dialects of Hebrew, may have been retained in the Hebrew of the trans-JordanAs a consequence this would leave open the possibility that other proto-Semitic phonemes (such as *) may have been preserved regionally at one point. See (however, there is evidence that the word had initial consonant * in proto-Semitic, contradicting this theory); or that the Proto-Semitic sibilant *s₁, transcribed with šin and traditionally reconstructed as *, had been originally * before a push-type

chain shift In historical linguistics, a chain shift is a set of sound changes in which the change in pronunciation of one speech sound (typically, a phoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds as well. The soun ...

changed another sibilant *s₃, transcribed with sameḵ and traditionally reconstructed as /s/ but originally , to , pushed s₁ to in many dialects (e.g. Gileadite) but not others (e.g. Ephraimite), where *s₁ and *s₃ merged into /s/. Hebrew as spoken in the northern Kingdom of Israel, known also as Israelian Hebrew, shows phonological, lexical, and grammatical differences from southern dialects. The Northern dialect spoken around Samaria shows more frequent simplification of into as attested by the Samaria ostraca (8th century BCE), e.g. (= < 'wine'), while the Southern (Judean) dialect instead adds in an epenthetic vowel /i/, added halfway through the first millennium BCE ( = ).Such contraction is also found in Ugaritic, the El-Amarna letters, and in Phoenician, while the anaptyctic vowel is found in Old Aramaic and Deir Alla. The

word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, pho ...

8:1–2 may reflect this: given that Amos was addressing the population of the Northern Kingdom, the vocalization *קֵיץ would be more forceful. Other possible Northern features include use of 'who, that', forms like 'to know' rather than and infinitives of certain verbs of the form 'to do' rather than . The Samaria ostraca also show for standard 'year', as in Aramaic. The guttural phonemes merged over time in some dialects. This was found in Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew, but

Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is co ...

attested to the existence of contemporaneous Hebrew speakers who still distinguished pharyngeals. Samaritan Hebrew also shows a general attrition of these phonemes, though are occasionally preserved as .

Orthography

The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, found at Khirbet Qeiyafa, dates to the 10th century BCE. The 15 cm x 16.5 cm (5.9 in x 6.5 in) trapezoid pottery sherd (

ostracon An ostracon (Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of ston ...

) has five lines of text written in ink written in the

Proto-Canaanite alphabet Proto-Canaanite is the name given to :(a) the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later. :(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an u ...

(the old form which predates both the Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets). The tablet is written from left to right, indicating that Hebrew writing was still in the formative stage. The Israelite tribes who settled in the land of Israel used a late form of the

Proto-Sinaitic Alphabet Proto-Sinaitic (also referred to as Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite when found in Canaan, the North Semitic alphabet, or Early Alphabetic) is considered the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian ...

(known as

Proto-Canaanite Proto-Canaanite is the name given to :(a) the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later. :(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an u ...

when found in Israel) around the 12th century BCE, which developed into Early Phoenician and Early Paleo-Hebrew as found in the

Gezer calendar The Gezer calendar is a small limestone tablet with an early Canaanite inscription discovered in 1908 by Irish archaeologist R. A. Stewart Macalister in the ancient city of Gezer, 20 miles west of Jerusalem. It is commonly dated to the 10th ce ...

(). This script developed into the Paleo-Hebrew script in the 10th or 9th centuries BCE. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet's main differences from the Phoenician script were "a curving to the left of the downstrokes in the "long-legged" letter-signs... the consistent use of a Waw with a concave top, nd anx-shaped Taw."At times the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and Philistines would also use the Paleo-Hebrew script. See The oldest inscriptions in Paleo-Hebrew script are dated to around the middle of the 9th century BCE, the most famous being the Mesha Stele in the Moabite language (which might be considered a dialect of Hebrew). The ancient Hebrew script was in continuous use until the early 6th century BCE, the end of the First Temple period. In the Second Temple Period the Paleo-Hebrew script gradually fell into disuse, and was completely abandoned among the Jews after the failed Bar Kochba revolt. The Samaritans retained the ancient Hebrew alphabet, which evolved into the modern

Samaritan alphabet The Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic. Samaritan is a direct ...

. By the end of the First Temple period the

Aramaic script The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

, a separate descendant of the Phoenician script, became widespread throughout the region, gradually displacing Paleo-Hebrew. The oldest documents that have been found in the Aramaic Script are fragments of the scrolls of Exodus, Samuel, and Jeremiah found among the Dead Sea scrolls, dating from the late 3rd and early 2nd centuries BCE. It seems that the earlier biblical books were originally written in the Paleo-Hebrew script, while the later books were written directly in the later Assyrian script. Some Qumran texts written in the Assyrian script write the

tetragrammaton The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', '' he'', '' waw'', and ...

and some other divine names in Paleo-Hebrew, and this practice is also found in several Jewish-Greek biblical translations.Though some of these translations wrote the tetragrammaton in the square script See While spoken Hebrew continued to evolve into

, the scribal tradition for writing the Torah gradually developed. A number of regional "book-hand" styles developed for the purpose of Torah manuscripts and occasionally other literary works, distinct from the calligraphic styles used mainly for private purposes. The Mizrahi and Ashkenazi book-hand styles were later adapted to printed fonts after the invention of the printing press. The modern

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...

, also known as the Assyrian or Square script, is a descendant of the Aramaic alphabet. The Phoenician script had dropped five characters by the 12th century BCE, reflecting the language's twenty-two consonantal phonemes. As a result, the 22 letters of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet numbered less than the consonant phonemes of ancient Biblical Hebrew; in particular, the letters could each mark two different phonemes. After a sound shift the letters , could only mark one phoneme, but (except in Samaritan Hebrew) still marked two. The old Babylonian vocalization system wrote a superscript above the to indicate it took the value , while the Masoretes added the shin dot to distinguish between the two varieties of the letter. The original Hebrew alphabet consisted only of

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

, but gradually the letters , , , , also became used to indicate vowels, known as ''matres lectionis'' when used in this function. It is thought that this was a product of phonetic development: for instance, *bayt ('house') shifted to in

but retained its spelling. While no examples of early Hebrew orthography have been found, older Phoenician and Moabite texts show how First Temple period Hebrew would have been written. Phoenician inscriptions from the 10th century BCE do not indicate matres lectiones in the middle or the end of a word, for example and for later and , similarly to the Hebrew

Gezer Calendar The Gezer calendar is a small limestone tablet with an early Canaanite inscription discovered in 1908 by Irish archaeologist R. A. Stewart Macalister in the ancient city of Gezer, 20 miles west of Jerusalem. It is commonly dated to the 10th ce ...

, which has for instance for and possibly for . Matres lectionis were later added word-finally, for instance the Mesha inscription has for later ; however at this stage they were not yet used word-medially, compare Siloam inscription versus (for later ). The relative terms ''defective'' and ''full''/''plene'' are used to refer to alternative spellings of a word with less or more matres lectionis, respectively. Ktiv male, the Hebrew term for full spelling, has become de rigueur in Modern Hebrew. The Hebrew Bible was presumably originally written in a more defective orthography than found in any of the texts known today. Of the extant textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible, the Masoretic text is generally the most conservative in its use of matres lectionis, with the

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Torah ( Samaritan Hebrew: , ''Tōrāʾ''), also called the Samaritan Pentateuch, is a text of the Torah written in the Samaritan script and used as sacred scripture by the Samaritans. It dates back to one of the ancient versio ...

and its forebearers being more full and the Qumran tradition showing the most liberal use of vowel letters. The Masoretic text mostly uses vowel letters for long vowels, showing the tendency to mark all long vowels except for word-internal .There are rare-cases of being used medially as a true vowel letter, e.g. for the usual 'fish'. Most cases, however, of being used as a vowel letter stem from conservative spelling of words which originally contained , e.g. ('head') from original . See . There are also a number of exceptions to the rule of marking other long vowels, e.g. when the following syllable contains a vowel letters (like in 'voices' rather than ) or when a vowel letter already marks a consonant (so 'nations' rather than *), and within the Bible there is often little consistency in spelling. See In the Qumran tradition, back vowels are usually represented by whether short or long. is generally used for both long and (, ), and final is often written as in analogy to words like , , e.g. , sometimes . is found finally in forms like (Tiberian ), (Tiberian ) while may be used for an a-quality vowel in final position (e.g. ) and in medial position (e.g. ). Pre-Samaritan and Samaritan texts show full spellings in many categories (e.g. vs. Masoretic in Genesis 49:3) but only rarely show full spelling of the Qumran type. In general the vowels of Biblical Hebrew were not indicated in the original text, but various sources attest them at various stages of development. Greek and Latin transcriptions of words from the biblical text provide early evidence of the nature of Biblical Hebrew vowels. In particular, there is evidence from the rendering of proper nouns in the

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...

(3rd–2nd centuries BCE) and the Greek alphabet transcription of the Hebrew biblical text contained in the Secunda (3rd century CE, likely a copy of a preexisting text from before 100 BCEThe Secunda is a transliteration of the Hebrew biblical text contained in the Hexapla, a recension of the Old Testament compiled by

Origen Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theo ...

in the 3rd century CE. There is evidence that the text of the Secunda was written before 100 BCE, despite the later date of the Hexapla. For example, by the time of Origen were pronounced , a merger which had already begun around 100 BCE, while in the Secunda they are used to represent Hebrew . See ). In the 7th and 8th centuries CE various systems of vocalic notation were developed to indicate vowels in the biblical text. The most prominent, best preserved, and the only system still in use, is the

system, created by scholars known as Masoretes around 850 CE. There are also various extant manuscripts making use of less common vocalization systems ( Babylonian and

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

), known as ''superlinear vocalizations'' because their vocalization marks are placed above the letters.The Palestinian system has two main subtypes and shows great variation. The Babylonian vocalization occurred in two main types (simple / ''einfach'' and complex / ''kompliziert''), with various subgroups differing as to their affinity with the Tiberian tradition. In the Babylonian and Palestinian systems only the most important vowels were written. See In addition, the Samaritan reading tradition is independent of these systems, and was occasionally notated with a separate vocalization system.Almost all vocalized manuscripts use the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

. However there are some vocalized Samaritan manuscripts from the Middle Ages. See These systems often record vowels at different stages of historical development; for example, the name of the Judge

Samson Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...

is recorded in Greek as Σαμψών ''Sampsōn'' with the first vowel as , while Tiberian with shows the effect of the law of attenuation whereby in closed unstressed syllables became . All of these systems together are used to reconstruct the original vocalization of Biblical Hebrew. At an early stage, in documents written in the paleo-Hebrew script, words were divided by short vertical lines and later by dots, as reflected by the Mesha Stone, the Siloam inscription, the Ophel inscription, and paleo-Hebrew script documents from Qumran. Word division was not used in Phoenician inscriptions; however, there is not direct evidence for biblical texts being written without word division, as suggested by

Nahmanides Moses ben Nachman ( he, מֹשֶׁה בֶּן־נָחְמָן ''Mōše ben-Nāḥmān'', "Moses son of Nachman"; 1194–1270), commonly known as Nachmanides (; el, Ναχμανίδης ''Nakhmanídēs''), and also referred to by the acronym Ra ...

in his introduction to the Torah. Word division using spaces was commonly used from the beginning of the 7th century BCE for documents in the Aramaic script. In addition to marking vowels, the Tiberian system also uses

marks, which serve to mark word stress, semantic structure, and the musical motifs used in formal recitation of the text. While the Tiberian, Babylonian, and Palestinian reading traditions are extinct, various other systems of pronunciation have evolved over time, notably the Yemenite,

Sephardi Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

, Ashkenazi, and Samaritan traditions.

pronunciation is also used by some to read biblical texts. The modern reading traditions do not stem solely from the Tiberian system; for instance, the Sephardic tradition's distinction between qamatz gadol and qatan is pre-Tiberian. However, the only orthographic system used to mark vowels is the Tiberian vocalization.

Phonology

The phonology as reconstructed for Biblical Hebrew is as follows:

Consonants

Consonants lost and gained during the lifetime of Biblical Hebrew are color-coded respectively. The phonetic nature of some Biblical Hebrew consonants is disputed. The so-called "emphatics" were likely

, but possibly

or velarized. The pharyngealization of emphatic consonants is viewed as a Central Semitic innovation. Some argue that were affricated (), but Egyptian starts using ''s'' in place of earlier ''ṯ'' to represent Canaanite ''s'' around 1000 BC. It is likely that Canaanite was already dialectally split by that time and the northern, Early Phoenician dialect that the Greeks were in contact with could have preserved the affricate pronunciation until at least, unlike the more southern Canaanite dialects (like Hebrew) that the Egyptians were in contact with, so that there is no contradiction. Originally, the Hebrew letters and each represented two possible phonemes, uvular and pharyngeal, with the distinction unmarked in Hebrew orthography. However the uvular phonemes and merged with their pharyngeal counterparts and respectively c. 200 BCE. This is observed by noting that these phonemes are distinguished consistently in the

of the Pentateuch (e.g.

Isaac Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was th ...

= versus

Rachel Rachel () was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban. Her older sister was Leah, Jacob's first wife. Her aun ...

= ), but this becomes more sporadic in later books and is generally absent in

Ezra Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...

and

Nehemiah Nehemiah is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period. He was governor of Persian Judea under Artaxerxes I of Persia (465–424 BC). The name is pronounced o ...

. The phoneme , is also not directly indicated by Hebrew orthography but is clearly attested by later developments: It is written with (also used for ) but later merged with (normally indicated with ). As a result, three etymologically distinct phonemes can be distinguished through a combination of spelling and pronunciation: written , written , and (pronounced but written ). The specific pronunciation of as is based on comparative evidence ( is the corresponding

Proto-Semitic Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic '' Urheimat''; scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant ( ...

phoneme and still attested in Modern South Arabian languages as well as early borrowings (e.g. ''balsam'' < Greek ''balsamon'' < Hebrew ''baśam''). began merging with in Late Biblical Hebrew, as indicated by interchange of orthographic and , possibly under the influence of Aramaic, and this became the rule in Mishnaic Hebrew. In all Jewish reading traditions and have merged completely; however in Samaritan Hebrew has instead merged with . Allophonic spirantization of to (known as

begadkefat Begadkefat (also begedkefet) is the name given to a phenomenon of lenition affecting the non- emphatic stop consonants of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not geminated. The name is also given to similar cases o ...

spirantization) developed sometime during the lifetime of Biblical Hebrew under the influence of Aramaic.Or perhaps

Hurrian The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...

, but this is unlikely See . This probably happened after the original Old Aramaic phonemes disappeared in the 7th century BCE, and most likely occurred after the loss of Hebrew c. 200 BCE.According to the generally accepted view, it is unlikely begadkefat spirantization occurred before the merger of and , or else and would have to be contrastive, which is cross-linguistically rare. However Blau argues that it is possible that lenited and could coexist even if pronounced identically, since one would be recognized as an alternating allophone (as apparently is the case in Nestorian Syriac). See . It is known to have occurred in Hebrew by the 2nd century CE. After a certain point this alternation became contrastive in word-medial and final position (though bearing low functional load), but in word-initial position they remained allophonic. This is evidenced both by the Tiberian vocalization's consistent use of word-initial spirants after a vowel in sandhi, as well as Rabbi

Saadia Gaon Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...

's attestation to the use of this alternation in Tiberian Aramaic at the beginning of the 10th century CE. The Dead Sea scrolls show evidence of confusion of the phonemes , e.g. ''ħmr'' for Masoretic 'he said'. However the testimony of Jerome indicates that this was a regionalism and not universal. Confusion of gutturals was also attested in later Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic (see Eruvin 53b). In Samaritan Hebrew, have generally all merged, either into , a glide or , or by vanishing completely (often creating a long vowel), except that original sometimes have reflex before .

Geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

consonants are phonemically contrastive in Biblical Hebrew. In the Secunda are never geminate. In the Tiberian tradition cannot be geminate; historically first degeminated, followed by , , and finally , as evidenced by changes in the quality of the preceding vowel.The vowel before originally geminate usually shows compensatory lengthening, e.g. 'the father' < ; with preceding tends to remain short; with original also remains short, and generally does not cause compensatory lengthening, e.g. ('he will have compassion'). See

Vowels

The vowel system of Biblical Hebrew has changed considerably over time. The following vowels are those reconstructed for the earliest stage of Hebrew, those attested by the Secunda, those of the various vocalization traditions ( Tiberian and varieties of Babylonian and

), and those of the Samaritan tradition, with vowels absent in some traditions color-coded.

Sound changes

The following sections present the vowel changes that Biblical Hebrew underwent, in approximate chronological order.

= Proto-Central-Semitic

= Proto-Semitic is the ancestral language of all the

, and in traditional reconstructions possessed 29 consonants; 6 monophthong vowels, consisting of three qualities and two lengths, , in which the long vowels occurred only in open syllables; and two diphthongs . The stress system of Proto-Semitic is unknown but it is commonly described as being much like the system of

Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...

or the modern pronunciation of Classical Arabic: If the penultimate (second last) syllable is light (has a short vowel followed by a single consonant), stress goes on the antepenult (third to last); otherwise, it goes on the penult. Various changes, mostly in morphology, took place between

and Proto-Central-Semitic, the language at the root of the

Central Semitic languages Central Semitic languages are one of the three groups of West Semitic languages, alongside Modern South Arabian languages and Ethiopian Semitic languages. Central Semitic can itself be further divided into two groups: Arabic and Northwest Se ...

. The phonemic system was inherited essentially unchanged, but the emphatic consonants may have changed their realization in Central Semitic from

s to

pharyngealized consonant Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated b ...

s. The morphology of Proto-Central-Semitic shows significant changes compared with Proto-Semitic, especially in its verbs, and is much like in Classical Arabic. Nouns in the singular were usually declined in three cases: /-u/ (nominative), /-a/ (accusative) or /-i/ (genitive). In some circumstances (but never in the

), nouns also took a final nasal after the case ending: ''nunation'' (final /-n/) occurred in some languages, ''mimation'' (final /-m/) in others. The original meaning of this marker is uncertain. In Classical Arabic, final /-n/ on nouns indicates indefiniteness and disappears when the noun is preceded by a

definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...

or otherwise becomes definite in meaning. In other languages, final /-n/ may be present whenever a noun is not in the

. Old Canaanite had mimation, of uncertain meaning, in an occurrence of the word ''urušalemim'' (

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

) as given in an Egyptian transcription. Broken plural forms in Arabic are declined like singulars, and often take singular agreement as well. Dual and "strong plural" forms use endings with a long vowel or diphthong, declined in only two cases: nominative and objective (combination accusative/genitive), with the objective form often becoming the default one after the loss of case endings. Both Hebrew and Arabic had a special form of nunation/mimation that co-occurred with the dual and masculine sound plural endings whenever the noun was not in the construct state. The endings were evidently felt as an inherent part of the ending and, as a result, are still used. Examples are Arabic strong masculine plural ''-ūna'' (nominative), ''-īna'' (objective), and dual endings ''-āni'' (nominative), ''-ayni'' (objective); corresponding construct-state endings are ''-ū, -ī'' (strong masculine plural), ''-ā, -ay'' (dual). (The strong feminine endings in Classical Arabic are ''-ātu'' nominative, ''-āti'' objective, marked with a singular-style ''-n'' nunation in the indefinite state only.) Hebrew has almost lost the broken plural (if it ever had it), and any vestigial forms that may remain have been extended with the strong plural endings. The dual and strong plural endings were likely much like the Arabic forms given above at one point, with only the objective-case forms ultimately surviving. For example, dual ''-ayim'' is probably from ''*-aymi'' with an extended mimation ending (cf. Arabic ''-ayni'' above), while dual construct ''-ē'' is from ''*-ay'' without mimation. Similarly, ''-īm'' < ''*-īma'', ''-ōt'' < ''*-āti''. (Note that expected plural construct state ''*-ī'' was replaced by dual ''-ē''.) Feminine nouns at this point ended in a suffix /-at-/ or /-t-/ and took normal case endings. When the ending /-at-/ became final because of loss or non-presence of the case ending, both Hebrew and Arabic show a later shift to /-ah/ and then . The final /t/ consonant therefore is silent in the absolute state, but becomes /t/ again in the construct state and when these words take suffixes, e.g. תֹורָה /toːraː/ "law" becomes תֹורַת /toːrat/ "law of", and תֹורָתְךָ /toːraːtəxaː/ "your law", etc. (This is equivalent to the Arabic letter Tāʼ Marbūṭah ة, a modified final form of the letter He ه which indicates this same phoneme shifting, and only its pronunciation varies between construct and absolute state.)

= Canaanite shift

= Hebrew shows the Canaanite shift whereby often shifted to ; the conditions of this shift are disputed.In fact, its scope of application is different in Samaritan and Tiberian Hebrew (e.g. 'here' Tiberian vs. Samaritan ), see . Even in Tiberian Hebrew doublets are found, e.g. = ('zealous'). See This shift had occurred by the 14th century BCE, as demonstrated by its presence in the Amarna letters ().

= Proto-Hebrew

= As a result of the Canaanite shift, the Proto-Hebrew vowel system is reconstructed as (and possibly rare ). Furthermore, stress at this point appears to have shifted so that it was consistently on the penultimate (next to last) syllable, and was still non-phonemic. The predominant final stress of Biblical Hebrew was a result of loss of final unstressed vowels and a shift away from remaining open syllables (see below).

= Loss of final unstressed vowels

= Final unstressed short vowels dropped out in most words, making it possible for long vowels to occur in closed syllables. This appears to have proceeded in two steps: #Final short mood, etc. markers dropped in verbal forms. #Final short case markers dropped in nominal forms. Vowel lengthening in stressed, open syllables occurred ''between'' the two steps, with the result that short vowels at the beginning of a -VCV ending lengthened in nouns but not verbs. This is most noticeable with short : e.g. ''*kataba'' ('he wrote') > but ''*dabara'' ('word' acc.') > . The dropping of final short vowels in verb forms tended to erase mood distinctions, but also some gender distinctions; however, unexpected vowel lengthening occurred in many situations to preserve the distinctions. For example, in the suffix conjugation, first-singular *''-tu'' appears to have been remade into *''-tī'' already by Proto-Hebrew on the basis of possessive ''-ī'' (likewise first singular personal pronoun ''*ʔana'' became ''*ʔanī''). Similarly, in the second-singular, inherited ''*-ta -ti'' competed with lengthened ''*-tā -tī'' for masculine and feminine forms. The expected result would be ''-t'' or ''-tā'' for masculine, ''-t'' or ''-tī'' for feminine, and in fact both variants of both forms are found in the Bible (with ''-h'' marking the long ''-ā'' and ''-y'' marking the long ''-ī''). The situation appears to have been quite fluid for several centuries, with ''-t'' and ''-tā/tī'' forms found in competition both in writing and in speech (cf. the Secunda (Hexapla) of

, which records both pronunciations, although quite often in disagreement with the written form as passed down to us). Ultimately, writing stabilized on the shorter ''-t'' for both genders, while speech chose feminine ''-t'' but masculine ''-tā''. This is the reason for the unexpected qamatz vowel written under the final letter of such words. The exact same process affected possessive ''*-ka'' ('your' masc. sing.) and ''*-ki'' ('your' fem. sing.), and personal pronouns ''*ʔanta, *ʔanti'', with the same split into shorter and longer forms and the same ultimate resolution.

= Short vowel lengthening (esp. pretonic), lowering

= The short vowels tended to lengthen in various positions. *First, short vowels lengthened in an open syllable in pretonic position (i.e. directly before the stressed syllable). *Later, short vowels lengthened in stressed open syllables.Parallels to Aramaic syllable structure suggest pretonic lengthening may have occurred in the Second Temple period. See In the process of lengthening, the high vowels were lowered. In the Secunda, the lengthened reflexes of are ; when kept short they generally have reflexes .Long were written as , while short were written . This length distinction is also found in the LXX. See , , and In the Secunda are preserved as short in syllables closed by two consonants and in the third syllable before the stress. See

= Reduction of short open stressed syllables

= Stressed open syllables with a short vowel (i.e. syllables consisting of a short vowel followed by a consonant and another vowel) had the vowel reduced to and the stressed moved one syllable later in the word (usually to the last syllable of the word). Stress was originally penultimate and loss of final short vowels made many words have final stress. However, words whose final syllable had a long vowel or ended with a consonant were unaffected and still had penultimate stress at this point. This change did not happen in pausal position, where the penultimate stress is preserved, and vowel lengthening rather than reduction occurs. The previous three changes occurred in a complex, interlocking fashion: # Shift of stress to be universally penultimate. # Loss of final short vowels in verbs, pre-stress lengthening in open syllables. Pre-stress lengthening/lowering becomes a surface filter that remains as a rule in the language, automatically affected any new short vowels in open syllables as they appear (but ultra-short vowels are unaffected). # Stress movement from light syllable to following heavy syllable when not in pausa, with newly unstressed light syllable reducing the schwa. # Tonic lengthening/lowering in open syllables. # Loss of final short vowels in nouns. Examples: Note that many, perhaps most, Hebrew words with a schwa directly before a final stress are due to this stress shift. This sound change shifted many more originally penultimate-stressed words to have final stress. The above changes can be seen to divide words into a number of main classes based on stress and syllable properties: # Proto-Hebrew words with an open penult and short-vowel ending: Become final-stressed (e.g. ('he killed') < PHeb. ). # Proto-Hebrew words with a closed penult and short-vowel ending: Become penultimate due to segholate rule (e.g. ('king') < ). # Proto-Hebrew words with an open short penult and longer ending: Become final-stressed due to stress shift (e.g. ('they killed') < PHeb. ). # Proto-Hebrew words with a closed penult and longer ending: Remain penultimate (e.g. ('I killed') < PHeb. ). # Proto-Hebrew words with an open long penult and longer ending: ???

= Pre-stress reduction of short vowel

= were reduced to in the second syllable before the stress, and occasionally reduced rather than lengthened in pretonic position, especially when initial (e.g. σεμω = 'his name').The Secunda also has a few cases of pretonic gemination. See . Thus the vowel system of the Secunda was .

= Later developments

= The later Jewish traditions (Tiberian, Babylonian, Palestinian) show similar vowel developments. By the Tiberian time, all short vowels in stressed syllables and open pretonic lengthened, making vowel length allophonic.In fact, first all stressed vowels were lengthened in pause, see . This can be seen by forms like Tiberian < , pausal < < < . The shift in Tiberian Hebrew of > occurred after this lengthening, but before the loss of phonemicity of length (since words like with allophonically long don't show this shift). Vowels in open or stressed syllables had allophonic length (e.g. in ('he will have mercy') < previously short < by Tiberian degemination of < PSem ).This is attested to by the testimony of Rabbi Joseph Qimḥi (12th century) and by medieval Arabic transcriptions, see . There is also possible evidence from the cantillation marks' behavior and Babylonian pataḥ, see . The Babylonian and Palestinian vocalizations systems also do not mark vowel length. In the Tiberian and Babylonian systems, and lengthened become the back vowel . In unaccented closed syllables, become (Tiberian), (Babylonian), or (Palestinian) – generally becoming the second vowel before geminates (e.g. ) and the first otherwise.The Palestinian reflexes of Tiberian ( and ) thus reflect the qamatz gadol-qamatz qatan distinction. In the Tiberian tradition pretonic vowels are reduced more commonly than in the Secunda. It does not occur for , but is occasional for (e.g. 'nails' < ), and is common for (e.g. 'open place' < ). In Tiberian Hebrew pretonic is most commonly preserved by geminating the following consonant, e.g. ('red' pl.) (cf. 'red' sg.); this pretonic gemination is also found in some forms with other vowels like ⁓ ('prisoner'). The Babylonian and Palestinian systems have only one reduced vowel phoneme like the Secunda, though in Palestinian Hebrew it developed the pronunciation . However the Tiberian tradition possesses three reduced vowels of which has questionable phonemicity.See ('ships') ('I'), ('sickness') ('ornament'), ('ascend!') (Num 21:17) and (' ith thepestle'; Prov 27:22). alternates with frequently and rarely contrasts with it, e.g. ('

Edom Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east.N ...

') versus ('Edomite'). is clearly phonemic but bears minimal functional load. is written both with ''mobile šwa'' ⟨‌ְ ⟩ and ''hataf patah'' ⟨‌ֲ ⟩. under a non-guttural letter was pronounced as an ultrashort copy of the following vowel before a guttural, e.g. , and as preceding , e.g. , but was always pronounced as under gutturals, e.g. . When reduced, etymological become under gutturals (e.g. 'you p.said' cf. 'he said'), and generally under non-gutturals, but > (and rarely > ) may still occur, especially after stops (or their spirantized counterparts) and (e.g. /dɔ̆ˈmi/). Samaritan and Qumran Hebrew have full vowels in place of the reduced vowels of Tiberian Hebrew. Samaritan Hebrew also does not reflect etymological vowel length; however the elision of guttural consonants has created new phonemic vowel length, e.g. ('great') vs. ('wide'). (while Ben-Hayyim notates four degrees of vowel length, he concedes that only his "fourth degree" has phonemic value) Samaritan Hebrew vowels are allophonically lengthened (to a lesser degree) in open syllables, e.g. , , though this is less strong in post-tonic vowels. Pretonic gemination is also found in Samaritan Hebrew, but not always in the same locations as in Tiberian Hebrew, e.g. TH SH ; TH SH . While Proto-Hebrew long vowels usually retain their vowel quality in the later traditions of Hebrew, in Samaritan Hebrew may have reflex in closed stressed syllables, e.g. /, may become either or , and > . The reduced vowels of the other traditions appear as full vowels, though there may be evidence that Samaritan Hebrew once had similar vowel reduction. Samaritan results from the neutralization of the distinction between and in closed post-tonic syllables, e.g. ('house') ('the house') . Various more specific conditioned shifts of vowel quality have also occurred. Diphthongs were frequently monophthongized, but the scope and results of this shift varied among dialects. In particular, the Samaria ostraca show < < For > , see above. The Semitic form was borrowed into

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

as , eventually yielding Latin ''vīnum'' and English ''wine''. for Southern ('wine'), and Samaritan Hebrew shows instead the shift > . Original tended to shift to (e.g. and 'word'; 'outside' and 'outer') beginning in the second half of the second millennium BCE. This was carried through completely in Samaritan Hebrew but met more resistance in other traditions such as the Babylonian and Qumran traditions. Philippi's law is the process by which original in closed stressed syllables shifts to (e.g. > 'daughter'), or sometimes in the Tiberian tradition (e.g. > 'truth').Note that this does not become in pause, thus has a patah vowel in pause as well as in context. This is absent in the transcriptions of the Secunda, but there is evidence that the law's onset predates the Secunda. In the Samaritan tradition Philippi's law is applied consistently, e.g. > ('heart').The only known case where Philippi's Law does not apply is in the word < ('nest'). The shift > has been extended by analogy to similar forms, e.g. > ('name'; but > 'reputation'!). In some traditions the short vowel tended to shift to in unstressed closed syllables: this is known as the law of attenuation. It is common in the Tiberian tradition, e.g. > Tiberian ('seven'), but exceptions are frequent. It is less common in the Babylonian vocalization, e.g. ('seven'), and differences in Greek and Latin transcriptions demonstrate that it began quite late. Attenuation generally did not occur before , e.g. Tiberian ('key') versus ('opening onstruct), and often was blocked before a geminate, e.g. ('gift'). Attenuation is rarely present in Samaritan Hebrew, e.g. .Verbal forms such as = Samaritan < may be examples of Barth's law rather than attenuation. In the Tiberian tradition take offglide before .This is known as ''pataḥ furtivum'', literally 'stolen pataḥ' and perhaps a mistranslation of Hebrew ('pataḥ of the stolen etter), as if were being inserted. See This is absent in the Secunda and in Samaritan Hebrew but present in the transcriptions of Jerome. In the Tiberian tradition an ultrashort echo vowel is sometimes added to clusters where the first element is a guttural, e.g. ('he will listen') ('his work') but ('he will make glorious') 'its breadth'.It is evident that this epenthesis must have been a late phenomenon, since a short vowel preceding a guttural is preserved even though it becomes in an open syllable, see .This is less common when the consonant following the guttural is a

letter, e.g. ('you take in pledge'). This suggests that begadkefat spirantization was no longer automatic by the time that this epenthesis occurred, see The following charts summarize the most common reflexes of the Proto-Semitic vowels in the various stages of Hebrew:

# Samaritan vowels may be lengthened in the presence of etymological guttural consonants. results from both and in closed post-tonic syllables. # under the conditions of the law of attenuation # under the conditions of Phillipi's law # Samaritan are nearly in complementary distribution ( in open syllables, in closed syllables) # lengthening occurs in some open pretonic syllables and some stressed syllables; precise conditions depend on the vowel and on the tradition # reduction occurs in the open syllables two syllables away from the stress and sometimes also in pretonic and stressed open syllables # effectively in most closed syllables # more common before geminate consonants # Samaritan Hebrew has full vowels when the other traditions have reduced vowels, but these do not always correlate with their Proto-Hebrew ancestors

Stress

Proto-Hebrew generally had penultimate stress.For the purposes of vowel quality shifts, words in the

are treated as if the stress fell immediately on the first syllable following the word. See The ultimate stress of later traditions of Hebrew usually resulted from the loss of final vowels in many words, preserving the location of proto-Semitic stress.Additionally, short stressed vowels in open syllables were reduced and lost stress, leading to ultimate stress in forms like < . In Tiberian Hebrew some words have penultimate stress in pause (before a break in reading), but ultimate stress in context, such as and ('she watched'), because the penultimate vowel in the original form lengthened in pause, while in context it was not lengthened, and then lost the stress and was reduced due to this sound shift. See Tiberian Hebrew has phonemic stress, e.g. ('they built') vs. ('in us'); stress is most commonly ultimate, less commonly penultimate, and antipenultimate stress exists marginally, e.g. ('into the tent').It is not clear that a reduced vowel should be considered as comprising a whole syllable. Note for example that the rule whereby a word's stress shifts to a preceding open syllable to avoid being adjacent to another stressed syllable skips over ultrashort vowels, e.g. ('with those who go down into the pit') ('pierced with a sword'). See There does not seem to be evidence for stress in the Secunda varying from that of the Tiberian tradition. Despite sharing the loss of final vowels with Tiberian Hebrew, Samaritan Hebrew has generally not preserved Proto-Semitic stress, and has predominantly penultimate stress, with occasional ultimate stress. There is evidence that Qumran Hebrew had a similar stress pattern to Samaritan Hebrew.

Grammar

Medieval grammarians of Arabic and Hebrew classified words as belonging to three parts of speech: Arabic ''ism'' ('noun'), ''fiʻl'' ('verb'), and ''ḥarf'' ('particle'); other grammarians have included more categories. In particular, adjectives and nouns show more affinity to each other than in most European languages. Biblical Hebrew has a typical Semitic morphology, characterized by the use of roots. Most words in Biblical Hebrew are formed from a ''root'', a sequence of consonants with a general associated meaning. Roots are usually triconsonantal, with biconsonantal roots less common (depending on how some words are analyzed) and rare cases of quadri- and quinquiconsonantal roots. Roots are modified by affixation to form words. Verbal patterns are more productive and consistent, while noun patterns are less predictable.

Nouns and adjectives

The most common nominal prefix used is , used for substantives of location ( 'assembly'), instruments ( 'key'), and abstractions ( 'judgement'). The vowel after is normally , but appears sometimes as , or in the case of as (contracted from ). The prefix is used to denote the action of the verb; it is derived from more common for initial- verbs, e.g. ('thanksgiving'; < ydy). Prefixed is used in adjectives, e.g. ('deceptive'), and also occurs in nouns with initial sibilants, e.g. ('finger'). In the latter case this prefix was added for phonetic reasons, and the prefix is called either "prothetic" or "prosthetic". Prefixed often occurs in quadriliteral animal names, perhaps as a prefix, e.g. ('bat'), ('mouse'), ('scorpion'). In proto-Semitic nouns were marked for case: in the singular the markers were in the nominative, in the

accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...

(used also for adverbials), and in the genitive, as evidenced in Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Arabic. The Amarna letters show that this was probably still present in Hebrew In the development of Hebrew, final were dropped first, and later was elided as well.

Mimation Mimation refers to the suffixed ' (the letter mem in many Semitic abjads) which occurs in some Semitic languages. This occurs in Akkadian on singular nouns.It has been suggested that the construct forms , have long lacking in the absolute because the later stem from forms like > (because Proto-Semitic did not allow long vowels in closed syllables) > (loss of mimation and final short vowel), see Final is preserved in , originally meaning 'at night' but in prose replacing ('night'), and in the "connective vowels" of some prepositions (originally adverbials), e.g. ('with us'); nouns preserve in forms like .The unstressed suffix -ה in words like ('to the earth'), occurring also in exclamations like and used ornamentally in poetry, e.g. , may have originally terminated in consonantal which was later elided, following the suffix . This is evidenced by Ugaritic orthography, almost purely consonantal, where appears with , see Construct state nouns lost case vowels at an early period (similar to Akkadian), as shown by the reflexes of ( in absolute but in construct) and the reflexes of ( and ) However forms like show that this was not yet a feature of Proto-Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew has two genders, masculine and feminine, which are reflected in nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs. Hebrew distinguishes between singular and plural numbers, and plural forms may also be used for collectives and honorifics. Hebrew has a morphological dual form for nouns that naturally occur in pairs, and for units of measurement and time this contrasts with the plural ( 'day' 'two days' 'days'). A widespread misconception is that the Hebrew plural denotes three or more objects. In truth, it denotes two or more objects. However adjectives, pronouns, and verbs do not have dual forms, and most nominal dual forms can function as plurals ( 'six wings' from Isaiah 6:2). Finite verbs are marked for subject person, number, and gender. Nouns also have a construct form which is used in genitive constructions. Nouns are marked as definite with the prefix /ha-/ followed by gemination of the initial consonant of the noun. In Tiberian Hebrew the vowel of the article may become or in certain phonetic environments, for example ('the wise man'), ('the man'). The traditions differ on the form of segolate nouns, nouns stemming from roots with two final consonants. The anaptyctic of the Tiberian tradition in segolates appears in the Septuagint (3rd century BCE) but not the Hexapla (2nd century CE), e.g. = Γαθερ versus = Χεσλ (Psalms 49:14). This may reflect dialectal variation or phonetic versus phonemic transcriptions. Both the Palestinian and Babylonian traditions have an anaptyctic vowel in segolates, in the Palestinian tradition (e.g. 'land' = Tiberian Deuteronomy 26:15) and in Babylonian (e.g. 'item' = Tiberian Jeremiah 22:28). The Qumran tradition sometimes shows some type of back epenthetic vowel when the first vowel is back, e.g. for Tiberian ('tent'). Biblical Hebrew has two sets of personal pronouns: the free-standing independent pronouns have a nominative function, while the pronominal suffixes are genitive or accusative. Only the first person suffix has different possessive and objective forms ( and ).

Verbs

Verbal consonantal roots are placed into derived verbal stems, known as ''binyanim'' in Hebrew; the binyanim mainly serve to indicate

grammatical voice In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to form ...

. This includes various distinctions of reflexivity, passivity, and causativity. Verbs of all binyanim have three non-finite forms (one

participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

, two

infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...

s), three modal forms (

cohortative In linguistics, hortative modalities (; abbreviated ) are verbal expressions used by the speaker to encourage or discourage an action. Different hortatives can be used to express greater or lesser intensity, or the speaker's attitude, for or a ...

, imperative, jussive), and two major conjugations (prefixing, suffixing).The modal forms may be taken to form a single volitional class, as cohortative is used in first person, imperative (or prefixing) in second person positive, jussive (or prefixing) in second person negative, and jussive in third person. They also overlap semantically, for example a jussive form like 'May my soul ...' is semantically equivalent to a cohortative like 'May I ...'. However, the three moods stem from different classes in proto-West-Semitic. As preserved in Classical Arabic, there were originally three prefix tenses, indicative ''yaqtulu'', jussive ''yaqtul'', and subjunctive ''yaqtula'', which existed for every person. In Biblical Hebrew, ''yaqtulu'' developed into the prefixing class, while ''yaqtul'' remained the jussive and ''yaqtula'' the cohortative. For most roots in Biblical Hebrew, the jussive form is identical to the indicative form. (Differentiation is typical of forms with "long" and "short" forms, e.g. indicative , jussive ; indicative , jussive ) See and . The meaning of the prefixing and suffixing conjugations are also affected by the conjugation , and their meaning with respect to tense and

is a matter of debate.

Word order

The default word order in Biblical Hebrew is commonly thought to be VSO, though one scholar has argued that this is due to the prevalence of clauses with a ''wayyiqtol'' verb form compared to other less marked forms that use SVO either more often or at least to a comparable degree. Attributive adjectives normally follow the noun they modify. In Biblical Hebrew, possession is normally expressed with status constructus, a construction in which the possessed noun occurs in a phonologically reduced, "construct" form and is followed by the possessor noun in its normal, "absolute" form. Pronominal direct objects are either suffixed to the verb or alternatively expressed on the object-marking pronoun .

Tense and aspect

Biblical Hebrew has two main conjugation types, the suffix conjugation, also called the Perfect, and the prefix conjugation, also called Imperfect. The Perfect verb form expressed the idea of the verb as a completed action, viewing it from start to finish as a whole, and not focusing on the process by which the verb came to be completed, stating it as a simple fact. This is often used in the past tense, however there are some contexts in which a Perfect verb translates into the present and future tenses. The Imperfect portrays the verb as an incomplete action along with the process by which it came about, either as an event that has not begun, an event that has begun but is still in the process, or a habitual or cyclic action that is on an ongoing repetition. The Imperfect can also express modal or conditional verbs, as well as commands in the Jussive and Cohortative moods. It is conjectured that the imperfect can express modal quality through the paragogic nun added to certain imperfect forms. While often future tense, it also has uses in the past and present under certain contexts. Biblical Hebrew tense is not necessarily reflected in the verb forms per se, but rather is determined primarily by context. The Participles also reflect ongoing or continuous actions, but are also subject to the context determining their tense. The verbal forms can be Past Tense in these circumstances: * ''Perfect, Simple Past'': in narrative, reflects a simple completed action, perception, emotion or mental process, and can also be past tense from the perspective of a prior verb which is used in future tense * ''Imperfect, Waw Consecutive Preterite'': simple past tense which takes the וַ prefix as a conjunction, appears at the beginning of a clause when it's connected in a narrative sequence with previous clauses, where the conjunction can be translated as 'and then', 'then', 'but', 'however', sometimes is not translated at all, and can even have a parenthetical function as if suggesting the clause is like a side note to the main focus of the narrative * ''Imperfect, Past'': reflecting not just a past action but also suggesting the process with which it was being done, e.g.: "I brought the horse to a halt", "I began to hear" * ''Imperfect, Cyclic Past'': reflecting a habitual or cyclic action over time, e.g. "this is what Job would always do" * ''Participle in Past Tense'': an active or passive Participle being used in its imperfect verbal sense in the past, e.g. "and the Spirit of God was hovering" The verbal forms can be Present Tense in these circumstances: * ''Perfect, Proverbial/General Present'': a general truth in the present tense which is not referring to a specific event, e.g. "the sun sets in the west" * ''Perfect, Stative Present'': present tense with verbs that depict a state of being rather than an action, including verbs of perception, emotion or mental process, e.g. "I love", "I hate", "I understand", "I know" * ''Perfect, Present Perfect'': a Present Perfect verb, e.g. "I have walked" * ''Imperfect, Present Condition'': an Imperfect verb in the present, one which implies that an action has been going on for some time and is still ongoing in the present, especially used of questions in the present, e.g. "what are you seeking?" * ''Imperfect, Cyclic Present'': an Imperfect verb in the present, reflecting a cyclic action in the present, e.g. "it is being said in the city", "a son makes his father glad" * ''Participle in Present Tense'': an active or passive Participle being used in its imperfect verbal sense in the present, e.g. "I am going" The verbal forms can be Future Tense in these circumstances: * ''Perfect, Waw Consecutive Future'': by analogy to the Preterite, a simple future tense verb which takes the וְ prefix as a conjunction, appears at the beginning of a clause when it's connected in a narrative sequence with previous clauses, where the conjunction can be translated as 'and then', 'then', 'but', 'however', sometimes is not translated at all, and can even have a parenthetical function as if suggesting the clause is like a side note to the main focus of the narrative * ''Perfect, Waw Consecutive Subjunctive'': takes the וְ prefix as a conjunction to continue the Subjunctive Mood in a narrative sequence * ''Perfect, Waw Consecutive Jussive/Cohortative'': takes the וְ prefix as a conjunction to continue the Jussive and Cohortative Moods in a narrative sequence * ''Perfect, Promise Future'': the completeness of the verb form here expresses an imminent action in the context of promises, threats and the language of contracts and covenants in general, e.g. "I will give you this land", "will I have this pleasure?" * ''Perfect, Prophetic Future'': the completeness of the verb form here expresses an imminent action in the context of prophecy, e.g. "you will go into exile" * ''Imperfect, Future'': reflects a future event which has not yet come into completion, or one that has not yet begun, or future tense from the perspective of a prior verb which is used in past tense * ''Imperfect, Subjunctive'': reflects a potential, theoretical or modal verb, such as in conditional clauses, e.g. "If you go...", "she should stay" * ''Imperfect, Jussive/Cohortative'': reflects a non-immediate command, invitation, permission or wishful request, e.g. "let there be light", "you may eat from the tree", "let's go", "O that someone would get me a drink"

Sample text

The following is a sample from Psalm 18 as appears in the Masoretic text with medieval Tiberian niqqud and cantillation and the Greek transcription of the Secunda of the Hexapla along with its reconstructed pronunciation.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.

External links

*Biblical Hebrew Resources
Resources for the Study of Biblical Hebrew
Prof. E. Ben Zvi,

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...

** Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew Lexicon – with an appendix containing Biblical Aramaic (Wikisource)
Free resources to study Biblical Hebrew online
eHebrew.net *Grammar, vocabulary and writing
The Handy-Dandy Hebrew Grammar Chart
Prof. Shawn Madden,

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in Wake Forest, North Carolina. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. in Wake Forest, North Carolina. It was created in 1950 to meet a need in ...

.
Basic Biblical Hebrew Grammar (introductory)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biblical Hebrew Canaanite languages

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Hebrew words and phrases Languages attested from the 10th century BC Languages extinct in the 1st century Sacred languages