CONNECTIONS No. 1

WIDE ANGLE
H E B R E W
W I T H P E R R Y Z A M E K
Pour moi, c'est de l'hébreu ('It’s all Greek to me!')
The Hebrew language originated in the Middle
East, as the language of the Hebrews, the
descendants of Abraham.
Written Hebrew uses an alphabet of 22 letters, of
which five have specialised forms, that appear
only at the ends of words. The letters are all
consonants. Vowels are determined by context,
with the result that the same string of consonants
may represent different words (these may be
different parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, or
adjectives). A written vocalisation system (vowel
points) entered the Hebrew language later.
Hebrew books, particularly the Bible and the
Talmud, were among the first to be printed after
the introduction of movable type printing, and
almost from the outset there were at least two
fonts – a square font for the principal text, and a
quasi-cursive font (often called Rashi script) for
the surrounding commentaries.
Although Hebrew was the language of the Bible
and of the Jewish religion, it fell into disuse some
two thousand years ago, as the majority of Jews
resided outside of their own land. It was only in
Jewish religious texts that Hebrew remained an
“active” language. The modern revival of Hebrew
began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
and accelerated with the establishment of the
State of Israel, with terminology being created
from ancient word roots to fit modern needs.
It is sometimes appropriate to differentiate
between the Hebrew language and Hebrew script.
The latter is used for other Jewish languages:
Yiddish (a Judeo-German dialect), Judeo-Arabic,
and Aramaic as used in Jewish religious texts,
such as the Talmud. Consequently, some
agencies or clients may ask a Hebrew translator
to translate a text in “Hebrew,” which turns out to
be in Yiddish or Aramaic.