Biblical Hebrew language

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The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, found at Khirbet Qeiyafa

Khirbet Qeiyafa

Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient city overlooking the Elah Valley. The ruins of the fortress were uncovered in 2007, near the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, 20 miles from Jerusalem. It covers nearly six acres and is encircled by a 700-meter long city wall constructed of stones weighing...

, dates to the 10th century BCE. The 15 cm x 16.5 cm (5.9 in x 6.5 in) trapezoid pottery sherd

Sherd

In archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well....

 (ostracon

Ostracon

An ostracon is a piece of pottery , usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In archaeology, ostraca may contain scratched-in words or other forms of writing which may give clues as to the time when the piece was in use...

) has five lines of text written in ink written in the Proto-Canaanite alphabet

Proto-Canaanite alphabet

Proto-Canaanite is the name given to the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan. the early Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE. The Phoenician, Hebrew, and other Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before that time...

 (the old form of the Phoenician alphabet). 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 adopted the Phoenician script

Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...

 around the 12th century BCE, as found in the Gezer calender (c. 10th century BCE). This script developed into the Paleo-Hebrew script in the 10th or 9th centuries BCE. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet's main differences from from the Phoenician script were "a curving to the left of the dowstrokes in the 'long-legged' letter-signs... the consistent use of a Waw with a concave top, [and an] x-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

Mesha Stele

The Mesha Stele is a black basalt stone bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC ruler Mesha of Moab in Jordan....

 in the Moabite language

Moabite language

The Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language, spoken in Moab in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the El-Kerak Stela. The main features distinguishing Moabite from fellow Canaanite languages such as Hebrew are: a...

 (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

Samaritan alphabet

The Samaritan alphabet 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....

.

By the end of the First Temple period the Aramaic script

Aramaic alphabet

The Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BC. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels....

, 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

Tetragrammaton

The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...

 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 Mishnaic Hebrew, 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 Sephardi and Ashkenazi book-hand styles were later adapted to printed fonts after the invention of the printing press. The modern Hebrew alphabet

Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...

, 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 <ח, ע, ש> could each mark two different phonemes. After a sound shift the letters ח, ע could only mark one phoneme, but (except in Samaritan Hebrew) ש still marked two. The old Babylonian vocalization system wrote a superscript ס above the ש to indicate it took the value /s/, while the Masoretes added the shin dot to distinguish between the two varieties of the letter.

The original Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants, but gradually the letters א, ה, ו, י, 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 בֵּית in construct state but retained its spelling. While no examples of early Hebrew orthography have been found, older Phoenician and Moabite

Moabite language

The Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language, spoken in Moab in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the El-Kerak Stela. The main features distinguishing Moabite from fellow Canaanite languages such as Hebrew are: a...

 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 לפנ and ז for later לפני and זה, similarly to the Hebrew Gezer Calendar

Gezer calendar

The Gezer calendar is a tablet of soft limestone inscription, dating to the 10th century BCE. Scholars are divided as to whether the script and language are Phoenician or paleo-Hebrew, which were linguistically very similar in this period....

, which has for instance שערמ for שעורים and possibly ירח 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

Siloam inscription

The Siloam inscription or Silwan inscription is a passage of inscribed text found in the Hezekiah tunnel which brings water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, located in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. The inscription records the construction of the tunnel in the 8th century...

 זדה versus אש (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

Ktiv male

Ktiv hasar niqqud , are the rules for writing Hebrew without vowel pointers , often replacing them with matres lectionis . To avoid confusion, consonantal ו and י are doubled in the middle of words...

, 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

Samaritan Pentateuch

The Samaritan Pentateuch, sometimes called Samaritan Torah, , is a version of the Hebrew language Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, used by the Samaritans....

 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 /aː/.There are rare-cases of <א> being used medially as a true vowel letter, e.g. דָּאג for the usual דָּג 'fish'. Most cases, however, of <א> being used as a vowel letter stem from conservative spelling of words which originally contained /ʔ/, e.g. רֹאשׁ 'head' from original */raʔʃ/. 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 קֹלֹוֹת 'voices' rather than קוֹלוֹת) or when a vowel letter already marks a consonant (so גּוֹיִם 'nations' rather than גּוֹיִים*), and within the Bible there is often little consistency in spelling. See In the Qumran tradition, back vowel

Back vowel

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...

s are usually represented by whether short or long. is generally used for both long [iː] and [eː] (אבילים, מית), and final [iː] is often written as in analogy to words like היא, הביא, e.g. כיא, sometimes . is found finally in forms like (Tiberian ), (Tiberian ) while <א> 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 Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

 Septuagint (3rd-2nd centuries BCE) and the Greek alphabet transcription

Transcription (linguistics)

Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...

 of the Hebrew Biblical text contained in the Secunda

Secunda (Hexapla)

The Secunda is the second column of Origen's Hexapla, a compilation of the Hebrew bible and Greek versions. It consists of a transliteration of the Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible into Greek characters, and is the oldest coherent Hebrew text in existence...

 (3rd century CE, likely a copy of a preexisting text from before 100 BCEThe Secunda

Secunda (Hexapla)

The Secunda is the second column of Origen's Hexapla, a compilation of the Hebrew bible and Greek versions. It consists of a transliteration of the Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible into Greek characters, and is the oldest coherent Hebrew text in existence...

 is a transliteration of the Hebrew Biblical text contained in the Hexapla

Hexapla

Hexapla is the term for an edition of the Bible in six versions. Especially it applies to the edition of the Old Testament compiled by Origen of Alexandria, which placed side by side:#Hebrew...

, a recension of the Old Testament compiled by Origen

Origen

Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...

 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 <η αι> were pronounced [iː ɛː], a merger which had already begun around 100 BCE, while in the Secunda they are used to represent Hebrew /eː aj/. 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 Tiberian vocalization

Tiberian vocalization

The Tiberian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible; this system soon became used to vocalize other texts as well...

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

Babylonian vocalization

The Babylonian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to indicate vowel quality, reflecting the Hebrew of Babylon...

 and Palestinian

Palestinian vocalization

The Palestinian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to indicate vowel quality, reflecting the Hebrew of Palestine...

), 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

Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...

. 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

Samson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....

 is recorded in Greek as Σαμψών Sampsōn with the first vowel as /a/, while Tiberian שִמְשוֹן /ʃimʃon/ with /i/ shows the effect of the law of attenuation whereby /a/ in closed unstressed syllables became /i/. 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

Nahmanides

Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, , was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator.-Name:"Nahmanides" is a Greek-influenced formation meaning "son of Naḥman"...

 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 cantillation

Cantillation

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points...

 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

Yemenite Hebrew language

Yemenite Hebrew , also referred to as Temani Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and liturgical Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews brought their language to Israel through immigration. Their first organized immigration to the region began in 1882.It is believed...

, Sephardi

Sephardi Hebrew language

Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice...

, Ashkenazi

Ashkenazi Hebrew

Ashkenazi Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by languages with which it came into contact, such as Yiddish, German, and various Slavic languages...

, and Samaritan

Samaritan Hebrew language

Samaritan Hebrew , is a reading tradition for Biblical Hebrew as used by the Samaritans for reading the Samaritan Pentateuch. Its pronunciation is highly similar to that of Samaritan Arabic, used by the Samaritans in prayer.-Orthography:...

 traditions. Modern Hebrew

Modern Hebrew

Modern Hebrew , also known as Israeli Hebrew or Modern Israeli Hebrew, is the language spoken in Israel and in some Jewish communities worldwide, from the early 20th century to the present....

 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.

Biblical Hebrew consonants

		Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...	Dental/ Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...			Post- alveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... / Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...		Pharyn- geal Pharyngeal consonant A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.-Pharyngeal consonants in the IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :...	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Nasals Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...		m	n
Stops Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...	voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...	p	t					k			ʔ
	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...	b	d					ɡ
	emphatic Emphatic consonant Emphatic consonant is a term widely used in Semitic linguistics to describe one of a series of obstruent consonants which originally contrasted with series of both voiced and voiceless obstruents. In specific Semitic languages, the members of this series may be realized as pharyngealized,...		tʼ					kʼ/q
Fricatives Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants 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 the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...	(f)	(θ)	s	ɬ	ʃ		(x)	χ	ħ	h
	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...	(v)	(ð)	z				(ɣ)	ʁ	ʕ
	emphatic Emphatic consonant Emphatic consonant is a term widely used in Semitic linguistics to describe one of a series of obstruent consonants which originally contrasted with series of both voiced and voiceless obstruents. In specific Semitic languages, the members of this series may be realized as pharyngealized,...		sʼ
Approximants Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...		w	l				j
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....			r

The phonetic nature of some Biblical Hebrew consonants is disputed. The so called "emphatics" were likely ejective, but possibly pharyngealized or velarized. Some argue that /s, z, sʼ/ were affricated (/ts, dz, tsʼ/).

Originally, the Hebrew letters ח and ע each had two possible phonemes, uvular and pharyngeal, unmarked in Hebrew orthography. However the uvular phonemes /χ/ ח and /ʁ/ ע merged with their pharyngeal ones /ħ/ ח and /ʕ/ ע respectively c. 200 BCE. This is observed by noting that these phonemes are distinguished consistently in the Septuagint of the Pentateuch (e.g. Isaac

Isaac

Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...

  = versus Rachel

Rachel

Rachel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, is a prophet and the favorite wife of Jacob, one of the three Biblical Patriarchs, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah, Jacob's first wife...

  = ), but this becomes more sporadic in later books and is generally absent in Ezra and Nehemiah. The phoneme /ɬ/, also unmarked by Hebrew orthography, is attested by internal and comparative evidence; in particular it is preserved as a lateral fricative in Modern South Arabian dialects. /ɬ/ began merging with /s/ in Late Biblical Hebrew, as indicated by interchange of orthographic ⟨ש⟩ and ⟨ס⟩, possibly under the influence of Aramaic, and this became the rule in Mishnaic Hebrew. In all Jewish reading traditions /ɬ/ and /s/ have merged completely; however in Samaritan Hebrew /ɬ/ has instead merged with /ʃ/.

Allophonic spirantization of /b ɡ d k p t/ to [v ɣ ð x f θ] (known as begadkefat

Begadkefat

Begadkefat is the name given to a phenomenon of spirantization affecting most plosive consonants of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not geminated...

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

Hurrian language

Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians , a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in...

, but this is unlikely See . This probably happened after the original Old Aramaic phonemes /θ, ð/ disappeared in the 7th century BCE, and most likely occurred after the loss of Hebrew /χ, ʁ/ c. 200 BCE.According to the generally accepted view, it is unlikely begadkefat spirantization occurred before the merger of /χ, ʁ/ and /ħ, ʕ/, or else [x, χ] and [ɣ, ʁ] would have to be contrastive, which is cross-linguistically rare. However Blau argues that it is possible that lenited /k/ and /χ/ 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

Functional load

In linguistics and especially phonology, functional load refers to the importance of certain features in making distinctions in a language...

), but in word-initial position they remained allophonic.

The Dead Sea scrolls show evidence of confusion of the phonemes /ħ ʕ h ʔ/, e.g. חמר ħmr for Masoretic אָמַר /ʔɔˈmar/ '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, /ʔ ħ h ʕ/ have generally all merged, either into /ʔ/, a glide /w/ or /j/, or by vanishing completely (often creating a long vowel), except that original /ʕ ħ/ sometimes have reflex /ʕ/ before /a ɒ/.

Geminate consonants are phonemically contrastive in Biblical Hebrew. In the Secunda /w j z/ are never geminate. In the Tiberian tradition /ħ ʕ h ʔ r/ cannot be geminate; historically first /r ʔ/ degeminated, followed by /ʕ/, /h/, and finally /ħ/, as evidenced by changes in the quality of the preceding vowel.The vowel before originally geminate /r ʔ/ usually shows compensatory lengthening, e.g. הָאָב /hɔˈʔɔv/ 'the father' < /*haʔːab/; with /ʕ/ preceding /*i/ tends to remain short; with /h/ original /*a/ also remains short, and /ħ/ generally does not cause compensatory lengthening, e.g. יְרַחֵם '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

Tiberian vocalization

The Tiberian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible; this system soon became used to vocalize other texts as well...

 and varieties of Babylonian

Babylonian vocalization

The Babylonian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to indicate vowel quality, reflecting the Hebrew of Babylon...

 and Palestinian

Palestinian vocalization

The Palestinian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to indicate vowel quality, reflecting the Hebrew of Palestine...

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

Proto-Hebrew	Secunda Hebrew	Tiberian, Babylonian, and Palestinian Hebrew	Samaritan Hebrew
Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... i iː u uː Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... (eː) oː Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... a aː	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... iː uː Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... e eː o oː Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... a1 aː Reduced ə	ass="wikitable">		Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i	u
Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...	e	o
Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...	ɛ1	ɔ2
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...	a
Reduced	ă3 ɔ̆3 (ɛ̆)3 ə3

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i iː	u uː
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e eː	(o)1
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...	a aː	ɒ ɒː
Reduced	(ə)2

1. possibly pronounced [æ], as the orthography alternates <α> and <ε>
2. merges with /e/ in the Palestinian tradition and with /a/ in the Babylonian traditionWhile the vowels /a e i ɔ o u/ certainly have phonemic status in the Tiberian tradition, /ɛ/ has phonemic value in final stressed position but in other positions it may reflect loss of the opposition /a : i/. See
3. merges with /a/ or /o/ in the Palestinian tradition
4. The Tiberian tradition has the reduced vowel phonemes /ă ɔ̆/ and marginal /ɛ̆/, while Palestinian and Babylonian have one, /ə/
5. /u/ and /o/ only contrast in open post-tonic syllables, e.g. ידו /jedu/ 'his hand' ידיו /jedo/ 'his hands', where /o/ stems from a contracted diphthong. In other environments, /o/ appears in closed syllables and /u/ in open syllables, e.g. דור /dor/ דורות /durot/.
6. results from both /i/ and /e/ in closed post-tonic syllables

Proto-Semitic likely had a vowel system with three qualities and two lengths, i.e. */a aː i iː u uː/, where the long vowels only occurred in open syllables. Later, final unstressed short vowels dropped out in some words, making it possible for long vowels to occur in closed syllables. Hebrew shows the Canaanite shift

Canaanite shift

In historical linguistics, the Canaanite shift is a sound change that took place in the Canaanite dialects, which belong to the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages family. This sound change caused Proto-NW-Semitic *ā to turn into ō in Proto-Canaanite...

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

Amarna letters

The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...

 (c. 1365 BCE). The Proto-Hebrew vowel system is thus reconstructed as */a aː oː i iː u uː/ (and possibly rare */eː/).

Proto-Hebrew long vowels usually retain their vowel quality in the later traditions of Hebrew, while the Proto-Hebrew short vowels */a i u/ undergo many shifts. Generally these vowels either were lengthened, reduced, or preserved, depending on environment, and these changes also affected the vowel quality. Short vowels tended to be lengthened in open syllables and reduced in the second syllable before the stress. In Tiberian Hebrew, short vowels in pretonic open syllables are sometimes reduced instead: It does not occur for /*a/, but is occasional for /*i/ (e.g. מסמְרים 'nails' < */masmiriːm/), and is common for /*u/ (e.g. רְחוֹב 'open place' < */ruħaːb/). Samaritan and Qumran Hebrew do not have reduced vowels. Sometimes pretonic gemination is used to preserve such a vowel: this is particularly common in Tiberian Hebrew with pretonic /*u/, e.g. אדֻמּים 'red (pl.)'. Pretonic gemination is also found in Samaritan Hebrew, but not always in the same locations as in Tiberian Hebrew, e.g. גמלים TH /ɡămalːim/ SH /ɡɒmɒləm/; שלמים TH /ʃălɔmim/ SH /ʃelamːəm/. Final short vowels were dropped.

By the Tiberian time vowel length had become allophonic, but vowels that become allophonically long at a late stage do not show the earlier shifts in vowel quality, for example [aː] in ירחם had not become [ɔː] unlike earlier long [aː]. Samaritan Hebrew also does not reflect etymological vowel length; however the elision of guttural consonants has created new phonemic vowel length, e.g. /rɒb/ רב 'great' vs. /rɒːb/ רחב 'wide'.

In the Secunda, */a i u/ are lengthened to /aː eː oː/, reduced to /ə/, and preserved as /a e o/. In the Tiberian and Babylonian systems, lengthened */a i u/ become /ɔ e o/, while in the Palestinian system they become /a e o/. The Babylonian and Palestinian systems have only one reduced vowel phoneme /ə/ like the Secunda. The Tiberian tradition possesses three reduced vowels /ă ɔ̆ ɛ̆/ of which /ɛ̆/ has questionable phonemicity.See אֳנִי /ɔ̆ni/ 'ships' אֲנִי /ăni/ 'I', חֳלִי /ħɔ̆li/ 'sickness' חֲלִי /ħăli/ 'ornament', עֲלִי /ʕăli/ 'ascend!' (Num 21:17) and בַּעֱלִי /baʕɛ̆li/ '(with the) pestle' (Prov 27:22). /ɛ̆/ alternates with /ă/ frequently and rarely contrasts with it, e.g. אֱדוֹם /ʔɛ̆ðom/ 'Edom

Edom

Edom or Idumea was a historical region of the Southern Levant located south of Judea and the Dead Sea. It is mentioned in biblical records as a 1st millennium BC Iron Age kingdom of Edom, and in classical antiquity the cognate name Idumea was used to refer to a smaller area in the same region...

' versus אֲדֹמִי /ʔăðomi/ 'Edomite'. /ɔ̆/ is clearly phonemic but bears minimal functional load

Functional load

In linguistics and especially phonology, functional load refers to the importance of certain features in making distinctions in a language...

. /ă/ is written both with mobile šwa <ְ> and hataf patah <ֲ>. When reduced, etymological */a i u/ become /ă ɛ̆~ă ɔ̆/ under gutturals (e.g. אֲמרתם 'you (mp.) said" cf. אָמר 'he said'), and generally /ă/ under non-gutturals, but */u/ > /ɔ̆/ (and rarely */i/ > /ɛ̆/) may still occur, especially after stops (or their spirantized counterparts) and /sʼ ʃ/ (e.g. דֳּמִי /dɔ̆mi/). /ă/ under a non-guttural letter was pronounced as an ultrashort copy of the following vowel before a guttural, e.g. וּבָקְעָה [uvɔqɔ̆ˈʕɔ], and as [ĭ] preceding /j/, e.g. תְדֵמְּיוּ֫נִי [θăðamːĭˈjuni], but was always pronounced as [ă] under gutturals, e.g. . In other syllables, */i u/ are preserved as /ɛ~i ɔ~u/ (Tiberian) /a~i u/ (Babylonian) /e~i o~u/ (Palestinian) – generally becoming the second vowel before geminates (e.g. לִבִּי) and the first otherwise.The Palestinian correlates of Tiberian /ɔ/ (/a/ and /o/) thus reflect the qamatz gadol-qamatz qatan distinction.

Various more specific conditioned shifts of vowel quality have also occurred. For example, in some traditions the short vowel /*a/ tended to shift to /i/ in unstressed closed syllables: this is known as the law of attenuation. It is common in the Tiberian tradition, e.g. */ʃabʕat/ > Tiberian שִבְעָה /ʃivˈʕɔ/ 'seven', but exceptions are frequent. It is less common in the Babylonian vocalization, e.g. /ʃabʕɔ/ 'seven', and differences in Greek and Latin transcriptions demonstrate that it began quite late. Attenuation generally did not occur before /i~e/, e.g. Tiberian מַפְתֵחַ /mafˈteaħ/ 'key' versus מִפְתַח /mifˈtaħ/ 'opening (construct)', and often was blocked before a geminate, e.g. מתנה 'gift'. Attenuation is rarely present in Samaritan Hebrew, e.g. מקדש /maqdaʃ/.Verbal forms such as יפקד = Samaritan /jifqɒd/ < */jafqud/ may be examples of Barth's law rather than attenuation.

Stress

Proto-Hebrew generally had penultimate stress. For the purposes of vowel quality shifts, words in the construct state 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 קטלו < */qaˈtʼaluː/. In Tiberian Hebrew some words have penultimate stress in pause (before a break in reading), but ultimate stress in context, such as שָמָ֫רָה and שָמְרָה 'she watched', because the penultimate vowel in the original form */ʃaˈmaru/ 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. בָּנוּ֫ /bɔˈnu/ 'they built' vs. בָּ֫נוּ /ˈbɔnu/ 'in us'; stress is most commonly ultimate, less commonly penultimate, and antipenultimate stress exists marginally, e.g. הָאֹ֫הֱלָה /hɔˈʔohɛ̆lɔ/ 'into the tent'.In fact, 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. עִם־יוֹ֫רְדֵי בוֹר /ʕim-ˈjorăde vor/ 'with those who go down into the pit' מְטֹ֫עֲנֵי חָ֫רֶב /măˈtʼoʕăne ˈħɔrɛv/ '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 'name; noun', fiʻl 'act; verb', and ḥarf 'motion; 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

Semitic languages

The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...

 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 quinqiconsonantal roots. Roots are modified by affix

Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...

ation 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 /m/, used for substantives of location (מושב 'assembly'), instruments (מפתח 'key'), and abstractions (משפט 'judgement'). The vowel after /m/ is normally /a/, but appears sometimes as /i/, or in the case of מושב as /o/ (contracted from */aw/). The prefix /t/ is used to denote the action of the verb it is derived from, more common for initial-/w/ verbs, e.g. תודה 'thanksgiving' (< ydy). Prefixed /ʔ/ is used in adjectives, e.g. אכזב 'deceptive', and also occurs in nouns with initial sibilants, e.g. אצבע 'finger'. In the latter case this prefix was added for phonetic reasons, and the א prefix is called either 'prothetic' or 'prosthetic'. Prefixed ע /ʕ/ occurs perhaps as a mark of forcefulness, e.g. גננ 'to cover' vs. עגנ 'to shut oneself off, אגמ 'to be sad' vs. עגמ 'to grieve', and often occurs in quadriliteral animal names, perhaps as a prefix, e.g. עֳטלף 'bat', עכבר 'mouse', עקרב 'scorpion'.

In proto-Semitic nouns were marked for case: in the singular the markers were */-u/ in the nominative

Nominative case

The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...

, */-a/ in the accusative

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...

 (used also for adverbials), and */-i/ in the genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

, as evidenced in Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Arabic. The Amarna letters

Amarna letters

The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...

 show that this was probably still present in Hebrew c. 1350 BCE. In the development of Hebrew, final */-u, -i/ were dropped first, and later */-a/ was elided as well. Mimation

Mimation

Mimation refers to the suffixed   which occurs in some Semitic languages.This occurs in Akkadian on singular nouns. It was also present in proto-Semitic....

, a nominal suffix */-m/ of unclear meaning, was found in early Canaanite, as shown by early Egyptian transcriptions (c. 1800 BCE) of Jerusalem as Urušalimim, but there is no indication of its presence after 1800 BCE.It has been suggested that the construct forms אבי, אחי have long /iː/ lacking in the absolute אב אח because the later stem from forms like */ʔabuːm/ > */ʔabum/ (because Proto-Semitic did not allow long vowels in closed syllables) > */ʔab/ (loss of mimation and final short vowel), see Final */-a/ is preserved in לַ֫יְלָה /ˈlajlɔ/, originally meaning 'at night' but in prose replacing לַ֫יִל /ˈlajil/ 'night', and in the "connective vowels' of some prepositions (originally adverbials), e.g. עִמָּ֫נוּ 'with us'; nouns preserve */-i/ in forms like .The unstressed suffix -ה in words like ארצה 'to the earth', occurring also in exclamations like חללה and used ornamentally in poetry, e.g. ישועתה, may have originally terminated in consonantal */-h/ which was later elided, following the suffix */-a/. This is evidenced by Ugaritic orthography, almost purely consonantal, where ארצה appears with /h/, see Construct state nouns lost case vowels at an early period (similar to Akkadian), as shown by the reflexes of */ɬadaju/ (שָֹדֶה in absolute but שְׂדֵה in construct) and the reflexes of */jadu/ ( and ) However forms like יָדֵ֫נוּ 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 (יום 'day' יומים 'two days' ימים 'days'). However adjectives, pronouns, and verbs do not have dual forms, and most nominal dual forms can function as plurals (שש כנפַים 'six wings' from Isaiah 6:2). Finite verbs are marked for subject person, number, and gender. Nouns also have a construct

Status constructus

The construct state or status constructus is a noun form occurring in Afro-Asiatic languages. It is particularly common in Semitic languages , Berber languages, and in the extinct Egyptian language...

 form which is used in genitive constructions.

Nouns are marked as definite

Definiteness

In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....

 with the prefix /ha-/ followed by gemination of the initial consonant of the noun. In Tiberian Hebrew the vowel of the article may become /ɛ/ or /ɔ/ in certain phonetic environments, for example החכם /hɛħɔˈxɔm/ 'the wise man', האיש /hɔˈʔiʃ/ 'the man'.

The traditions differ on the form of segolate

Segolate

Segolates are words in the Hebrew language whose end is of the form CVCVC, where the penultimate vowel receives syllable stress. Such words are called "segolates" because the final unstressed vowel is typically segol...

 nouns, nouns stemming from roots with two final consonants. The anaptyctic /ɛ/ of the Tiberian tradition in segolates appears in the Septuagint (3rd century BCE) but not the Hexapla (2nd century CE), e.g. גֶּתֶר /ˈɡɛθɛr/ = Γαθερ versus כֵּסֶל /ˈkesɛl/ = Χεσλ (Psalms 49:14). This may reflect dialectual variation or phonetic versus phonemic transcriptions. Both the Palestinian and Babylonian traditions have an anaptyctic vowel in segolates, /e/ in the Palestinian tradition (e.g. /ʔeresʼ/ 'land' = Tiberian אֶרֶץ Deuteronomy 26:15) and /a/ in Babylonian (e.g. /ħepasʼ/ 'item' = Tiberian חֵפֶץ Jeremiah 22:28). The Qumran tradition sometimes shows some type of back epenthetic vowel when the first vowel is back, e.g. <אוהול> for Tiberian <אֹהֶל> /ˈʔohɛl/ '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 verbal conjugations patterns, known as בנינים binyanim in Hebrew; the binyanim mainly serve to indicate grammatical voice

Voice (grammar)

In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments . When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice...

. This includes various distinctions of reflexivity, passivity, and causativity. Verbs of all binyanim have three non-finite forms (one participle, two infinitives), three modal forms (cohortative, imperative

Imperative mood

The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...

, jussive

Jussive mood

The jussive is a grammatical mood of verbs for issuing orders, commanding, or exhorting . English verbs are not marked for this mood...

), 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 qatul, and subjunctive yaqtula, which existed for every person. In Biblical Hebrew, yaqtulu developed into the prefixing class, while yaqtulu became the jussive and yaqtula the cohortative. It should also be noted that 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 יכרִית, jussive יכרֵת; indicative יראה, jussive יֵרֶא) See and . The meaning of the prefixing and suffixing conjugations are also affected by the conjugation ו, and their meaning with respect to tense

Grammatical tense

A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...

 and aspect

Grammatical aspect

In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...

 is a matter of debate.

Word order

The default word order in Biblical Hebrew is VSO. Attributive adjectives normally follow the noun they modify. In Biblical Hebrew, possession is normally expressed with status constructus

Status constructus

The construct state or status constructus is a noun form occurring in Afro-Asiatic languages. It is particularly common in Semitic languages , Berber languages, and in the extinct Egyptian language...

, 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 .

Sample text

The following is a sample from Psalm 18

Psalm 18

-Judaism:*Is recited on the seventh day of Passover in some traditions.*Verse 32 is recited before Ein Keloheinu.*Verse 51 is part of the weekday version of Birkat Hamazon....

 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.

29 כִּֽי־אַ֭תָּה תָּאִ֣יר נֵרִ֑י יְהוָ֥ה אֱ֝לֹהַ֗י יַגִּ֥יהַּ חָשְׁכִּֽי׃ 30 כִּֽי־בְ֭ךָ אָרֻ֣ץ גְּד֑וּד וּ֝בֵֽאלֹהַ֗י אֲדַלֶּג־שֽׁוּר׃ 31 הָאֵל֮ תָּמִ֪ים דַּ֫רְכֹּ֥ו אִמְרַֽת־יְהוָ֥ה צְרוּפָ֑ה מָגֵ֥ן ה֝֗וּא לְכֹ֤ל ׀ הַחֹסִ֬ים בֹּֽו׃ 32 כִּ֤י מִ֣י אֱ֭לֹוהַּ מִבַּלְעֲדֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה וּמִ֥י צ֝֗וּר זוּלָתִ֥י אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ׃

Secunda

Pronunciation (Secunda) (IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... ) 29. [kiː ʔatːaː taːʔiːr neːriː etragrammaton 30. [kiː baːk ʔaːruːsʼ ɡəduːd wəbaloːhaj ʔadːalːeɡ ʃuːr] 31. [haːʔeːl tamːiːm darkoː ʔemərat etragrammaton 32. [kiː miː ʔaloːh mebːalʕadeː etragrammaton

External links

• History of the Hebrew Language
  • History of the Ancient and Modern Hebrew Language, David Steinberg
  • Biblical Hebrew Poetry and Word Play – Reconstructing the Original Oral, Aural and Visual Experience
  • Short History of the Hebrew Language, Chaim Rabin
    Chaim Menachem Rabin
    Chaim Menachem Rabin was an Israeli professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages.Chaim Rabin was born in Giessen, Germany, 22 November 1915, the son of Israel and Martel Rabin. He studied first at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1933-1934. He then studied in England, at the School of Oriental...
    
    

• Biblical Hebrew Resources
  • Resources for the Study of Biblical Hebrew, Prof. E. Ben Zvi, University of Alberta
    University of Alberta
    The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
    
    
  • Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew Lexicon – with an appendix containg the Biblical Aramaic (Wikisource)

• Grammar, vocabulary and writing
  • The Handy-Dandy Hebrew Grammar Chart, Prof. Shawn Madden, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
    Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
    Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is a seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention , created to meet a need in the SBC's East Coast region. It was voted into existence on May 19, 1950 at the SBC annual meeting and began offering classes in the fall of 1951 on the original campus of Wake...
    
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  • Basic Biblical Hebrew Grammar (introductory)
  • Learn to write the Biblical Hebrew characters
  • The Alphabet of Biblical Hebrew