Revival of Hebrew language
Overview
 
The revival of the Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 was a process that took place in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 toward the end of the 19th century
19th century
The 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...

 and into the 20th century
20th century
Many people define the 20th century as running from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000, others would rather define it as beginning on January 1, 1900....

, through which the language's usage changed from the sacred language
Sacred language
A sacred language, "holy language" , or liturgical language, is a language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life.-Concept:...

s of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 to a spoken
Spoken language
Spoken language is a form of human communication in which words derived from a large vocabulary together with a diverse variety of names are uttered through or with the mouth. All words are made up from a limited set of vowels and consonants. The spoken words they make are stringed into...

 and written language
Written language
A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken or gestural languages....

 used for daily life in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. The process began as Jews started arriving in Palestine in the first half of the nineteenth century and used Hebrew as a lingua franca. However a parallel development in Europe elevated Hebrew from primarily a sacred liturgical language into a literary language which played a key role in the development of nationalist educational programs. 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....

, along with Modern Arabic, have been official languages since the British Mandate for Palestine and the later Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.
 
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