RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Heaven
Hebrew Language
HEBREW LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
I. The Hebrew Language.
The Name and Literature (§1).
The Semitic Languages (§ 2).
Characteristics of Semitic Languages (§ 3).
Characteristics and History of the Hebrew Language (§4).
Development of the Hebrew Language (§ 5).
Early Study of Hebrew (§ 6).
Modern Works on Hebrew (§ 7). II. Hebrew Literature in General.
I. The Hebrew Language : Hebrew is the usual name of the language spoken by the Israelites up to a few centuries before the birth of i. The Christ. The tongue which was spoken Name and or written by the learned later than Literature, this, a somewhat artificial continuation of the earlier language, is called in distinction the New Hebrew. The term Hebrew language is not in the Old Testament; it is found first in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, then in Josephus, and afterward in the New Testament, where, however, it denotes the Aramaic speech of the Jews. Isa. xix. 18 has the phrase " the language of Canaan," II Kings xviii. 26 and Neh. xiii. 24 have " the Jews' language " to express the tongue used by the Hebrews of those times. In later times the Jews called the Hebrew " the holy language." The phrase " Hebrew language," therefore, goes back not to the Old Testament, but to the common designation " Hebrews " as the name of the people, and is the equivalent of " the Israeli tic tongue." The Hebrew word 'Ibri (Gen. x., xi.), to which " Hebrew " goes back, comprises a number of Arabic and Aramaic stocks to which, among others, Terah and Abraham belonged. Recent scholars see in the term an appellative denoting " the people from the other side " (of the river Euphrates — so Stade — or of the Jordan). The Old Testament is the main source of knowledge of this tongue, in which all of it is written except Ezra iv. 8-vi. 18, vii. 12-26, Dan. ii. 4-vii. 28, Jer. x. 11. Besides this are the Siloam inscription, some inscribed stones from Assyria and Babylon, the coins of the Maccabeans, and the fragments of the Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus (see Apocrypha, A, IV., 12). The Moabitic Stone may be reckoned here, since its language is practically identical with the Hebrew.
This language belongs to a large family of languages to which, since the time of Eichhorn, the name Semitic has been given, i.e., the 2. The tongues of the descendants of Shem. Semitic According to Old Testament usage, Languages, this name is inexact, since some of the people who used a language belonging to this group were descendants of Ham. But no thoroughly adequate name has yet been found. The relationship of the original Semitic speech to others, e.g., the Egyptian language, is yet an open question. The nearest relatives of the Hebrew were the Moabitic, practically identical with it, and the Phenician. Doubtless the other peoples immediately east and west "of the Jordan spoke dialects of the same tongue, so that this group may be called the Canaanitic. A comparison of Phenician inscrip-
The Old Testament a National Literature (§1).
Variety of Literary Form and Contents (§ 2).
The Bond of Union (§ 3).
Methods of Composition (§ 4).
Use of "Strands " of Narrative ( § 5).
Methods in Prophetical and Wisdom Literature (§ 6).
Authorship (§ 7).
Dates of Old Testament Literature (§8).
III. Hebrew Poetry.
Recognition of the Nature of Hebrew Poetry (§ 1).
Employment of Poetry by Hebrews (§2)
Religious Use of Poetry (§ 3).
The Epic and the Drama Lacking (§4).
Forms Mentioned in the Old Testament (§5).
Characteristics of Hebrew Poetry (§6).
tions with the Hebrew shows divergent dialectic peculiarities, while Neh. xiii. 23-24 makes clear that by the time of Nehemiah the dialects had become so changed as not to be mutually intelligible to those speaking them. Nearest to the Canaanitic group came the Aramaic, the early history of which is obscure, but which developed a rich literature, divided into the East and the West Aramaic. The latter was used by the later inhabitants of Palestine — Jews, Samaritans, and Christians — and by Nabatasans and Palmyrenes. The East Aramaic was used by Babylonian Jews, Mandffians (q.v.), and the people of Edessa, the last developing a considerable Christian literature. The Aramaic tongues were superseded by the Arabic. A third branch is the South Semitic languages, including the Arabic, Sabean, Mina?an, Ethiopic, and Amharic. The East Semitic group comprises the Assyrian-Babylonian of the cuneiform inscriptions.
These related branches point backward to an
original Semitic tongue, the characteristics of which
remain more or less plainly evident in
3. Charac- the later forms, to which original teristics of speech the Arabic seems the most
Semitic nearly related. The chief characteris- Languages. tic of Semitic languages is the triconsonantal form of the roots; possibly originally the roots consisted of two consonants subsequently built up by the addition of another consonant. The language was then formed by vocalic changes inside the word or by additions or prefixes. Another characteristic of these languages is that only the consonants were written, the reader supplying the vocalization in accordance with the native utterance. Word-building was complex, secondary formations being very numerous. The verbs are lacking in tenses, only two main forms being used. The personal pronouns in the genitive and accusative becomeYnere enclitics, there are but two genders, and a dual is sparingly employed. The syntax is simple, though the use of the numerals is rather complicated. The Hebrew language holds a position midway between the Arabic and the Aramaic. It has fewer original vocals than the Arabic, more
4. Charac- than the Aramaic, while it retains caseteristics endings and passive forms which the
and Aramaic has lost, though both have