The Origins of Hebrew

As the name suggests, the Hebrew Bible is written, mostly, in Hebrew. But what is the earliest history of this language? What language did the ancient Israelites speak? This episode examines the origins of Hebrew and its relationship with Canaanite dialects in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The episode will explore archaeological artifacts such as an inscription from Izbet Sarteh in Israel, which may be one of the earliest inscriptions of the Hebrew language.

Producer: Andrew M. Henry
Academic Consultant: Melissa Cradic
Writer: Shane M. Thompson

[rachel_sj]

I can imagine a youth in an Ancient Levantine Scribal School bemoaning the fact that he’ll probably have to get a “stable job” inscribing economic transactions or court records when all he wants is to write literature and stories

[thomashygum]

I have friend who studies akkadian. She once told me that there is some evidence that the Amarna letters may actually be written in a dialect of ancient caananite, as opposed to akkadian. They often feature a number of characteristics that would be unorthodox in akkadian as such. For example it is very common in the Amarna letters to find verbs in the middle of a sentence, whereas in "proper" akkadian verbs are always at the end of a sentence. Markers for person and number in verb conjugations are also often entirely wrong. As the hypothesis goes the ancient caananites would written out entire akkadian words in syllabic cuneiform, treating the syllables as if they were simply a giant logogram for a whole word and then adding native caananite conjugation markers at the end.
This may sound far-fetched to modern ears but there is extensive evidence that akkadian can written like this using sumerian words. In fact there is a term "sumerogram" that refers to situations where akkadian speaking scribes chose to replace an akkadian word with a sumerian one in spelling.

[kevinwahl]

I wish you included Aramaic too with modern Arabic, Hebrew, Ge’ez because it’s still spoken today

[romanmay]

3000 years ago there was a young child writing on a clay tablet the alphabet, messily scribbling some to be done faster but slowing down so you can still read it, letters not evenly spaced or in a straight line, but it’s good enough for the teacher, it’s not like anyone else will see it

[phdtobe]

What’s fascinating about language is how it can change significantly over time based on the accumulating of small changes, even from one generation to the next.

For example, the narrator of this video, who appears to be at least 20-30 years younger than me, seems to pronounce “Isrealites” with only three syllables — “Iz-ruh-lites” — which is different from how I was taught as a youngster to pronounce it with 4 syllables 5+ decades ago — “Iz-ree-uhl-ites”. And this compression of the middle two syllables of “Israelites” into one syllable is something I’ve noticed a few other folks on YouTube of the same generation as this narrator do even though they pronounce the root of that word itself— “Israel” — with three syllables. Fascinating!

[EladLerner]

The names of the Hebrew letters themselves, even in modern times, are still mostly actual Hebrew words from the original Proto-Sinaitic: Pe is "mouth", Ain is "eye", Vav is "hook" and so on.

[merrittanimation]

The origins of writing systems are always fascinating to me. Great video!

[CO-dvpy]

More linguistics/ancient languages please!

[aspektx]

Considering the importance of Aramaic in the short passages of Daniel, along with the Targum of 1st-2nd century CE, it would have been nice to learn about it.

This was a really enjoyable video. Thank you.

[mariannehuston]

Brilliant presentations, thank you.
Very helpful to know.
Someone was presenting stages of the Old Testament writings through the lense of how languages in that region, changed and impacted the manuscrips that Ezra had to translate in modern Hebrew alphabet o 22 letters

[losttribe]

As a former Mormon, the ethnolinguistic field is fascinating to me because for the Book of Mormon to be true, the native Americans would have to be speaking some sort of the Hebrew language. Yet, well studied linguistic academics know this to not be the case. And for any former Mormons playing the drinking game at home, B.H. Roberts noticed this problem back in the early 1900s.

But I digress. Thanks for this video. It was a joy to learn a little more about the origins. Cheers.

[starsINSPACE]

Can you imagine that in the past there were multilingual people who spoke multiple languages that nobody has heard now for generations...

[johanobesusfatjohn]

I don't like to be a downer, but I feel the need to offer some constructive criticism. I think the structure of the video was confusing. You started with proto-Canaanite script, went to paleo-Hebrew, then jumped backwards to proto-Sinaitic. It would be much easier to follow if you started with the very beginning of the alphabet and went forward chronologically. You said nothing about the development of the square Hebrew script, or the separate evolution of Samaritan, which I think would be very relevant.

Also, I think you ought to have made the distinction between script and language a bit clearer, and maybe talked just a bit more about language/dialect continua. Part of the problem may be that the video was too short for the topic. Perhaps if the topic were split, with one video, of around fifteen minutes, quickly going through the evolution of the alphabet up to paleo-Hebrew, and then another about the later development of the modern Hebrew script and divergence of the Hebrew language from common West Semitic.

I must add that I enjoy this channel, even if I never comment. Usually your videos are very good. I just found this one surprisingly frustrating. I hope this comment doesn't come across as too negative.

[EzraB]

I'm Jewish and I have a particular affection for this language. Every Jew on earth should make it a strong priority to learn.

Aramaic and Hebrew are not mutually intelligible but it's pretty close. A Hebrew speaker can understand probably 50% of what's being said and vice versa.

[theobserver]

Fascinating! I'm no scholar... just a carpenter/handyman...9th grade drop-out, and randomly stumbled on this.
I wouldn't have guessed how interesting the origins of an alphabet would be.

[architeuthis]

It wasn't mentioned in this video, but I'm impressed with how similar modern Hebrew cursive is to older Semitic alphabets!

[Qba]

I get the impression that literacy rates in pre-modern history of alphabet-using societies are often underestimated. This is especially true of the medieval period, but may also apply to earlier times. After all, an alphabet is relatively easy to learn, compared to some other writing systems. As long as you are able to use it with your native language, you can pick it up rather quickly.

[danielcuevas]

The Hebrew alphabet is highly adaptable. Jews have used it to write in the language of the land they inhabit where ever might that be. Ladino in Spain, Yiddish in Germany, Judeo-Arabic in Arabia!

[luisdizon]

One of the jokes I remember from doing a class on the history of Hebrew was how the ox that made up the original Aleph died and went belly up, and that's how we ended up with the Greek/Latin letter A. Good times.

[juliamacdonald]

Very interesting and well done. Good imagery, good script, good pace.