Hebrew grammar Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved th ...

is the grammar of the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

History of studies in Hebrew grammar

The

Masoretes The Masoretes ( he, בַּעֲלֵי הַמָּסוֹרָה, Baʿălēy Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily in ...

in the 7th to 11th centuries laid the foundation for grammatical analysis of Hebrew. As early as the 9th century

Judah ibn Kuraish Judah ibn Kuraish ( he, יהודה אבן קריש, ar, يهوذا بن قريش), was an Algerian-Jewish grammarian and lexicographer. He was born at Tiaret in Algeria and flourished in the 9th century. While his grammatical works advanced little ...

discussed the relationship between Arabic and Hebrew. In the 10th century,

Aaron ben Moses ben Asher Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (Hebrew: ; Tiberian Hebrew: ''ʾAhărōn ben Mōše ben ʾĀšēr''; 10th century, died c.960) was a Jewish scribe who lived in Tiberias in northern Israel and refined the Tiberian system of writing vowel sounds in Hebr ...

refined the

Tiberian vocalization The Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian pointing, or Tiberian niqqud (Hebrew: ''haNīqqūḏ haṬəḇērīyānī'') is a system of diacritics (''niqqud'') devised by the Masoretes of Tiberias to add to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible to p ...

, an extinct pronunciation of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD 150 ...

, in the context of

Midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...

(a method of interpreting and studying the Hebrew Bible). The Karaite tradition originated in

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

around the 7th century. The ''

Diqduq Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserve ...

'' (10th century) is one of the earliest grammatical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. Solomon ibn Gabirol in the 11th century composed a versified Hebrew grammar, consisting of 400 verses divided into ten parts. In the 12th century, Ibn Barun compared the

with Arabic language, Arabic in the Islamic grammatical tradition. 11th to 12th century grammarians of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain included Judah ben David Hayyuj, Jonah ibn Janah, Abraham ibn Ezra, Joseph Kimhi, Moses Kimhi and David Kimhi. Ibn Ezra gives a list of the oldest Hebrew grammarians in the introduction to his ''Moznayim'' (1140). Profiat Duran published an influential grammar in 1403. Judah Messer Leon (15th century), Judah Messer Leon's 1454 grammar is a product of the Italian Renaissance. Hebrew grammars by Christian Hebraist, Christian authors appeared during the Renaissance. Hieronymus Buclidius, a friend of Erasmus, gave more than 20,000 francs to establish a branch of Hebrew studies at Leuven, Louvain in Flanders. Elijah Levita was called to the chair of Hebrew at the University of Paris. Cardinal Grimani and other dignitaries, both of the state and of the Church, studied Hebrew and the Kabbalah, Cabala with Jewish teachers; even the warrior Guido Rangoni attempted the Hebrew language with the aid of Jacob Mantino (1526). Pico de la Mirandola (d. 1494) was the first to collect Hebrew manuscripts, and Reuchlin was the first Christian author to write a vocabulary and short grammar of the Hebrew language (1506). A more detailed grammar was published in 1590 by Otto Walper. Conrad Gesner (d. 1565) was the first Christian to compile a catalogue of Hebrew books. Paul Fagius and Elia Levita operated the first Hebrew printing office in the 1540s. Levita also compiled the first Hebrew-Yiddish dictionary. Through the influence of Johannes Buxtorf (d. 1629) a serious attempt was made to understand the post-Biblical literature, and many of the most important works were translated into Latin. Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius' ''Hebrew Grammar'' appeared in 1813.

Eras

The Hebrew language is subdivided by era, with significant differences apparent between the varieties. All varieties, from Biblical to Modern, use a typically Semitic templatic morphology with triconsonantal stems, though Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew have significant borrowed components of the lexicon that do not fit into this pattern. Verbal morphology has remained relatively unchanged, though Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew have lost some modal distinctions of Biblical Hebrew and created others through the use of auxiliary verbs. Significant syntactic changes have arisen in Modern Hebrew as a result of non-Semitic substrate influences. In particular: * In Biblical Hebrew, possession is normally expressed with status constructus, 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. Modern Hebrew tends to reserve this construction for phrases where the two components form a unified concept, whereas ordinary possession is more commonly expressed Analytic language, analytically with the preposition ''shel'' 'of' (etymologically consisting of the relativizer ''she''- 'that' and the preposition ''le''- 'to'). * Possession in pronouns is expressed with pronominal suffixes added to the noun. Modern Hebrew tends to reserve this for a limited number of nouns, but usually prefers to use the preposition ''shel'', as in the previous case. * Biblical Hebrew often expresses a pronoun direct object by appending a pronominal suffix directly to the verb, as an alternative to appending it to the preposition that signals a definite direct object. The latter construction is the one generally used in Modern Hebrew. * The Tense-aspect-mood, tense–aspect that is formed by prefixes could denote either the present (especially frequentative) or the future, as well as frequentative past in Biblical Hebrew (some scholars argue that it simply denoted imperfective aspect), while in modern Hebrew it is always future. The suffixed form denotes what is commonly translated as past in both cases, though some scholars argue that it denoted perfective aspect. * Biblical Hebrew employs the so-called waw consecutive construction, in which the conjunction "and" seemingly reverses the tense of a verb (though its exact meaning is a matter of debate). This is not typical of Modern Hebrew. * The default word order in Biblical Hebrew is Verb–subject–object, VSO, while Modern Hebrew is Subject–verb–object, SVO. However, most Biblical Hebrew constructions are still permissible in Modern Hebrew in formal, literary, archaic or poetic style.

References

Works cited

* * * * *

Bibliography

Modern Hebrew * * * * * Biblical Hebrew * *

External links