Biblical Hebrew
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Key facts
- Region
- Kingdom of Judah Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) Hasmonean dynasty Israelite diaspora (as a liturgical language for Judaism and Samaritanism)
- Era
- attested from the 10th century BCE; developed into Mishnaic Hebrew after the Jewish–Roman wars in the 1st century CE
- Language family
- Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Central Northwest Canaanite South Biblical Hebrew
- Early form
- Proto-Semitic
- Standard forms
- Samaritan Mishnaic Hebrew † Medieval Hebrew † Babylonian † Ashkenazi Sephardi
- Writing system
- Proto-Sinaitic Paleo-Hebrew alphabet Hebrew alphabet Samaritan alphabet
- Iso 639 3
- Either:, hbo – Ancient Jewish Hebrew (Southern dialect), smp – Samaritan Hebrew (Northern dialect)
- Linguist list
- hbo
- Glottolog
- anci1244 Ancient Hebrew, sama1313 Samaritan
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
Biblical Hebrew (Hebrew: עִבְרִית מִקְרָאִית, romanized: ʿiḇrîṯ miqrāʾîṯ or לְשׁוֹן הַמִּקְרָא, ləšôn ha-miqrāʾ ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of the Jordan River and east of the Mediterranean Sea. The term ʿiḇrîṯ 'Hebrew' was not used as the language in the Hebrew Bible, which was referred to as שְֹפַת כְּנַעַן śəp̄aṯ kənaʿan 'language of Canaan' or יְהוּדִית Yəhûḏîṯ 'Judean', but was used in Koine Greek and Mishnaic Hebrew texts.
Paleo-Hebrew is attested in inscriptions from about the 10th century BCE, when it was almost identical to Phoenician and other Canaanite languages, and spoken Hebrew persisted as a first language through and beyond the Second Temple period, which ended in 70 CE with the siege of Jerusalem. It eventually developed into Mishnaic Hebrew, which was employed as a second language until the 5th century.