What is Hebrew?

This lecture will provide a short overview of the Hebrew language in general. Furthermore, it will focus especially on the earliest stages of Hebrew including the emergence of the Hebrew Bible. I want to sensitise the listeners to the problematics of our contemporary pronunciation of Hebrew, which is strongly determined by the pronunciation of the medieval Jewish grammarians and modern Hebrew – an artificial language. Thus, there are approximately 2000 years between the oldest Hebrew texts and the medieval grammarians. The definition of Hebrew also concerns its ancient dialects respectively very close related languages, such as Phoenician and Moabite. I will demonstrate the reading of epigraphic Hebrew by means of two or three passages in inscriptions. Primarily vowels are very difficult here because only consonants are written, sometimes also long vowels. In this framework, we will investigate the issue of case vowels which disappeared in later periods in all Semitic languages. Not the vowels alone are of interest, the articulation of consonants is interesting, as well. The modern pronunciation is strongly ‘Europeanised’, so we have to consider the few Semitic languages (for instance Arabic, Ethiopic, and Aramaic) spoken nowadays. I will offer a couple of possible articulations. This presentation has its origins in my work as student assistant when I developed an exemplary exercise for the ‘OSA’ (Online Study Selection Assistant) of Freie Universität Berlin, a platform for those who consider to study Semitics. The title was inspired by a lecture by Professor Matthew Morgenstern (Tel Aviv), ‘What is Aramaic?’.