For the untrained ear of a Russian person, Hebrew and Yiddish are interchangeable concepts, one might say, even synonyms. But is this true, and what is the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish are two languages ​​spoken by Jews, but they differ from each other in age, origin, areas of use, and much more. This article focuses on the main differences between the two linguistic systems. But first we need to give a general description of both languages.

Hebrew: origin

Differences

So, based on all the above facts regarding these two languages, what is the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish have some fundamental differences. Here they are:

• Hebrew is several thousand years older than Yiddish.
• Hebrew refers exclusively to Semitic languages, and Yiddish, in addition to Semitic, also has Germanic and Slavic roots.
• The text in Yiddish is written without vowels.
• Hebrew is much more common.

Native speakers who know both languages ​​can explain the difference even better. Hebrew and Yiddish have much in common, but the main difference most likely lies not in vocabulary or grammar, but in the purpose of use. Here is a proverb that existed among European Jews 100 years ago about this: “God speaks Yiddish on weekdays, and Hebrew on Saturday.” At that time, Hebrew was only a language for religious purposes, and everyone spoke Yiddish. Well, now the situation has changed exactly the opposite.

Research by linguists has led to the conclusion that languages ​​are grouped together. The Hebrew language is part of the Semitic group and is its foundation. According to legends, it is considered sacred because:

— it was on it that God spoke with his prophet Moses;

- the 10 commandments were written in this language on stone tablets;

— the Holy Scriptures, in many countries called the Old Testament or Tanakh, were written in this language (and also partially in its related Aramaic).

Origin of Ancient Hebrew

The New Encyclopædia Britannica in 1985 (page 567, volume 22) states that the oldest records in the major languages ​​date back to the 2nd or at the latest 3rd millennium BC. Other scientific sources also suggest that ancient languages ​​were even more complex than modern ones (Science Illustrated, 1948). Experts in oriental languages, having traced the point of their origin, also came to the conclusion that it was the land of Shinar mentioned in the Bible that became the starting point for the emergence of these language groups.

Misconception: “All languages ​​come from Hebrew.” This is not true, since the Bible itself (in Genesis 11) clearly shows that many different languages ​​miraculously appeared in ancient Babylon, but before that time people spoke one language - later used by Abraham and his descendants. For this reason, it is called Hebrew, although it was spoken by many groups of people.

Accessible source of Hebrew

The earliest source of information in Hebrew is the Bible. The beginning of its writing dates back to the time of Moses and the exit of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery - the end of the 16th century BC. e. Although many tablets in this language have been found, it is difficult to confirm their earlier origin. Like other ancient languages, Hebrew appears in a complete form and contains an alphabet, grammar rules and a rich vocabulary that allows you to express the whole gamut of human feelings and describe the world around you.

Similarities and differences

The main similarity between ancient Hebrew and other languages ​​is the ability to exchange thoughts and feelings, but the methods of exchange, the alphabet, the writing of characters, the construction of phrases and much more are significantly different:

• Hebrew is “laconic”: it has only 22 letters, there are no vowels in the writing of words, the way of conveying thoughts is extremely simple and concise. At the same time, emotionality and beauty are not lost due to the variety and power of verbs.
• The pronunciation of sounds is also different (the guttural “r”, several variants of pronunciation of the letters “x” and “g”).
• Imagery: instead of the word “shore” in the Hebrew language, for example, the expression “lip of the sea” is used, instead of “anger” - “wide nostrils”. It is not possible to make a literal translation from such a language.

The influence of time?

It is a fact that all languages ​​change over time, but not all to the same extent. As for Hebrew, there has been virtually no change for about 1,500 years since Moses wrote the Torah and other parts of the Scriptures. Therefore, we can talk about the high “stability” of this language. And the life of the Jews then revolved around the Scriptures, so this language was the basis of their communication. In 1982, it was concluded that the grammar and vocabulary of the later books of the Bible are almost the same as the first (International Standard Encyclopedia of the Bible, edited by J. Bromley).

There are few ancient non-biblical texts: the Gezer calendar, Samaritan pottery shards, the Siloam inscription, ostracons from Lachish, the Mishnah, non-religious scrolls from Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) and some others. Today, interest in ancient Hebrew is very high and its study has brought and will continue to bring many interesting discoveries related to the most ancient cultures.

History of Hebrew
תּוֹלְדוֹת הַלָּשוֹן הָעִבְרִית

The name “Hebrew” actually means “Hebrew (language).” The name “Hebrew” is relatively new, it appeared about a hundred years ago, most likely as a translation from the European term Hebraic, from the word עברי - Jewish. Until then, for a long time, Jews called Hebrew לשון קדש - the holy language. In the Tanakh, in the book of Nehemiah, the language of the Jews is called יהודית - Jewish.
Hebrew belongs to the Semitic family of languages. Of the modern languages, the Semitic group includes Arabic (eastern and Maghreb dialects), Aramaic (various dialects), Maltese (actually a dialect of Arabic), Amharic (the official language of Ethiopia, also the language of most Ethiopian Jews), and various Ethiopian dialects.

4000 - 3000 years ago

According to the most daring Jewish and Christian theologians, it was in Hebrew that the Lord spoke to Adam in the Garden of Eden - almost 6,000 years ago. Scientists are more cautious in their assessments. But according to scientists, Hebrew is an extremely ancient language.

Starting at least from the 20th - 21st centuries. BC, the land of Israel was called Canaan - כנען (Kna'an), and its inhabitants were called Canaanites - כנענים (Kna'anim). To the north of Canaan lay the country later called Phenicia; Apparently, the Phoenicians were the same Canaanites, who had stronger cities (Tire - צור, Sidon - צידון, etc.). As for the language, apparently, the Phoenicians, and in general all the Canaanites, spoke practically the same language as the Jews. (When it comes to the need to translate from language to language, the Tanakh mentions this; however, nowhere is there any mention of the need for translators when communicating between Jews and Canaanites or the inhabitants of Tire - the Phoenicians).

There is evidence about the language of the Canaanites dating back to the 13th-14th centuries. BC. - Tel Amarna cuneiform tablets. The tablets represent letters from Canaan to Egypt, and are written in the Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) language. However, here and there in the text as comments, explanations, etc. words of the local (Canaanite) language are inserted - words used in Hebrew to this day: עפר, חומה, אניה, כלוב, שער, שדה, סוס, מס (see Abram Solomonik, “From the History of Hebrew”). Thus, these words (then still in the language of the Canaanites) existed practically in their current form - at least two hundred years before the conquest of Canaan by the Jews.
The biblical account of Abraham's journey from Ur to Canaan is confirmed in cuneiform tablets excavated in Iraq; but of course, it is difficult to say what language Jacob and his sons spoke, and what language the Jews spoke when they came out of Egyptian slavery. One thing is certain - the language that we call Hebrew today is close to the language of the Canaanites, and perhaps is one of its branches. Phoenician and Hebrew (as well as several other dialects) are generally considered to be members of the Canaanite family of languages ​​(much like Russian and Ukrainian come from Old Church Slavonic).
It should be noted here that in this era vowel sounds were not designated at all. Modern words מים, ארון, מלכים were written as מם, ארן, מלכם. (L. Zeliger, “Hebrew”) Therefore, it is difficult to judge when and how the ancient Hebrew and Phoenician diverged, and how exactly they differed. The word שמים was later written by the Phoenicians as שמם, but how can one find out whether this difference was only in the writing, or whether the pronunciation was very different.
The oldest surviving Hebrew inscriptions found in Israel date back almost 3,000 years (the "Gezer calendar"). But scientists believe that the oldest texts of the Tanakh were compiled even earlier, in the 12th century BC. This date is considered to be the beginning of the history of the Hebrew language itself.

A sample of modern Samaritan writing.

Hebrew(Phoenician) letter. The letter, apparently, was adopted by the Jews from the Canaanites. Apparently, it was the Canaanites who were the first to use alphabetic writing. It is assumed that Phoenician letters come from Egyptian hieroglyphs. (The oldest variety of this script is called Proto-Canaanite). Almost all modern alphabets, including modern Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, originated from this alphabet. (Another alphabet, in which the shape of the letters was based on cuneiform, was used in the city of Ugarit in the north of Phenicia - but this alphabet did not take root, and disappeared with the destruction of the city.) Today, the ancient Hebrew script (albeit in a greatly modified form) is used for writing of their Torah scrolls, the Samaritans are a once split-off nation from the Jews (today there are about 600-700 people).

2500 years ago

After numerous contacts with Assyria and Babylonia, particularly after the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile (~2500 years ago), Hebrew was significantly influenced by Aramaic. This was expressed both in borrowings (which were later strengthened in the language) and in numerous phrases, many of which later disappeared and were preserved only in literary monuments.
It is interesting that through the Aramaic language (more precisely, through the Babylonian version of Aramaic) not only purely Aramaic, but also Sumerian (!) words penetrated into Hebrew. (The Sumerians were the first inhabitants of Mesopotamia known to us, more ancient than the Babylonians and Assyrians.) Thus, the words היכל and תרנגול, which have completely taken root to this day, came into Hebrew from Aramaic, into Aramaic from Akkadian, and into Akkadian from Sumerian (see. Baruch Podolsky, “Conversations on Hebrew”). The names of the months of the Jewish calendar also came from Babylon.

The modern form of Hebrew letters also appears to have come from Babylon - our script is called "square" or "Assyrian" script. However, the Hebrew (aka Phoenician) script was also used by Jews until the Bar Kokhba uprising. The inscriptions on the coins minted by Bar Kochba are the last inscriptions made in the ancient Hebrew script.
After the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel from Babylonian captivity, the struggle for national revival began, including linguistic revival. Nehemiah writes:

In addition, many Jews still in Babylon switched to Aramaic. The Book of Ezra is written half in Aramaic; but the book of Nehemiah was written entirely in Hebrew. The struggle for a national language was crowned with success. After the Babylonian captivity there were still Jews who knew Hebrew; Despite the spread of Aramaic throughout the Middle East, the entire population of Judea spoke Hebrew again - and spoke it for almost a thousand years.

Square (Assyrian) letter. From Babylon, the ancient Jews brought the letters that we use now. In the Jewish tradition, these letters are called the “Assyrian letter” - כתב אשורי (ktav Ashuri), as opposed to the ancient letter - כתב דעץ (ktav da'ats). The exact meaning of the word דעץ is not known; we only know that the Talmud uses this word to describe the Hebrew script. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the “Assyrian letter” also developed from the Phoenician. (The modern Assyrian alphabet is more similar to Arabic writing, and only vaguely resembles Hebrew letters.)

2000 years ago

After the destruction of the Second Temple and the loss of statehood by the Jews, Hebrew began to be gradually replaced by the Aramaic language. As a result of two revolts against Rome (the Jewish War and Bar Kochba's revolt), Judea acquired a reputation as a "rebellious province". The Romans continued their repression long after the last revolt had been drowned in blood, and the Jewish population of Judea steadily declined. Jews fled to neighboring countries where the population spoke mainly Aramaic. At that time, translations of the oldest Jewish literature into Aramaic were made (for example, Targum Onkelos). At the same time, the code of Jewish legislation - the Mishnah - was written down. The Mishnah and its first commentaries are written in Hebrew; but the further it went, the more Hebrew was replaced by Aramaic. The Mishnah and commentaries on it (Gmara, Tosefta) together made up the Talmud - a code of Jewish legislation (existing in two versions: Babylonian and Jerusalem.) If Hebrew was called leshon kodesh (holy language), then Aramaic Jews began to call leshon ha-hahamim (language of the sages ) - since most of the Talmud is written in Aramaic.
After the Arab conquest, following the grammarians of the Arabic language, the first attempts were made to analyze the grammar of Hebrew: Saadia Gaon (8th - 9th centuries AD) and his student Menachem ben Saruk began to do this.

Vocalizations. Hebrew finally ceased to be a living language around the 4th century. AD There was a danger of losing the correct pronunciation of sacred texts, and already in the 6th century, vowel systems were developed to clarify pronunciation. At first, several vocalization systems arose (i.e., “Tiveriad,” “Babylonian,” and “Palestinian”). By the 10th century, the Ben Asher dynasty from Tiberias finally canonized the system of vowels, which was based on the Tiberian system - this system became generally accepted. (The Babylonian system of vowels is still used by Yemenite Jews to vocalize some books.)
Full writing. Gradually, “mothers of reading” are introduced into ancient orthography - the letters א, ה, ו, י to designate some vowels. But the use of “reading mothers” was initially limited to certain grammatical phenomena, and in most cases depended only on the whim of the scribe. A little later, in the era of the Talmud, “mothers of reading” were already systematically used.

From the “Virtual Ulpan” website

The two most common dialects spoken by modern Jews are Hebrew and Yiddish, which, despite their linguistic similarities, still represent two separate independent units. The history of the emergence and development of each of them needs to be studied in more detail in order to see their features, appreciate the richness of each dialect and understand how and under the influence of what factors these languages ​​changed. So, what is the difference between Hebrew and Yiddish?

History of Hebrew

Modern Hebrew takes its origins from the Hebrew language in which the sacred Torah was written. It became independent around the 13th century BC, separating from the northwestern subbranch of the Semitic languages. Hebrew went through a long journey of development before it took on exactly the form it has now.

It turned out that due to a difficult fate, the Jewish people, who were often under the yoke of other countries and did not have their own state, had to lead a nomadic lifestyle. At the same time, not having their own dialect, they spoke the language of the state in which they lived and raised their children. Hebrew was considered a sacred language, it was used only for studying the Talmud and rewriting Torah scrolls. It was only at the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the efforts of a group of enthusiasts led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, that Hebrew became the everyday spoken language of many Jews. It has been modified and adapted to modern realities. Since 1949 it has been the official language of Israel.

What is the history of Yiddish?

It is believed that the Jewish language Yiddish originated in Southern Germany in the Middle Ages (approximately X - XIV centuries). By the beginning of the 18th century, Yiddish speakers (Jews of Ashkenazi origin) settled throughout Central and Eastern Europe and spread the language. In the 20th century, approximately 11 million Jews around the world used Yiddish in everyday life.

Despite the fact that the Yiddish alphabet was borrowed from Hebrew, it is based on Germanic dialects. Thanks to numerous borrowings from Hebrew, Aramaic, German and some Slavic dialects, Yiddish has an original grammar that amazingly combines the Hebrew alphabet, words with a German root and syntactic elements of Slavic languages. To give a clear answer to the question: “What is the difference between Hebrew and Yiddish?” - You should study the features of each language. The study should begin with the history of the emergence of languages, as well as their structure and morphology. You should devote enough time to studying writing, because it is through it that you can trace the history of the development and change of language.

Yiddish and Hebrew languages: alphabet and grammar

Perhaps the main similarity between the two languages ​​is their common alphabet. It consists of 22 letters, each of which has a special outline and conveys a specific meaning depending on its location in the word (main or final). Both languages ​​use the Hebrew square script, which consists primarily of consonants.

Square writing means that all letters are written in a special font that resembles small squares. In addition, there are no vowels in this alphabet; they are replaced by auxiliary icons, which are placed on top of the letter designations in the form of dots or strokes.

The grammar and morphology of Yiddish and Hebrew are completely different from each other, for this reason both languages ​​are perceived differently by ear. For example, the words “thank you” in Yiddish and Hebrew have nothing in common: “a dank” and “toda!” As you can see, the Yiddish version of the word has a German root, while the Hebrew has an oriental accent.

What is the difference between Hebrew and Yiddish script?

Both languages ​​use only lowercase letters that stand apart from each other, and words are written from right to left. The main difference between the Yiddish script and the Hebrew one is that it does not use the system of nekudots (double dots and strokes); vowels are written to convey soft sounds, which makes the texts much easier to read. Unlike Yiddish, Hebrew (which also has a 22-letter square alphabet) does not have vowels, so you need to know the entire root system of words by heart or memorize phonetics to understand what the text is saying. Let's draw an analogy, take, for example, the Russian language. If it used the rules of Hebrew grammar, then the words would be written without vowels, i.e. "bg" could be read as "God" or "running". That is why many words in texts written in Hebrew are first read and only then translated depending on the context.

Features of Hebrew

The main highlight of the modern language is its special grammar and morphology. There is a clear structure in it, the words of which are modified strictly according to certain rules. Hebrew is a logically structured language in which there are practically no exceptions, such as, for example, in Russian. Yiddish has a more flexible structure, capable of adapting to the rules of any language (German or Hebrew). That's the difference (Hebrew and Yiddish).

During the Renaissance, Hebrew underwent many changes. One of the most noticeable things happened in grammar: if in the ancient version the word order in a sentence was VSO, now it is SVO (the subject comes first, followed by the verb and the object). The meanings of many ancient words also changed, and new ones were formed based on common roots.

Structure of Yiddish

The peculiarity of Yiddish is that it contains the best qualities of three languages: from German it inherited a rich culture and strict order, Hebrew added wisdom and caustic wit to it, and Slavic dialects gave it soft melodiousness and sad notes.

Yiddish was spread over a large territory, as a result of which many dialects of this language appeared. They can be divided into Western and Eastern: the first was spoken in the west of Germany and Switzerland (now this dialect is already dead), but the Eastern dialects are actively used to this day in the Baltic countries, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.

Differences between languages

By examining the history of the emergence of two languages, one can draw general conclusions about them. So, despite the similarities between them, namely a common alphabet, which still has slight differences, and roots related to the Hebrew and Aramaic dialects, these two languages ​​​​are completely two different worlds. So, what is the difference between Hebrew and Yiddish?

If you structure all the differences between these languages, you can get a fairly large comparison table. Here are the most obvious distinguishing features:

• Yiddish belongs to the Germanic language group, and modern Hebrew is a new, improved version of Hebrew.
• Yiddish has a more flexible structure for managing words, for example, in Hebrew there are only two ways to form a plural from a singular noun: you need to add ים (to them) or ות (from) at the end of the root of the word; and in Yiddish, all the rules for declension and the formation of new words depend on the root itself; they seem to consist of many exceptions.
• Of course, it is impossible not to notice the completely different sounds of these languages. Hebrew is perceived softer by ear, while Yiddish has an expiratory stress, which has a strong influence on the language, making it sonorous and assertive.

If you look more closely, you can see that Yiddish is the link between Germany and Eastern Europe: thanks to it, many words of Germanic origin and a small number of borrowings from ancient Hebrew penetrated into the Slavic languages. It is amazing to see how Yiddish combines words with German roots with their pronunciation completely different from German. Many words borrowed from Hebrew, thanks to the Yiddish guide, became firmly entrenched in the everyday life of the inhabitants of Germany. As one scholar once said, “Neo-Nazis sometimes use Hebrew words without even realizing it.”

Yiddish has had a noticeable influence on several Slavic languages: Belarusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and even some Russian words are taken from it. Thanks to him, the dialects of the Slavic language group acquired color, and Yiddish itself, in turn, traveling throughout Europe, came into contact with almost all local dialects and absorbed the best qualities of each of them.

Now the entire Jewish population of the state of Israel, numbering 8 million people, speaks Hebrew. Yiddish is used by approximately 250 thousand people around the world, mainly elderly people and representatives of the most ancient religious communities: Haredim and Hasidim.

Hebrew is the official language of Israel. It is written, spoken and read. Today, this is an ordinary fact, like the fact that in Russia they speak and write in Russian. However, even at the beginning of the 18th century, Hebrew remained a “bookish” language, used in synagogue services, literature and philosophical treatises.

Hebrew was an ancient Hebrew language, something like Latin or ancient Greek, used in worship and understood only by a few. Widespread in ancient times, Hebrew as a spoken language was long dead.

History does not know cases of the resurrection of a “dead language”, or rather, it never knew. Since Hebrew from “dead”, in a fairly short time, has turned into a modern language that meets all the needs of everyday, business and spiritual life, and is one of the decisive factors in the Jewish national revival.

The history of Hebrew is divided into five stages:
- Biblical period (source - Old Calling, also known as Tanakh or Torah, XII-II centuries BC)
- Post-biblical or Mishnaic period (sources - Mishnah (oral code of laws) and Qumran manuscripts, 1st century BC - 2nd centuries AD)
From the end of the 2nd century BC. e. The Hebrew language ceases to serve as a spoken language, becoming mainly the language of worship.
- Ancient Jewish period of the Talmud era (sources - piyut (religious poetry), III-V centuries)
- Medieval period (sources - poetry, Kabbalistic literature, scientific literature (philosophical, medical, geographical, philological, historical), X-XVIII centuries)
Hebrew still remains a literary and religious language. Just at this time, the “brother” of Hebrew, the Aramaic language, was falling out of use.
- Modern Hebrew (XIX centuries)

The revival of Hebrew was made possible by a group of enthusiasts, the most famous of whom was Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the “father of modern Hebrew.”

He was born in 1858 on the territory of the modern Vitebsk region. His parents were believers and read psalms in Hebrew. Ben Yehuda was a very talented linguist and “obsessed” with the idea that Hebrew, in which Hebrew was prayed, read and written, could become a spoken language. His famous phrase is known: “Ivri, daber Ivrit (“Jew, speak Hebrew!”). The creation of a modern Hebrew dictionary became his life's work. And it was not at all easy, since Hebrew included words related to worship and philosophy and did not have words to express the most basic (everyday) things, such as: doll, ice cream, bicycle, electricity, toothpaste. There wasn't even the word "dictionary"! (the expression commonly used was “sefer milim,” literally meaning “book of words”). Ben Yehuda took the word mila (“word”) as a basis and derived from it milon (“dictionary”).

The possibilities of word formation in Hebrew turned out to be quite sufficient to create new words; in addition, some words were borrowed from Aramaic and Arabic languages ​​related to Hebrew. In total, Ben Yehuda invented about two hundred new words, and about a quarter of them were never established in Hebrew.

Ben Yehuda inspired the use of spoken Hebrew not only through his work, but also through his personal example and his family.
In 1881, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda moved to Palestine, he and his wife decided to speak only Hebrew in the family, their son Ben-Zion (better known as Itamar Ben-Avi) became the first child for whom Hebrew became his native language, more than thousands of years after Hebrew ceased to be used as a spoken language.
Founded in 1886 in Rishon Lezion, Haviv School was the first school in the world to teach all subjects in Hebrew.

However, not everyone accepted the reviving language. In 1913, the “war of languages” began: when, during the creation of the first technical educational institution in Eretz Israel, it was decided which language would be taught in: Hebrew or German. Then the debate expanded, and the question of what language to teach in all educational institutions was discussed.

The “War of Languages” ended in victory for the Hebrew supporters. And another victory soon followed: the British Mandate declared Hebrew one of the three official languages ​​of Mandatory Eretz Israel.

Another of the most important achievements of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was the creation of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, which exists in Israel today; it has the right to establish grammatical norms of the language and expand its lexical and terminological base.

Once a “dead” book language, modern Hebrew has in a short time become the native language of several million people, satisfying all the linguistic needs of a modern, rapidly developing society. Considering the fact that Hebrew, not so long ago, had no living speakers, the phenomenon of its revival to the stage of a full-fledged means of communication still remains unique and inimitable.