Jill Suzanne Jacobs - Hebrew For Dummies

Hebrew was once almost exclusively a holy language — a language of prayers and ritual, of the Bible and other sacred texts, and a language above the humdrum of the everyday. That’s no longer true. The same ancient and holy tongue is now the language of sunbathing on the beach, eating dinner, going to the doctor, and carrying out the myriad events of everyday life.

All languages are portals — openings to culture and friendship, literature, and ideas. Discover any one of these portals, and a whole new world opens up to you. Discover Hebrew, and a whole Jewish and Israeli world is yours.

If you’ve ever been to a synagogue or had a bit of Jewish education, you probably know a little Hebrew already. But even if you’ve never walked through a synagogue’s door or studied anything Jewish, you probably still know some Hebrew words. You’ve probably heard the word amen, for example. That word is Hebrew! Amen comes from a word meaning “faith” or “belief,” and people usually say it at the end of a prayer. And the word Hallelujah? Hebrew again! The word literally means “Praise God.” Even the word alphabet derives from the Hebrew words for the first two letters of its alphabet, aleph and bet. (To see what the Hebrew alphabet looks like, check out “ Recognizing Tips to Help You Read Hebrew” later in this chapter.)

You may have heard other Jewish words, of course, such as שלעפּ ( shlehp; to drag or pull ) and קְוֶעְהְהָשׁ ( kvehtsh; to complain ), which are actually Yiddish (the language of the Jews of Eastern Europe combining Old High German, Hebrew, and other languages) and are part of the Israeli vernacular today. You may never have thought about other words that have Hebrew roots. Did you know that cinnamon is a derivative of the Hebrew word קִנָּמוֹן (kee-nah- mohn ), which appears in the biblical book The Song of Songs? The English word dilute may derive from the Hebrew word דַּל( dahl ), which means “weak” or “thin” and first appears in the biblical book of Genesis.

Some people claim that Hebrew is the mother of all languages. No matter what its history or origin, Hebrew, a language that has its origins in the Fertile Crescent, has crept into North American spoken English. This process works in reverse, too, as many English words and phrases have crept into the Hebrew language. Interestingly enough, although you as an English speaker may identify some words as English, some of them derive from Italian and French, which shows the universality of certain words. But if you say the following words with an Israeli accent, you’re speaking Hebrew!

Hamburger

Macaroni

Pizza

Cafe

Radio

Internet

Telephone

Incidentally, The Academy for Hebrew Language, the institute responsible for creating Modern Hebrew words, created an authentic Hebrew word for the telephone. The academy called the telephone a שָׂח -רָחוֹק (sahch-rah- chohk ) , which put together the words for conversation and long distance. So, telephone translated as “long-distance conversation.” Pretty clever, huh? This word didn’t stick with the Israeli public, however, so הֵלֵפוֹן( telephone ) it is.

Hebrew, the language of the Bible, is spoken today in Israel and around the world as a modern language. The question, of course, is where all these modern words come from? Who decides? The answer is הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית, (ha-ah -kah-dee -mee-yah la-lh- shon hah- eev -reett; The Academy for Hebrew Language), an institute founded in Israel in 1953 to oversee the language’s development and to create new words as the need arose in a manner consistent with Hebrew’s historical development. So, although Hebrew is an ancient biblical language, new words needed to be developed, such as high tech (תַּעֲשִׂיָּהעָלִית ;tah-ah see- yat ee- leet ) and start-up company (חֶבְרַת הֶזְנֵק; hehv- raht hehz- nehk ), surfboard (גַּלְשָׁן ;gahl- shan ), jet lag (יַעֶפֶת ;yah- eh -feht), and even — when you’ve had a few too many — hangover (חֲמַרְמֹרֶת ; ḥah-mahr- moh -reht).

Other timely words include נְגִישׁוּת(neh -shee -goot; affordability ), חֲרִיגָנוּת( ḥahr -ree-gahn-oot; exceptionalism ), נְת וּנֵי עָתֵק(nee- too -nee ah-tahk; big data ), תַּג הַקְבָּצָה(tahg-hahk - bahk- tzah; hashtag ), הַעֲלָמַת זֶהוּת(heet- ahm -aht zah -hoot; anonymization ), עִילוּת(ee- loot; gentrification ), אַחֲוָה( ah -vah; solidarity ), and ְ תַּצלוּם מָסָךְ( tahtz -loom mah ḥscreen shot).

The Israeli public doesn’t accept all the words the academy invents, of course, although the academy’s decisions are binding for government documents and the official Israel Broadcasting Authority.

Israelis aren’t above taking matters into their own hands and creating words of their own. In the 1990s, Motorola Israel Corporation introduced wireless phones, coining the new word פֶּלֶא-פוֹן pela-phone (meaning “wonder phone).” You can find out more about the academy at: https://hebrew-academy.org.il/ . Here’s a great video on the Academy (it’s in Hebrew, but there are English subtitles); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY62gLh10CM You can even check out their Facebook page and “like” it at www.facebook.com/AcademyOfTheHebrewLanguage .

When speaking a foreign language, you want to sound as authentic as possible. Use the tips in the following sections to start. The most important parts of sounding like a native are persistence and practice — and then some more practice! Listen to the dialogues from this book (available online) as much as possible. Spend as much time listening to Hebrew spoken by native speakers as you can.

Memorizing vocabulary and certain stock phrases and repeating them to yourself until you can say them at quite a clip is also helpful. In no time at all, you may fool people into thinking that you speak Hebrew fluently — or close to fluently, anyway.

The first tip I give you has to do with the way syllables are stressed. In American English, we often stress or place emphasis on the first syllable in each word, as in “When speak ing a for eign lan guage … .” But Hebrew often places the emphasis on the last syllable. So, if you were speaking that previous phrase with an Israeli accent, you’d place your emphasis on the last syllable: “When speak ing a for eign langu age… . ”

Gestures provide the flourishing touch to help you seem like a native speaker. Use the following gestures when you‘re speaking in Israel: