Journal # 6

[Alexander Allen]

The Hebrew language is one of the oldest languages that are still commonly used today. The interesting thing about the Hebrew language is that is ties directly to the Jewish religion; in fact, Modern Hebrew had to evolve from it's historic counterpart in order to both incorporate the nuances of the modern world, and to effectively sequester some of the religious themes which were imbedded within the language. The Jews were a nomadic people in the ancient times, this is an explanation for the similarities between the Hebrew language and the various languages through the middle east, such as Arabic. Much of the pronunciation and script in the Hebrew language are audibly and visually similar to that of Arabic. Hebrew nearly died as a language but was revived in the 1800's by a man named Eleazar Ben Yehuda along with the Zionist movement. Since then Hebrew has consistently evolved from being a means of studying religious history into a modern, dynamic language.