- Reflect on how knowing a language's history can help you learn the language.
Leanring a language's history is important because it gives us an insight on the culture's history as well as what it values which one can discern by a norm's attachment to a word. For example, Hebrew is deluged with such occurrences as its history is reflected biblically in the Torah, and thus Hebrew as a language. One example is the word Ivrit (Hebrew). Ivrit is derived from the stem "eber," which, in Hebrew, means 'the region beyond." Historically, as well as biblically, when the Jews were marching up from Sinai desert and into Israel, they had to cross the Jordan River. So, "ivrit" designates a people that are across from the Jordan River. Moreover, the father of Eber, Shem, and thus the father of all of Eber's, descendants, becomes institutionalized through attaching his descendants to the name "semite." Classical Hebrew script -- Ketav Ashurit -- was first in use after the Israelites' captivity by the Babylonians. It is said this was done in order to create a distance from the Samaritanism. This new language was called Leshon Hakodesh, or the holy language. Therefore, one can see how intertwined Hebrew is with its history and religion of Judaism. Moreover, there are different forms, or generational Hebrews if you will: Biblical Hebrew -- or Classical Hebrew -- which was spoken in the Temples during Jesus' time; Mishnaic Hebrew -- or Rabbinic Hebrew -- was first spoken in the second century AD and was used in the Talmud and Madrash; Medieval Hebrew, mostly used to translate Arabic works into Hebrew; and Modern Hebrew, 19th century to modern day. Hebrew was revived in order to effectively create a zionist vision in the Israelite lands, spearheaded by figures such as Ben Gurion, and Eliezar Ben Yehuda amongst others.
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/History/history.html
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