The Hebrew language has always been an essential part of Judaism. Even when it was no longer a spoken language, it always remained in use as a tool for Jewish scholars, and for Jewish religious traditions (Britannica). This past weekend I attended the Havdallah service conducted by Hillel of Richmond. I observed that all of the members were able to sing along with the Hebrew service at least to some degree. This is evidence of how Hebrew, even as a language no longer spoken as a colloquial language, would remain at least in a small part through the traditions of Judaism. Jewish traditions in a sense kept alive the spark of the Hebrew language that was then rekindled to become Modern Hebrew, the "only colloquial speech based on a written language" (Britannica).
As a revived language, Hebrew borrows many modern terms from other languages. For instance, the Hebrew word for "professor" is basically the same as the English word, only pronounced with a more guttural accent. Those who created modern Hebrew were often influenced by their mother tongues as they formulated words for terms that were nonexistent in Biblical Hebrew. Understanding this can help in learning Hebrew because some words will have familiar sounds to me, and I will be able to see where the the influences of Romantic and Germanic languages separate Modern Hebrew from the ancient language.
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