It is very important to learn the history of the language you are studying. Language is a very important component of culture, and knowing its history helps in understanding many things. For example, Hebrew shares a lot of its grammar with Arabic and its alphabet is very similar to the Assyrian alphabet. When I first heard my friends speak Hebrew, I could recognize words or whether they are speaking about a guy or a girl. This did not make sense to me because similar languages can share words, but sharing grammar is not usual. Now that I know the history of Hebrew, I know how this is possible.
Hebrew was not spoken since the second century CE. It became the language of the Hebrew scripture only and it was read a few times a year. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a movement was initiated to restore Hebrew as a spoken language. The initiation was based on the religious importance of speaking Hebrew. The majority of modern Hebrew is based on Biblical or scripture Hebrew, but a lot of the grammar and words are taken from Arabic, English, Russian, and Latin. The alphabet used in modern Hebrew is the simple square alphabet that originates from the Assyrian Aramaic alphabet.
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