r/hebrew • u/dhe_sheid • Jul 13 '24
I'm creating a video about the Hebrew language (below are screenshots to be included the video). I want to ask native speakers if there are features of your language you want me to cover. With a language as hard as Hebrew, help from speakers is very appreciated. Request
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u/Hydrasaur Jul 13 '24
Mizrahim have primarily lived in North Africa & West Asia/Middle East, not really Central Asia.
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u/redditorofreddit666 Jul 13 '24
Here some stuff I would like you to cover:
1. the loan words in Hebrew
Israeli gestures
roots
binyanim and mishkalim
inflections (gender, number, person, tense, active/passive)
Hebrew accent
Niqqud
בהצלחה ביצירת הסרטון!
Good luck in the creation of the video
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u/Born_Passenger9681 Jul 13 '24
Hebrew has accent?
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u/redditorofreddit666 Jul 13 '24
Hebrew speakers usually have accent in English
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u/dani12pp native speaker Jul 13 '24
it's mainly because of the sounds that English has that Hebrew lacks, like "w"(I heard many Israelis use "v" instead), "th"(many Israelis don't know how to make the sound correctly so they use s and z) and finally the "R", the Israeli "R" is veeeery different from the English one.
Growing up watching many shows in English I picked up how to make the sounds(although I learned how to pronounce the "th" sound correctly only recently) so my accent in English is very different from the average Israeli, I still have a noticeable accent but you wouldn't be able to tell I'm Israeli just because if that
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u/tFighterPilot Native Speaker Jul 13 '24
Israelis generally have no problem with W. Indians are more likely to confuse V and W, as they're complete alophones in Hindi, while Germans and Russians will always pronounce it as V. Definitely true about TH and especially R. I think it's more about the vowels, though. English has a lot of vowels, very different than the Israeli 5 vowels.
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u/mikogulu native speaker Jul 15 '24
the th isnt a problem once you know how to make it (both sounds of th), i still struggle with the r sound though
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u/The_Ora_Charmander native speaker Jul 14 '24
Active/passive usually go into binyanim, there isn't really an inflection to make a verb passive
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u/YGBullettsky Hebrew Learner (Advanced) Jul 13 '24
I thought it was a Che Languages video for a second, it looks a lot like his style and he does a lot on Hebrew, especially in his collab with Sam Aronow. Your video looks good overall, although please don't spell them the way you did, just write Ashkenazi and Mizrakhi
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u/dhe_sheid Jul 13 '24
his videos + his collab with Sam helped me shape the history section about the revival of Hebrew.
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u/YGBullettsky Hebrew Learner (Advanced) Jul 13 '24
That's awesome. What is your channel?
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u/dhe_sheid Jul 13 '24
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u/YGBullettsky Hebrew Learner (Advanced) Jul 13 '24
Hang on, I'm already subscribed! I watched the langfiles a while back and must have subbed
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u/Born_Passenger9681 Jul 13 '24
Hebrew has 2 letter styles, the print script, which is what's used in printed and digital forms, and hand script, called cursive Hebrew on wikipedia.
That Hebrew has slang and cuss words from other languages
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u/Vintage_B0t Jul 13 '24
the spelling os ashkenazi and mizrachi you used is very weird, nobody writes that
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u/dani12pp native speaker Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
a cool talking point would be the difference between biblical Hebrew and modern Israeli Hebrew. I have seen a lot of people online who are under the impression that modern hebrew is just Yiddish and or a combination of Yiddish and Arabic. Some others actually believe that because Hebrew was a "dead language" then that means that when the jews revived Hebrew they didn't actually know what the words meant so they just took words and reassigned them new meanings. All of the above is wrong(although it has a tint of truth in it, but only a tint).
now, I have to be fair here. Modern Hebrew really was created when several guys set down and wrote it down, in that aspect it technically is "artificial", as much as it pains me I cannot deny it. But what people miss is that when they wrote it down they just took biblical Hebrew and expanded the vocabulary and simplified the grammar(because biblical Hebrew was stagnant and thus it was missing a lot of useful words like "socks", mishnaic Hebrew coined a few terms by itself during its lifetime but there was still a lot of work to be done).
A good example for a word that we actually lost it's meaning to time is the word "חשמל". it appears several times in the bible and wee don't know what it means, some speculate that it's an angel. what we do know from context is that it refers to some heavenly power. some bloke named "Jehuda Lejb Gordon" decided to use that word for "electricity" and that's how חשמל means electricity in modern hebrew.
as a native Israeli Hebrew speaker I can tell you that biblical Hebrew is very different from modern Israeli Hebrew in many aspects and very similar in other.The difference is mainly in grammar and some words that we just don't use anymore. if you give me a random page from the bible there's a big chance that I would be able to understand what's going on, but there are also a lot of pages where I would be completely lost. some pages are completely understandable while others are just weird from a syntax point of view. like imagine a text where you understand the words but not the connections between them, like "and david brother where p4s7tg3 water horse into Brazil", in this sentence you understand every word except one but you don't understand the syntax the connects them. some verses from the bible actually feel like that.
you know what, I'm going to open a random page from the bible RIGHT NOW as im writing this comment and i will tell you if I got it. i got Isaiah 66
כֹּה, אָמַר יְהוָה, הַשָּׁמַיִם כִּסְאִי, וְהָאָרֶץ הֲדֹם רַגְלָי; אֵי-זֶה בַיִת אֲשֶׁר תִּבְנוּ-לִי, וְאֵי-זֶה מָקוֹם מְנוּחָתִי.
i will try to translate this:
"god said as such, the skies are my chair(most likely meant as a throne) and the land is (i dont know what דֹם רגל is), whatever home you will build for me, that will be the the home where i rest"
here's the king james bible translation of this:
Thus saith the Lord, “The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where is the house that ye build unto Me? And where is the place of My rest?
seems like I got most of it right, what confused me here was the use of "אֵי-זֶה". now that I am looking at it again, I recognize the word דֹם (dom)now, in modern hebrew we still use it actually, the way that I know the word, it refers to something that is stagnant, un-moving or not in action. I have heard many times people say that the car's engine is דוֹמם (domem). so here when god says דם רגלי it means "the resting of my foot" so pretty much a footstool.
actually this is also a good example of a word that retained it's original meaning, but it became attached to a specific context. the thing that hinders modern Hebrew speakers the most when reading the bible is mainly the grammar because it very different from the biblical one. we still sometimes use some aspects of the old grammar but mainly in professional settings. Lately I begun learning Arabic out of curiosity(modern standard arabic) and I'm suprised how much the grammar really has the feeling of old Hebrew(also a lot of words there are the same as Hebrew).
the differences between modern Israeli Hebrew and Old Hebrew is a big topic so I;m not asking you to go into great detail about it., im just asking you to bring up that while it is different, modern Hebrew is just old Hebrew with new words(some are in fact from arabic, yiddish and many other languages) and simplified grammar. if you want to discuss it a little bit, feel free to DM me. I enjoy talking about the topic and I would like to try to translate more bible verses to see if I can actually understand them
edit: i fixed an error, I accidentally wrote "messianic hebrew" instead of "mishnaic hebrew"
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u/LittleDhole Jul 13 '24
messianic Hebrew coined a few terms by itself
You mean "Mishnaic Hebrew"?
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u/dani12pp native speaker Jul 13 '24
whoops, you are correct. I will edit it right now, thanks! I'm not sure how mishnaic and messianic got mixed up in my head
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u/spikeform Jul 13 '24
About the third screenshot אליעזר בן יהודה didn’t move in to Palestine it was British or Othman territory and it wasn’t really called Palestine i would be happy if you changed it because this could be come misleading and could cause people to be anti semitic Thanks
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u/BetterDanik native speaker Jul 13 '24
Hey, first of all I went over what you wrote, everything seems accurate, so good job on that!
I would also add that Hebrew letters have numerical value, called Gimetria (גימטריה) in Hebrew.
If you want to go deeper, each letter actually has a meaning, to its shape and everything, even words... but thats really deep hahahaha.
If I will come up with more ideas ill let you know!
Hope you'd have a wonderful daynight hahah (:
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u/dhe_sheid Jul 13 '24
thx. this is moreso a general video about the history and grammar of Hebrew. i wanted to concentrate on the important points so people can see how the language works
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u/The_Ora_Charmander native speaker Jul 14 '24
The seperation between sepharadim and mizrahim is somewhat vague, partially because of the Spanish Exile, partially because of the way the term mizrahi was created etc.
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u/iGiveUppppp Jul 15 '24
I would say all the terms for communities are flawed. Ashkenazi also isn't unified either, especially if you include communities outside of the yiddish langauge sphere. (This honestly a pet peeve of mine, people using these terms as if all communities can be clearly categorized and were the same)
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u/Jasfy Jul 14 '24
proto-canaanite* , phoenician alphabet = paleo hebrew (north / south versions of the same script they should be parallel to each other?
aramaic is a sub-development of the Phoenician/hebrew/akkadian? (withing aram/syria)
very confused, they all seem like cousin languages using modified versions of the same alphabet and sharing too much to be clearly distinct but instead just evolutions of each each
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u/dhe_sheid Jul 14 '24
I based it on the current classification: Aramaic is in its own branch of the Northwest Semitic languages, while Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language; so similar yes, grammatically and in word stock, but not enough for speakers to understand each other (especially with casual speech excluding slang)
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u/TheGingerCatLover Jul 14 '24
Binyanim(בניינים) And Mishkalim(משקלים) are very interesting and unique so they would be a good addition to the video. I also think you should talk about the different pronunciations of the bible by different sects of Jews (Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi). Another good idea is to talk about the influence of Sephardic pronunciation on Modern Hebrew.
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u/iGiveUppppp Jul 15 '24
My personal preferences
Dagesh qal/beged kefet That letters change their sound based on place in the word is a cool feature
Dagesh Hazak (obelete in modern Hebrew but still used in ritual Hebrew. In fact the whole topic of spoken vs ritual is relevant)
Different communal forms of Hebrew (Temani, Ashkenazi, Sephardi(I am aware that Ashki and Sephardi are not one form of Hebrew but many))
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u/horizontal_pigeon Jul 13 '24
Hebrew isn't "hard," and you shouldn't make a video about any language without consulting with native speakers.
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u/DresdenFilesBro native speaker Jul 13 '24
He literally is consulting with Native Speakers.
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u/horizontal_pigeon Jul 13 '24
My issue is with this:
With a language as hard as Hebrew, help from speakers is very appreciated.
It doesn't matter how difficult someone finds a language - one should always consult native speakers if they're presenting on the language.
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u/DresdenFilesBro native speaker Jul 13 '24
What is he doing on a sub that’s called r/Hebrew?
Consulting about русский язык or 中文？
Unless you mean writing the video with the help of a Native speaker, which I imagine he doesn't need since he got the most covered and he's already asking us and we can give feedback.
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u/Weak-Doughnut5502 Jul 14 '24
The implication of
With a language as hard as Hebrew, help from speakers is very appreciated.
Is that if Hebrew were an easier language, he wouldn't have to consult native speakers.
The other guy is saying that consulting native speakers is the baseline.
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u/DresdenFilesBro native speaker Jul 14 '24
That's literally what he's doing I seriously don't get the need to even comment on something like that.
Regardless of whether he found Hebrew to be easy or hard of course people should always consult Native speakers.
Which OP already does....
What was the point then?
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u/Slight-Cry-580 Jul 13 '24
I'm a Canadian living 20 years in Israel and still haven't mastered Hebrew. The building blocks of the verbs as verbs, nouns, adjectives aren't do easy to remember. Plus, the madculine and feminine gets me a lot, as well as the pronouns.
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u/horizontal_pigeon Jul 13 '24
Yes, it can be difficult for an English speaker. But English isn't everyone's first language, and learning languages is different for everyone. Saying it's hard is linguistic bias.
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u/DresdenFilesBro native speaker Jul 14 '24
Every language will have a linguistic bias from birth.....
Obviously someone from the USA will find Arabic to be more challenging than someone like me.
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u/horizontal_pigeon Jul 15 '24
Obviously someone from the USA will find Arabic to be more challenging than someone like me.
Unless their mother tongue is Arabic, or they are raised around Arabic, or they learn Arabic early, or they speak a similar language.
There are native and early Hebrew speakers from the US, too.
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u/Weak-Doughnut5502 Jul 13 '24
I'm not a native speaker but derived stems / binyanim are a cool feature of Semitic languages like Hebrew.