Hebrew language
Member of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in Southwest Asia by the ancient Hebrews, sustained for many centuries in the Diaspora as the liturgical language of Judaism, and revived by the late-19th-century Haskalah intellectual movement, which spread modern European culture among Jews. The language developed in the 20th century as Israeli Hebrew, the national language of the state of Israel. It is the original language of the Old Testament of the Bible.
Such English words as cherub, chutzpah, Jehovah/Yahweh, kosher, rabbi, sabbath, seraph, and shibboleth are borrowings from Hebrew. The Hebrew alphabet (called the aleph-beth) is written from right to left.
| Words and names from Hebrew have entered the English language since Anglo-Saxon times, mostly through the Bible. More recently, however, colloquialisms from Yiddish, such as kosher and goy, have entered the language, particularly in the USA. |
