In the "Ask the Rabbi" forum, Kel wrote:
I always dreamed about undertaking to learn Hebrew, but, as a native English speaker, I have a few concerns which it seems I can address here. In terms of difficulty, how does Hebrew compare to a Romance language? Is it true that Hebrew writes only consonants and not vowels? And does this complicate things? And would the Hebrew that one would learn to read the Hebrew Bible be mutually intelligible with the form that is spoken today in modern Israel?
Kel:
The reply you were given in "Ask the Rabbi" was less than satisfactory, but one reason for this may be that you posted your message in the wrong
forum so I have reproduced it here in full so I can reply to it more fully.
You have asked four questions:
(1) In terms of difficulty, how does Hebrew compare to a Romance language?
(2) Is it true that Hebrew writes only consonants and not vowels?
(3) Does this complicate things?
(4) Would the Hebrew that one would learn to read the Hebrew Bible be mutually intelligible with the form that is spoken today in modern Israel?
(1) It's impossible for me to answer this because I grew up speaking Hebrew, but had to learn French as a foreign language. I can tell you that I found French very hard to learn, but there is no way I can compare it with Hebrew in terms of "difficulty". Maybe someone else who didn't grow up speaking Hebrew can give you some idea of Hebrew's "difficulty" as compared with French.
(2) It is true that vowels in Hebrew are mostly indicated in writing by diacritics (marks written above or below, or occasionaly within, the letters), although there are two or three letters which, while normally consonants, can also be used to indicate certain vowel sounds. Even these, however, are optional and can usually be omitted and the vowel diacritics are usually omitted except in language-teaching books and other children's texts, and Bibles, Prayer Books etc.
(3) Not normally; but there used to be a huge illuminated sign advertising "Kent" cigarettes by the roadside in southern Tel Aviv where the road from Y'rushalayim entered the city on which the brand name was written
קֶנט
Reading from right to left, the three consonants are ק k, נ n, ט t and the small, inverted triangle of dots below the letter ק kuf (k) is the diacritic representing the vowel sound "e". In this case, the vowel diacritic is necessary
because, were it not included, the way that many people would have vocalised "KNT" would have been unfortunate - to say the least!
However, in the overwhelming majority of cases the grammar, position in a sentence and usage of a particular word makes the correct pronunciation obvious to a
Hebrew-speaker and so most vowel diacritics are unnecessary. They can always be inserted if needed, as in the example I gave above.
(4) The Hebrew of the Bible has a number of archaic verb forms which are no longer in use, and also a complex system of suffixal endings that represent
pronouns, for the most part in the accusative case, which are not normally used any more either: thus, for example, in the Bible one finds בֵּיתִי beyti (pronounced like BAY TEE) "My house" (as in Y'shayahu 56:7, the verse so badly misapplied by
Yéshu in "The Fairy-Story According to Matthew" 21:13), while a contemporary Hebrew-speaker would be more likely to say הַבַּיִת שֶׁלִי ha-bayit she-li (lit. "the house that is mine"). However people still use the
greeting מַה שְׁלוֹמְךָ / שְׁלוֹמֵךְ / שְׁלוֹמְכֶם mah sh'lom'cha / sh'loméch / sh'lom'chem to ask
"How are you?", which literally means "what is your (masculine/feminine/plural) welfare?" - the three words שְׁלוֹמְךָ sh'lom'cha, שְׁלוֹמֵךְ sh'loméch and שְׁלוֹמְכֶם sh'lom'chem all incorporate the Biblical-style pronominal suffixal endings ־ךָ -cha "your" (masc. sing.), ־ֵךְ -éch "your" (fem. sing.), and
־כֶם -chem "your" (plural). The feminine plural suffix ־כֶן -chen
is completely obsolete in contemporary Hebrew.
Finally, if you have any doubts about the comprehensibility of "Biblical Hebrew" to a modern speaker of contemporary Hebrew, I suggest you come to
Y'rushalayim, go and stand outside any גַּן יְלָדִים (kindergarten) and listen to the enthusiasm in the voices of
the little three-year-olds singing
the words of which are taken, without absolutely no modification at all, from T'hillim 128:5-6יְבָרֶכְךָ הַשֵּׁם מִצִּיּוֹןy'varech'cha ha-shem mi-tziyyon
וּרְאֵה בְּטוּב יְרוּשָׁלָיִם
יְבָרֶכְךָ הַשֵּׁם מִצִּיּוֹן
כֹּל יְמֵי, יְמֵי חַיֶּיךָ׃
וּרְאֵה בָנִים לְבָנֶיךָ,
שָׁלוֹם עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
וּרְאֵה בָנִים לְבָנֶיךָ,
שָׁלוֹם עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
u-r'eh b'tuv y'rushalayim;
y'varech'cha ha-shem mi-tziyyon,
kol y'mei, y'mei hayyecha!
U-r'eh banim l'vanecha,
shalom al yisrael!
u-r'eh banim l'vanecha,
shalom al yisrael!
"Hashem [God] will bless you from Tziyyon
and may you experience the goodness of Y'rushalayim
throughout all of your life;
may you [live to] see children [born] to your children,
and may there be peace on Yisrael!"
I hope the above will answer your questions but, if there is anything further you want to know, please do not hesitate to ask.
