Talk:Hebrew language/Archive 2

message: Why not?Ep9206 18:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge with Modern Hebrew Language article?

message: The terms "Standard Hebrew" or "Israeli Standard Hebrew" are hardly ever used outside the pages of Wikipedia.  Does it refer to the Hebrew spoken and written by educated Israelis?  The "correct" Hebrew promoted by the Academy of the Hebrew Language?  The pre-exilic Hebrew of the majority of the Bible, as standardized by scribes, massoretes, and medieval grammarians?  It's not a well-defined specific term.
I've changed the sentence in the article, "Sefardi Hebrew is the basis of Standard Hebrew" because it's not meaningful to anyone who's unfamiliar with the Wikipedia-term "Standard Hebrew".  I'm not disagreeing with the facts: Sefardi Hebrew pronunciation (not much else though) is indeed the basis of the most widespread, ethnically neutral variety of Israeli Hebrew pronunciation.  It's just that the phrase "Standard Hebrew" (with capital s) as a technical term meaning "the most widespread, ethnically neutral variety of Israeli Hebrew" is not an established term, outside of Wikipedia. Maybe it's a good term and everyone should immediately start to use it, but it's not in keeping with Wikipedia's role to promote the use of a non-standard (!) terminology.  Not to mention the fact that in many ways the most widespread, ethnically neutral variety of Israeli Hebrew is quite different from the norms promoted by the Academy of the Hebrew Language and the educational system in Israel. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.184.101.96 (talk • contribs) .
:First off, please sign your posts with four tildae (~~~~). Secondly, please do not edit your posts so long after you've made them, it makes it very confusing.
:Anyway, in what ways is "Standard Hebrew" ambiguous? Israeli Hebrew seems coherent enough to me. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 22:41, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Standard" Hebrew

message: Does anyone know of a good online translator page that can render Hebrew websites in English? There are some good articles on our Hebrew counterpart which potentially contain a lot of useful information for the English language versions. Timrollpickering 14:06, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Wouldn't that be nice. - Gilgamesh 07:01, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've translated the entry in the Hebrew Wikipedia under "Hebrew language," but I'm not sure how best to share it with the group. Any suggestions?Mlevie 04:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Online translator 

message: This page is 40 kb long! I see that the former articles for sections such as Hebrew grammar and Hebrew phonology were merged here. Is there some reason why this was done? It is kind of inconvenient for people with old browsers who can't upgrade. Wikiacc 01:35, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size

message: The second paragraph of I am that I am makes some assertions about the subtleties of interpreting אהיה אשר אהיה.  I'm pretty sure it isn't accurate.  Perhaps someone watching this page could give that text a quick fixup?  Thanks, Dbenbenn 04:11, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to say that I couldn't help snorting at the idea of "I be that I be," but I don't dare correct it. In all honesty we may never really understand what that sentence meant, but since the name of God (let's write it "Yahweh") is derived from the same root as the verb "to be," I have heard it suggested that the sentence means simply "I am Yahweh," which at least makes something approaching grammatical sense.Mlevie 21:53, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[I am that I am]] 

message: "Generally speaking, the imperative of most verbs in Modern Hebrew is expressed by using the 2nd person future form."
:this is inaccurate, omission of the first syllable, is also very common (contrast with biblical hebrew - ommiting the first syllable, and reapplying "bgd-kft"). Imperative in modern hebrew is a currently an unstable phenomenon, and the subject of research, but by no means is being 'replaced' by '2nd person future' (which does exist)
example: b.d.k. 'infinitive' livdok (to check) imperatives in common use: (male) vdok! (rm 1st) tivdok! (2nd f.) bdok! (classic-hebrew form) (female) vdeki! (rm 1st) tivdeki! (2nd f.) bdeki! (classical male + i) bidki (classical). all forms are very common, the 'rm 1st' form is unique to modern hebrew, and is an example for a case in which modern hebrew does not obey 'bgd-kft'.
::The omission of the first syllable may be common but it is not grammatical. For livdok, grammatical imperatives are "bdok/bidki/bidku" (classical and still in use in formal situations) and "tivdok/tivdeki/tivdeku" (same as the future tense). Dropping the first syllable of the future ("vdok/vdeki/vdeku") is not grammatical, as initial v (written bet) is not allowed. People may use "ain't" all the time in English, but it ain't correct. A reverse example: some speakers may say "pilosofiya" instead of "filosofiya" because they know that initial f (written pe) is not allowed in Hebrew words (since this is a foreign borrowing it's an exception.) I've corrected the article to reflect this.69.3.148.220 20:29, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  imperative 

message: "Hebrew is spoken primarily in Israel by its close to six million Jews as well as by the two million Arabs who live there. However, outside of Israel, Sephardic Jews, mainly in France (with over half a million Jews), and expatriate Israelis, mainly in the United States, (about half a million people), tend to use it as a home language. Usually, most Ashkenazi Jews not born in Israel, (about eight million people), find it difficult to learn and use Hebrew in colloquial speech."
There is an appparent contradiction in the last sentence. My guess is that it should read "do not use", but someone who knows more than I do should correct it.
:I assume your proposed correction "do not use" is intended to suggest that "learn and use Hebrew in colloquial speech." should be altered to say "learn and do not use blahblahblah".  I don't think such a rewording is necessary, since the compound verb here is "learn and use".  Many Ashkenazim know Hebrew, but find it incredibly difficult to use as a colloquial language.  That is to say, they can read it, and understand what they're reading.  They can pray in Hebrew and understand the words they're saying.  But if you say something to them in Hebrew, they look at you like you're addressing them in an extinct dialect of some previously unknown click-language from the highlands of Papua New Guinea...  TShilo12 07:37, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this paragraph's first sentence is the only one that makes any sense, and I'm in favor of removing the rest of it. I'm Sephardic (I live in the US) and I speak Hebrew although my family speaks no Hebrew at home. Sephardic Jews are not centered in France. I know many Ashkenazim, particularly the more religious sort, who spend lots of time in Israel and speak Hebrew. Perhaps TShilo doesn't know them, and there may be no survey that says how many there are, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Non-Israeli Ashkenazim do not "find it difficult" to learn and use Hebrew, any more than Italian-Americans "find it difficult" to learn and use Italian. In fact, I find that sentence offensive. Hebrew is no more difficult for them than, say, Japanese. It's just that most non-Israeli Jews are not descended from Israeli Jews, nor do they have any Israeli relatives, and therefore for them Hebrew is a language they learn for their bar mitzvah and after that they don't see the point.Mlevie 21:46, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey.  Don't blame me.  I didn't write it!  My comment about Ashkenazim was in fact that they do know Hebrew, unlike what the article says.  My experience with many Ashkenazim, "particularly the more religious sort", however, is that their ability to use Hebrew conversationally breaks down rapidly after a few sentences, especially when faced with someone who speaks MIH or a sefardi or mizrachi (etc.) flavor of Hebrew.  This inability is far more pronounced in people who have never been to Israel, or more accurately, have never been outside of a "black-hat" yeshiva in Israel.  Personally, I think the whole paragraph is utterly bogus.  Large sectors of the Jewish population in Israel obstinately refuse to learn Hebrew, whether it's that portion of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union whom that describes, who prefer to speak Russian, or those charedim who consider MIH to be a desecration of the <shudder>"loshen kodesh"</shudder>.  There are also significant numbers of so-called "Anglos" in Israel, who prefer to learn as little Hebrew as possible, opting instead to use English.  As for the claim that the "two million" (Good lord!  What does that author know that the Israeli census missed?!) Arab citizens all speak Hebrew, that's just plain laughable, and should be summarily deleted without comment.  TShilo12 09:36, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Incidentally, my remark about click-languages comes from personal experience:  Most ashkenazim are not aware that `ayin has a pronunciation, and often look shocked when they hear it pronounced.  Similarly, most ashkenazim regard the pronunciation of cheth differently from khaf as an alien concept, and some don't appear to be able to tell sometimes that you're even saying a cheth...and if they manage to catch the difference between a kaf and a quf, watch their eyes go wide...  TShilo12 10:06, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, honestly I can go to an Ashenazic synagogue and not understand a word, I can barely believe it's the same language, but that's a diaspora for you. Still, the pronounciations you mention (non-silent 'ayin, chet and kuf as in Arabic) are non-standard and people are entitled to look a little askance at them, just as Parisian French speakers struggle to understand the Quebecois or Germans from Munich squint at Schweizerdeutsch. As for Israeli Arabs, would it not be fair to say that the million or so who live inside the Green Line and went to Israeli schools probably know Hebrew fairly well? In fact, most of them probably speak it better than the Anglo and Russian 'olim you mention.Mlevie 04:25, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Geographic distribution

message: "Recently many Israeli speakers have merged /ə/ into /e/, reducing the vowel phonemes to 5"?  Only if by "recently" you mean several generations ago.  It's a fiction that there is a /ə/ phoneme different from /e/.  (In Israeli Hebrew, that is.  In American Sephardic they are indeed different.)  The truth is that there are some /e/'s that can be deleted and others that can't -- they sound the same.  In terms of underlying (lexical or grammatical) representations, the instances of [e] that can be replaced by zero are best considered to be underlyingly nothing at all (or some other vowel), with a [e] inserted if necessary, or optionally.  That is, [jixtevú] is underlyingly /jixtovu/ or maybe phonologically /jixtvu/, but not /jixtəvu/.  The [e] in [jixtevú] sounds no different from other [e]'s.
:I think the information above is valuable. If you can, please include it somehow in the article's vowel phoneme section. (It may be necessary to place it strategically to avoid any edit /e/-/ə/ edit war. ;) ) --Haldrik 01:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The manual of the IPA does not give the shva as a seperate phoneme - this could be cited as a source (a good citation would prevent an edit war). I would do it myself, but my copy is currently misplaced. Mo-Al 01:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Israeli Hebrew Vowels

message: "Ancient Hebrew did not have diphthongs. Although diphthongs do exist in modern spoken Hebrew, grammar rules discourage their use. Thus, the root Y-Kh-L, 2nd person singular, future should have been conjugated tuykhal, however the correct form is tukhal."
:Firstly, this is simply incorrect. Biblical Judian Hebrew, had most probably had Diphthongs, this is actually the strongest Shiboleth between Biblical Hebrew and other Canaanite dialects. Second - could someone explain the "tuyhkal" example? what does it mean 'should have been' (wasn't, isn't, doesn't have any will of it's own does it?). This should either be clarified or removed.
::It's "tukhal" because it's supposed to be, not because of some made up nonsense about diphthongs.  Whoever wrote that rubbish needs to study a little bit before pontificating esoterically.  The root Y.K.L is a result of an innovation of classical Hebrew by which initial W was replaced by Y.  This is why whereever the root, for example, Y.L.D is preceded by any consonant, including yud, the Y from the root seems to disappear.  It doesn't disappear, it's just realized in its original form, hence words, using the example of Y.L.D, like noladeti and toldot.  If you look at Arabic, it has preserved the original initial vav (ok, so wā, in Arabic)...whence the Arabic word "walid".  As for what "tukhal" means, I don't actually know, but "tokhal" is "you will eat"  TShilo12 17:22, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I gather it's agreed then that this sentence be removed? I'm well aware of the W->Y shifts in Hebrew and Aramiac, but I don't see their relevance to either Diphthongs nor to the form imaginary form tuykhal. Oyd11 23:21, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If it were up for a vote, I'd vote "yes".  Remove the sentence altogether.  The entire thing is garbage, from the first word to the last.  Someone who knows more about the HYPOTHETICAL status of diphthongs in Biblical Hebrew can then write something that makes sense to take its place.  TShilo12 04:36, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hebrew avoids dipthongs in the sense that a syllable must contain a consonant and a vowel and therefore dipthongs are impossible. This doesn't really have anything to do with "tukhal" per se, which by the way means "you will be able to" and should have been (meaning, I guess, were it a regular verb) conjugated "tikhol" not "tuykhal." Even today I think dipthongs are only found at the end of a word, as in the non-Biblical past participle (taluy "dependent," or samuy "hidden.") Correct me if I'm wrong. Mlevie 21:33, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks, I had a brain fart with tukhal.  As for the presence of diphthongs, I doubt that the fact that they are only found at the end of words in the way modern Jews speak Biblical Hebrew can be used as evidence that this has always been the case.  (I'm not thinking of -uy, I'm thinking of -ay...)  My assumption is based on the fact that the Tiberian mesortim used -y and -w in their vowel-sound representations.  My guess is that what we pronounce as akhshav was then pronounced akhshåu, and my guess is that the yud in `oyev was diphthongized in forms like `oyveini (oh no!  two diphthongs in the same word, and neither at the end!)...  Anyways, I think this whole discussion is (1) moot, since the offending section has been deleted (Thanks Mlevie) and (2) demonstrative of the fact that this constitutes too much of a delving into the hypothetical, about which there exists no consensus, and certainly insufficient documentation to warrant certain-sounding mention of possibilities as though they were established fact.  Shabat shalom lekulam TShilo12 16:36, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diphthongs 

message: <Q>Modern Hebrew has a rich jargon, which is a direct result of the flourishing youth culture. The two main features of this jargon are the Arabic borrowings (for example, "sababa", "excellent", or "kus-emmek", an expression of strong dissatisfaction which is extremely obscene both in Arabic and in Modern Hebrew), and the obfuscated idioms.</Q>
:Firstly, as already discussed in the past, wouldn't it be preferable to replace 'kus-emmek' with some of the many other borrowings from Arabic? (See the old discussion, giving the comparison "English has many words derived from Anglo-Saxon, such as fuck, cunt and whore.")
:Second - what's the other 'main feature'? and what makes these features more central to others?
:what are the obfuscated idioms? Is this perhaps one of them?
Oyd11 23:44, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  two main features? 

message: The article's translitaration of hebrew includes 'h' for xet (hataf), 'x' for xet (nax), xazaq, 'y' inside SAMPA quotes where apparently 'j' is ment, 'c' for cadik: industrializacia, 'ts' for cadik shem etsem, mixed SAMPA, IPA, and apparently ad-hoc translitarations. Now, I'm just saying we should decide on a consistant standart, at least for the article. Was there such a discussion in the more general scope in WP? Oyd11 23:44, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like there's already a standard: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28Hebrew%29
--Mo-Al 02:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistent translitarations 

message: The following is a quick (and, as far as the comments go, not entirely complete) translation of the transcription convention for Hebrew from the Nynorsk Wikipedia. It follows mainly the Qimḥian analysis of the Masoretic system. Could this be something to build on for the English Wikipedia too...? -- Olve 00:32, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration scheme for Hebrew from Nynorsk Wikipedia 

message: === Consonants ===
Hebrew         	Transcr.               	Hebrew                       	Transcr.      	Comments
א        	’. -             	                        	         	When a א has no vowel sign (including ševá) under it, it is not transcribed.
ב        	ḇ                	בּ               	b, bb         	 
ג        	ğ                 	גּ               	g, gg         	 
ד        	d                      	דּ               	d, dd         	 
ה        	h, -                   	הּ               	h             	When this consonant is last in the word, it is only transcribed when it has a vowel sign or a mappíq (point, similar to dagéš).
ו        	v, u, ū, o, ō	וּ               	vv            	 
ו        	z                      	זּ               	zz            	 
ח        	ḥ                	                        	         	 
ט        	ṭ                	טּ               	ṭṭ	 
י        	j, ī, i, ē, e	יּ               	jj            	We do not write īj, ēj, ej, but ī, ē, e.
כ ך	kh                     	כּ ךּ	k, kk         	 
ל        	l                      	לּ               	ll            	 
מ ם	m                      	מּ               	mm            	 
נ ן	n                      	נּ               	nn            	 
ס        	s                      	סּ               	ss            	 
ע        	‘                	                        	         	 
פ ף	f                      	פּ ףּ	p, pp         	 
צ ץ	ṣ                	צּ               	ṣṣ	 
ק        	q                      	קּ               	qq            	 
ר        	r                      	                        	         	 
שׁ 	š                 	שּׁ        	šš  	 
שׂ 	s                      	שּׂ        	ss            	 
ת        	t                      	תּ               	t, tt         	 
=== Vowels ===
Hebrew                               	Transcr.	Hebrew                               	Transcr.	Hebrew        	Transcr.	Hebrew        	Transcr.
אִ אִי 	ī  	אִ אִי 	i       	         	   	         	 
אֵ אֵי 	ē  	אֶ אֶי 	e       	אֱ	ĕ  	         	 
אָ                       	ā  	אַ                       	a       	אֲ	ă  	אְ	ə (audible) ornon-transcribed (silent)
אֹ, אוֹ	ō  	אָ                       	o       	אֳ	ŏ  	         	 
אוּ, אֻ	ū  	אוּ, אֻ	u       	         	   	         	 
:Thank you, however, the problem here seems to be of the "The good things about standards is that there are so many different ones to choose from" sort. I possibly suggest the 'academic semitic transliteration' for a phonemic transliteration, and either IPA or SAMPA for phonic. While this is a bit awkward, as the two are confusingly different, it's mostly alright, as most linguists are familiar with IPA, and most Semitic linguists are familiar with the 'semitic transliteration' (I forgot whom it's named after).
:An example: Most modern hebrew speakers do not differentiate the pronounciation of ʾ and ʿ, thus the words 'ʾbd' and 'ʿbd' are both pronounced /avad/.
:Now, is this what 'we' want? Oyd11 01:15, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Newnorsk system is a fine transliteration system. --Haldrik 21:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Hebrew alphabet 

message: Hebrew                               	Transcr.	Hebrew                               	Transcr.	Hebrew        	Transcr.	Hebrew        	Transcr.
אִ אִי 	ī  	אִ אִי 	i       	         	   	         	 
אֵ אֵי 	ē  	אֶ אֶי 	e       	אֱ	ĕ  	         	 
אָ                       	ā  	אַ                       	a       	אֲ	ă  	אְ	ə (audible) ornon-transcribed (silent)
אֹ, אוֹ	ō  	אָ                       	o       	אֳ	ŏ  	         	 
אוּ, אֻ	ū  	אוּ, אֻ	u       	         	   	         	 
:Thank you, however, the problem here seems to be of the "The good things about standards is that there are so many different ones to choose from" sort. I possibly suggest the 'academic semitic transliteration' for a phonemic transliteration, and either IPA or SAMPA for phonic. While this is a bit awkward, as the two are confusingly different, it's mostly alright, as most linguists are familiar with IPA, and most Semitic linguists are familiar with the 'semitic transliteration' (I forgot whom it's named after).
:An example: Most modern hebrew speakers do not differentiate the pronounciation of ʾ and ʿ, thus the words 'ʾbd' and 'ʿbd' are both pronounced /avad/.
:Now, is this what 'we' want? Oyd11 01:15, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Newnorsk system is a fine transliteration system. --Haldrik 21:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vowels 

message: The article at one time stated "Hebrew has only a definite article, ha-..." which an anonymous user changed to "Hebrew has only one definite article, ha-..."
Both statements are accurate.  The point that is being made in the article, however, is not that Hebrew has only one definite article, but that Hebrew has a definite article, ha-, but not an indefinite article.
I changed the word "one" to "the", so it now reads "Hebrew has only the definite article, ha-...", and would have clarified that there is no indefinite article, but perhaps that work is better left to a Hebrew grammarian, who could insert such a paragraph, or brief mention, directly preceding the apparently confusing mention of the definite article.  
In the meantime, hopefully my alteration will prevent further "helpful" edits that end up changing the whole gyst of the text.
TShilo12 09:02, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the sentence is somewhat awkward - especially the "only" part. Why not simply write: "Hebrew has a definite article, ha-, but no indefinite article" or something similar. Moreover - I wonder about the statement further up in the article that Afro-Asiatic originated in Mesopotamia and then moved northeast "eventually reaching the Middle East" - surely this cannot be? Vice 23:59, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right.  It sounds idiotic.  Originally, it said "northeast africa" or something like that, which I changed to "the fertile crescent", and someone else changed to "mesopotamia".  In any of those three cases, "eventually reaching the ME" is tautologically and repetitively redundant at best, and just plain silly at worst.  Fixing...  TShilo12 01:08, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: You are correct.  My original alteration of the article to say "Fertile Crescent" was as a result of my misreading of the paragraph, whereby I thought it was saying that the Semitic branch itself developed in Africa (exclusively)...a theory for which there is neither extensive evidence nor widespread academic support.  This, of course, does nothing to resolve the issue about the definite article verbiage.  -t  TShilo12 07:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor edits regarding the definite article 

message: I took the Grammar section and sent it to Hebrew grammar, and the Sounds section and sent it to Hebrew phonology.  Hope nobody minds too much...  This article is getting big enough.  (For justification, see relevant argument at Talk:Yiddish_language#Recommendation_to_split_article) Tomer TALK 07:34, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
:Good idea. Jayjg (talk) 15:42, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  spawning sections to new articles 

message: i've come across several vague references to "diaspora hebrew" (as opposed to israeli hebrew).
can anyone on here who is more familiar with hebrew than i am tell me whether or not there is such a thing?
Gringo300 00:11, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Diaspora Hebrew" is Hebrew as spoken outside Eretz Yisrael.  In ancient times, it referred to the liturgical forms of Hebrew in use, and in modern times, it refers to their modern forms.  There is no language "Diaspora Hebrew", if that's what you're asking.  In modern times, it's just a catch-all for "Non-Israeli Hebrew".  Tomer TALK 04:48, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
so in other words, "diaspora hebrew" isn't a single monolithic dialect and/or language. 
if i understand correctly, the term "diapora" has had different meanings at different times in history. particularly, different meanings before and after the founding of the nation of israel in 1948.
come to think of it, i've also seen the term "diaspora" used in entirely non-jewish contexts.
Gringo300 06:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Diaspora Hebrew" 

message: This is perhaps a minor point, and as I'm still a newbie, I don't want to go around changing the many instances until I know I'm right in doing so ("be bold," I know... don't rush me ;)  )
This article twice mentions that עברית is pronounced /iv'rit/, and I believe I've seen that in other Hebrew-related pages before.  But seeing as ר is usually // in modern Hebrew, shouldn't the correct pronouncation for עברית be listed as /iv'it/?  Again, I know it's a minor issue, but I figured, why not bring it up?  :-)  -Eleusinian 04:27, July 27, 2005 (UTC)
When one uses two /´s instead of [ and ], that means one isn´t using real IPA, only a simplified form for a specific language. So it isn´t wrong. I also wonder about a thing: isn´t it an unrounded open back vowel in car, and an [a], i.e. an unrounded open front vowel, in hebrew? If I´m right that should be changed. 15/5 2006 - Laurelindë
:It certainly is "real IPA"!  The principles of the IPA explicitly allow for simplification when it doesn't lead to ambiguity.  The IPA is an alphabet, a means for expressing ideas (about pronunciation); it doesn't tell you  what ideas to express.
:Phonemically, one should include the ‘ayin, actually:  /ʕiv'rit/. -- Olve 21:11, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  &#1506;&#1489;&#1512;&#1497;&#1514; as /iv'rit/ 

message: I've previously heard that the US's founding fathers, when having to decide upon what language would be spoken in the new country being formed -- and considering that they were very anti-England and everything associated with it (apparently, including the English language) -- that Hebrew was a very real possibility. From what I've heard, it only lost by one voice.
No doubt, it would have been Biblical Hebrew, as Modern Hebrew didn't exist at the time.
One website that mentions this in passing is .
If anyone has more information about this, it would be very interesting to add to the article page.brozen 19:40, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
:I heard the same story, except that it was German that "only lost by one voice." And it's completely untrue: see here . And I can't imagine the Founding Fathers, who wrote such beautiful English, would have considered giving it up, regardless of their feelings toward Mother England.Mlevie 18:19, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The "almost"-adoption of Hebrew by the US's "founding fathers" 

message: "... rather than as /r/, an apical trill, as in Spanish."
Wouldn't it be better to write "Alveolar trill" instead of "apical trill"?
njaard 16:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably - I changed it. --Mo-Al 09:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  apical trill 

message: Urgent: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew) to add your opinions about this important matter. Thank you. IZAK 17:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hebrew naming conventions 

message: I'd be VERY careful with this!
Have you ever heard "Ishrael" for the country? S'pose not, but Israel DOES contain a shin! It depends on where the dot is (left or right branch of character), whether it's pronounced sh or s. -andy 80.129.90.253 15:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. In unvocalised texts, it is generally up to the reader to guess where the dot is. So your advice is only moderately helpful. JFW | T@lk 15:52, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The letter shin (ש) is transcribed by "sh".? 

message: What I was wondering is whether or not the Khazars were using Hebrew?  Is there anything known about that? If so, that could be one of the intermediates between the demise of Hebrew in the Roman period, and its recent resurrection. JDH 13:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Khazars? 

message: What the crap is this? Hebrew language of jews (sic)? And to think a registered Wikipedia user made this change!
:quite ridiculous, yes. "X language" (rarely just "X") is the standard form for articles about languages—German language and Latin, not German language of germans or Latin language of romans. I've moved it back. —Charles P._(Mirv) 04:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Hebrew language of jews]]

message: Take a break from serious topics!  Could someone(s) check out the Kaki article and agree/disagree with
* Kaki also means "poop" in Hebrew
Strangely enough, I can find a reference to this word=meaning for Esperanto !  (Good grief, now everyone can say it ...) Thanks. Shenme 00:31, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it does mean that in Hebrew, but Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so I removed it.--Mo-Al 04:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Kaki]] ? 

message: This article is copied from English Wikipedia! Is that allowed? --84.228.160.209 23:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe you should ask on the  question pages instead. --Mo-Al 01:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copy question 

message: This would work flawlessly for Transliterating Hebrew text into Latinized Hebrew text.
(use this alphabet reference)סרגון יוחנא
:There is already a standard: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28Hebrew%29 --Mo-Al 02:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Latinized Hebrew

message: I suppose Qoph is pronounced /q/ and not /k/, isn't it? Ayadho
:Not in modern Hebrew.--Mo-Al 00:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Qoph 

message: Maybe this talk page should be archived.--Mo-Al 00:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving 

message: The article mentions the tenth century BCE as an unqualifed date for the first appearance of Hebrew. Can this be substantiated linguistically? 
Of course, all dates for the first appearance of a language are bound to be somewhat arbitrary. However, in this case, I suspect that the author may have been too influenced by political events. It seems likely that Hebrew was the native language in Canaan long before the start of the monarchy. Hebrew was the language of the Canaanite civilisation, which had already established city life perhaps as early as 10000 years ago (Jericho). 
It is certainly mistaken to believe that Hebrew was introduced to Israel by the Jews. Presumably Jews spoke other languages prior to arriving in Israel; an early form of Coptic, perhaps, during the Egyptian captivity and Sumerian, (Akkadian?) in the case those who arrived with Abraham.
I write this seeking advice before altering the text. Please correct me if you have variant information.
--Philopedia 21:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earliest Appearance of Hebrew 

message: The article does quite a thorough job of discussing the development of various dialects of Hebrew. What is missing (and would really be valuable) would be some comparative material to demonstrate the content and substance of differences; for instance, examples showing how certain sounds changed, perhaps with indication of how the changes were brought about by contact with other language speakers; as well as major changes in the grammar.
This is just a wish entry. I'm afraid I lack expertise to contribute.
--Philopedia 21:09, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Making Distinctions Between Dialects Palpable 

message: I agree that this article should be merged into the main Hebrew article.  The discussion there of Biblical Hebrew is already better than the discussion in this article.  Indeed, I wonder if there is anything in this article worth retaining.  --Ssilvers 23:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge

message: Congratulations! I agree with the nominator that the article deserves GA status. On the improvement side, I would like to see more references, creation of new dialect pages or the removal of wikilinks for them and the note in the infobox be moved to the reference section. --CTSWyneken(talk) 21:18, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, the lead will need to be shortened to four paragraps, as per WP:LEAD. Homestarmy 23:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Passed 

message: The Song of Deborah and the Song of the Sea are generally agreed to be pre-monarchic.  A better timeline would probably put 1200-850 as the "archaic" phase (represented by these old poems and the the bulk of Samuel) and 850-550 as the "biblical" phase, as the bulk of the Tanakh probably dates from this period.--Rob117 22:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds plausible. If you can find a handy book citation and/or online citation, we can use the rough dates 12th-9th and 8th-6th centuries BCE. It's a bit awkward to refer to the 12th-century as it seems Hebrew didnt exist yet as a distinct dialect of Canaanite. --Haldrik 21:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archaic Biblical Hebrew 

message: I would like to request that Haldrik stop changing transliterations of Hebrew letters, etc. to his own system. Most of these transliterations were based on discussions at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew), and reflected the consensus achieved there.
Haldrik, I know you would not like it if someone came along and replaced many transliterations with another system, say Ashkenazi Hebrew transliterations. Please refrain from making these type of changes until they have been discussed at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew). --Eliyak T·C 20:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not imposing one system against another. The spelling of the Hebrew is wildly inconsistent in places. I'm just standardizing for consistency. The article is about Standard Israeli Hebrew, so the spelling follows this pronunciation, and there is no conflict with other dialects. (Humorously, the same tables that describe a transcription system often use words spelled according to another transcription system. It's anarchy. A transcription system must match pronunciation, otherwise it will never be stable.) I'll hold off for now, but the need for well thought-out standard is imperative. --Haldrik 21:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Going through the edit history, I see that this is really an ongoing edit-war among many users. Let's all please stop and wait until Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew) becomes policy. Until then, I suggest that any new edits follow the current proposed policy. --Eliyak T·C 20:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Revision"ism by a user 

message: Could somebody please direct me to some help on how to type Hebrew in Microsoft Word, etc?  I do not understand why, when or how the Word Processor decides to reorder the letter sequences left-to-right or right-to-left.  It's a real pain to try to type something and then watch the Word Processor reverse all of the letter sequences.  How do you ensure that the Word Processor lets you type and view everything right-to-left instead of left-to-right?  Is there an online tutorial for this somewhere?  Thank you. Ep9206 18:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tutorial on using Hebrew on a Western Word Processor 

message: I was hoping that some people who frequent this page might actually speak Hebrew. Can anyone, perhaps, provide a transation or at least transliteration for the term גיס חמישי (I hope I copied that right) on Fifth column? --Bucephalus 13:43, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation 

message: According to Niqud, kamatz katan is pronounced in Standard Hebrew as /o/ (i.e. same as kholam). This article does not make that distinction. Do native Israeli speakers of Hebrew indeed make that distinction? (My observation is that the word כל is pronounce "cull" not "coll" but I don't know if this distinction is made accross the board) --Jms2000 17:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: כל is definitely pronounced /kol/ in modern Hebrew. Mo-Al 17:16, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But is that the exception or the rule for pronunciation of kamatz katan? In other words, is it this article that needs to be corrected to note distinction between kamatz gadol and kamatz katan? or does niqud need to be corrected to show /a/ for kamatz katan? --Jms2000 18:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have always heard kamatz katan (and ONLY katan) pronounced as [o]. Mo-Al 22:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, modern Israeli speakers do make this distinction--but it's almost impossible to tell the difference between kamatz qatan and kamatz gadol, you basically just have to know the word. So In Israeli Hebrew, kamatz qatan is actually written as cholam to avoid confusion, as the niqud article correctly notes. For some reason כל is an exception to this. Mlevie 17:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have to know the word? This is not true. There are very specific rules for when a qamats should be regarded as a SHORT vowel and pronounced /o/. Put simply, if the a syllable is closed (CvC) and unaccented (CvC'Cv[C]), then the vowel in the syllable must be pronounced short. There is no rule for accented syllables, which can contain long or short vowels within a closed syllable. But, it is clear in unaccented syllables. The only confusion that can result is in the analogous form in the qal perfect of 3fs verbs, which appear to have a closed syllable with qamats. However, the syllable in this form is NOT closed, and the vowel is long. The sheva opens the following syllable in such cases rather than closing the previous one. - Yonah mishael 18:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  kamats 

message: as in "go"
Is that correct? Wouldn't Israelis pronounce it as in "hut"? --Jms2000 17:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no sound like the one in "hut" in modern Hebrew. Mo-Al 17:17, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They definitely don't pronounce kholam as in "go". Is there a sound in English that approximates the modern Hebrew sound for kholam? --Jms2000 18:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's because "go" in English isn't pronounced , it's pronounced . Mo-Al 22:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The problem is that English speakers do not generally produce pure vowels. Most long vowels come across as diphthongs (like Mo-Al demonstrates above). Perhaps a more closely sounding /o/ will be found in hope /hop/, which is less diphthongized in regular speech. - Yonah mishael 18:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  kholam 

message: A guideline on whether or not to italicize Hebrew (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italics in Hebrew 

message: אני מאוד שמח שיש אנשים בארצות הברית או הבריטניה שיודעים עברית
: .   ;) Yonah mishael 19:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:   עברית 

message: האם אתה גר בארצות הברית כי אני חי בישראל וזה מוזר לפגוש אנשיים יהודיים שגרים במדינה אחרת אנא סלח לי אם אני מטריד אותך
אנחנו בוויקיפדיה לא יכולים לפגוש אותך אם לא תשים את החתימה שלך בדף. אני אמריקאי. אני מתכנן לנסוע עוד פעם לישראל בפברואר. יש לי חברים בראשון לציון ובמזקרת בתיה. איפה אתה גר? אם אתה רוצה, יכול לענות על השאלות האלה בדף שלי. - שלום וברכה, יונה מישאל
::"מזקרת בתיה"? רק הראש הכחול שלי מפרש את שגיאת ההקלדה הזו באופן משעשע? (האיות הנכון: "מזכרת בתיה")
http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%96%D7%9B%D7%A8%D7%AA_%D7%91%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%94 
84.228.64.178 20:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  שלום לך