Hebrew /ˈhiːbruː/ (Hebrew: ‫עִ ב ְִרית‬, romanized: Ivrit, IPA: [ivˈʁit] or [ʕivˈɾit] ( listen)) is a Northwest

Semitic language native to Israel. In 2013, Modern Hebrew was spoken by over nine million people
[8]
worldwide. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors,
[note 1]
although the language was not referred to by the name "Hebrew" in the Tanakh itself. The
[9]
earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the
West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still
[10][11]
spoken and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language.
Hebrew ceased to be an everyday spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE,
[2][12][note 2]
declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and, to a lesser extent,
[14]
Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and immigrants.
Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-
Jewish commerce and poetry. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, it was revived as a
spoken and literary language, becoming the main language of the Yishuv and subsequently of the
State of Israel. According to Ethnologue, in 1998, Hebrew was the language of five million people
[5]
worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second-largest Hebrew-speaking population,
[15]
with about 220,000 fluent speakers, mostly from Israel.
Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for
prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. The Samaritan dialect is also the
liturgical tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. As a foreign
language, it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel and by archaeologists and
linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations, as well as by theologians in Christian
seminaries.
Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the
dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, around the time of the
Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh (
‫)לשון הקודש‬, "the Holy Language", since ancient times.