With 5 million native speakers, Hebrew is the most successful historical example of a “dead” language that was brought back to life.

Arabic was re-classified as having 'special status' earlier in 2018, although state institutions still use it. Today it's the sole official language of Israel. When the state of Israel was formed in 1948, Hebrew became an official language along with Arabic. More importantly, they began to use it with their children. As more Jewish people from different parts of the world arrived in the region, many of them learned Hebrew and used it to communicate with each other. In the late 19 th century Eliezer Ben-Yehuda spearheaded an effort to revive the language among Jewish people living in what was then Palestine.

However, the kingdoms fell, and over time the Jewish people began to adopt the languages of their neighbors for day-to-day use.īy 200 CE, the use of Hebrew was reserved for reading the Torah, scholarship and as a lingua franca for contracts and legal documents. Hebrew was originally the spoken language of the ancient Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Hebrew is the most successful example of a revived 'dead language.' Most Hebrew speakers live in Israel, however, about 220,000 Hebrew speakers currently live in the United States- the second-largest population of Hebrew speakers in the world. To celebrate, here are seven interesting facts about the Hebrew language.Īround the world, approximately 9 million people speak hebrew.Ībout 5 million people speak Hebrew as a native language. December 2 nd marked the beginning of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights.

Is old hebrew read right to left