INTRODUCTION

Americans think of Hebrew as the language of the Old Testament. Hebrew had been a living that is, it as a native language by a community of at least until the First Century, B.C., and possibly for several centuries after that. But even though it ceased to be a language in this sense, a and body of literature has remained in daily use for prayer and study.

During the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance Hebrew served as a lingua franca for Jews throughout the world, and the literature was by scholars and Hebrew thus was in continuous familiarity, and in the last century successful efforts were begun to revive it as a modern language.

Today Hebrew is the official language of the state of Israel. It is to immigrants a wide native and the is to have all the inhabitants learn to it.

To be sure, modern Hebrew is different from the Biblical language. The phonology (sound system) has been symplified, and new syntactic patterns and vocabulary have been to express concepts not dreamed of two thousand years ago. But the rnodern language is unmistakably the descendant of the language of the Psalms and the

The sounds of modern Hebrew are fairly easy for Americans to learn. Since only a minority of the present are native of Hebrew, foreign accents can hardly be called rare, and one should not feel the slightest embarrassment in even efforts to speak it.

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