at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute
Did you know?
All 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are consonants.
Modern Hebrew (Ivrit) has been around since the early 20th century. It is the language spoken in Israel and around the world by some nine million people. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers.
Modern Hebrew is derived from, but also quite different to, the Classical or Mishnaic Hebrew whose texts date from the end of the second millennium BCE and in which the vast majority of the Bible is written. Hebrew is traditionally referred to as Lashon Hakodesh ("the Holy Tongue").
![Learn [LANGUAGE] in Los Angeles](images/640x360/languages/hebrew/proper-behavior-precedes-the-torah.jpg "Learn Hebrew in Los Angeles")
As the only ancient language to have been revived as a modern spoken language, Hebrew offers a fascinating insight into modern Jewish culture and life in Israel.
Anyone wishing to travel to or do business with Israel will find Hebrew an invaluable asset and a way of gaining an important degree of respect and trust.
Hebrew is a Semetic language which is read and written from right to left. Its alphabet (aleph-bet) counts 22 letters and an additional five "final" letters. When the letters khaf, mem, nun, pey, and tzade are the last letters of a word, they are written differently.
The Hebrew writing system is an abjad: like Arabic and Persian/ Farsi, Hebrew has no vowels. All Hebrew letters are consonants. The Hebrew reader makes use of a system of dots and dashes known as nekudot or "diacritics." These markings surround the letters and provide the necessary vowelization.
Hebrew words are primarily comprised of two- or three-letter root words, to which prefixes and suffixes can be added. Perhaps the best-known word in Hebrew is shalom, which means "peace." It can be used for both "hello" and "goodbye." A slightly modified form, shalem, means "perfect" or "complete." This similarity has been interpreted as an implication that as long as there is no peace, no one is complete and no one may be content.
Hebrew sentences do not have to include verbs. For example, the sentence "I am here"—ani po—has only two words: one for "I" (אני) and one for "here" (פה).