Which is older,the Arabic language or the Hebrew language?

Question about modern Hebrew language?

• I know this should be in the language section but i have a feeling there are more Hebrew speakers here.... Every time i read a description of a Hebrew it seem's like they just mention how old it is and the Alphabet system whilst skirting over the very nature of the grammar. So im curious is Hebrew grammar very complicated like russian or arabic or is it relatively simple like italian,French and Esperatno being examples? I know I can't really compare the last three languages with Hebrew but bare with me. Keep in mind im refering to modern Hebrew and am excluding the writing system from the question. Thanks in Advance...

• Answer:

  Hebrew has a fascinating grammatical system. I am more familiar with Classical Hebrew than Modern Hebrew, but the concepts are basically the same. Still, the information I'm about to give you is based on Biblical Hebrew. All Hebrew verbs hav three-letter roots. Verbs have seven possible binyanim in Hebrew (I think the translation of 'binyan' is 'a conjugation'). These are: Qal - active Niphal - passive Piel - active intensive Pual - passive intensive Hiphil - active causative Hophal - passive causative Hithpael - reflexive What this means in simple English is that you can take the three root letters of a verb and create any meaning. For example: the root letters shin, bet, resh in the Qal, shavar - he broke in the Niphal, nishbar - he/it was broken in the Piel, shiber - he smashed (intensive) in the Pual, shubar - he/it was smashed in the Hiphil, hishbir - he caused (something) to break in the Hophal, hoshbar - he caused (something) to be broken in the Hithpael, hitshaber - he broke himself Not every verb can be put into every binyan, but that is the basic idea. What this creates is a grammatical verb system which is extremely regular, and once you have learned the rules, you have mastered the system. There are five letters which cause changes in the conjugation system - these are the five guttural letters, heh, aleph, chet, resh, ayin. They cause the vowelling of the verb conjugations to be slightly different, as they cannot be prounced with a schwa (the vowel sound of the 'e' in 'the') sound. Therefore, whenever there is a schwa in the traditional conjugation, there is a slight change, those these changes too are regular. There are many many rules, some of them quite complex, to Hebrew grammar, but it is a very regular language. Now for nouns. Like French and many other languages, nouns in Hebrew have gender. The feminine gender is formed by affixing kamatz heh (the sound 'ah') onto the end of the word. Thus yeled is a boy, yaldah is a girl. Dod is an uncle, dodah is an aunt and so on. Of course this does not apply to all nouns; although most follow this pattern, some do not. You can almost universally tell the gender of a noun from its ending - if it is not the sound 'ah', it will end with the letter taf, as in delet - a door, which is a feminine noun. Adjectives are dealt with in the same way - the feminine is formed with the suffix 'ah'. So yeled tov is a good boy, yaldah tovah is a good girl. It is more complex than I have been able to explain, but I believe Classical Hebrew is one of the most regular languages in the world. Modern Hebrew is I think simpler than Classical Hebrew. If you're seriously interested in the grammatical principles of Classical Hebrew, get hold of 'A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew' by J. Weingreen. It is quite dry, as most grammar books are, but the language itself is absolutely fascinating. Good luck, and I hope this is more like what you were looking for!