History of the Hebrew Language and How Best To Translate It

The Hebrew language is a traditional Semitic one, used in the time of the Old Testament. Biblical Hebrew is frequently known as Classical Hebrew and has been traced back to the tenth century BC to the dominions of Judah and Israel.

Hebrew wasn't spoken much over the centuries, although it was used extensively as a literary language and as the liturgical language of Judaism. Many dialects of Classical Hebrew (sometimes called Medieval Hebrew) existed at the time, including the Midrashic Hebrew of the third century BC.

Employed in the Mishna and found in the Dead Sea Scrolls corresponding to the Hellenistic and Roman Periods before the annihilation of the Church in Jerusalem. The Babylonian Gemorrah, written about this time, was usually drafted in the Aramaic language and utilized a certain quantity of Greek words as well.

It was only at the start of the 19th century that Modern Hebrew became the written and spoken language of the Jewish folk. It is easy to understand how troublesome it can be to interpret Hebrew into any other language. The modern kind of the language is an accumulation of different dialects and colloquialisms. It includes words from plenty of other languages eg the romance languages of French, Spanish and Italian as well as Greek, Yiddish and Arabic. Additionally, during the past century, many English words became an important part of both written and spoken Hebrew. The Hebrew language is always developing, with new words being added when required. Additionally, Modern Hebrew has many local ideas and terms that maintain their meaning just when employed in the right context and will otherwise lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. As an example, many years back, when the film industry in Israel was first taking off, the Hebrew flicks used subtitles in one or two languages in order to appeal to as many different motion picture goers right now.

These subtitles were customarily inaccurate and completely reduced the dialog of the characters in the flick.

An automatic translation software programme, while quicker and cheaper, will successfully interpret only the words of the text and will leave out a lot of the true personality of the Hebrew words and sentences. A manual translator, ideally one who has lived in Israel, who is accomplished in the 2 languages, will inject the true nature and flavour of the language into his interpretation. Yes, it is more expensive, but if precision is needed, manual translation is the only possible way to go.

Read More..