I love it when languages are like “Yeah this word in language A is an everyday common noun, but its cognate in language B is seen as archaic and only used in certain context like religion”
Yeah that happens in Portuguese where "ruber" (red) became "vermelho", which comes from "vermillion" (a specific shade of red), unlike most other Romance languages which use, e.g., rojo. You can still use "rubro", though, it just sounds way too poetic for everyday use.
Yeah, like English and it's romance vocabulary. A totally normal word in Spanish or French can be something completely obscure and poetic/academic in English, while still remaining an actual englush word.
@@NastenkaVasileva yeah that's why us, Romance language speakers might sound posh to natives when communicating in English. The fact we are taught mainly literary vocabulary instead of more casual forms adds up to this discrepancy. And to make things more complicated, an old French or a Latin root like "discrepancy" could be archaic or become a false friend in modern Romance languages.
@@marsoff9898 he forgot to say the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂
@@ROOM-ls4mcIf you had watched the video you'd hear him literally talk about how modern hebrew is a revived language but I guess you're too ignorant for that and instead start to spread missinformatiom about the video...
@@zeinanammour37 false , they were evicted by the commands of Allah because they betrayed the Muslims to the unbelievers.study history and do not spread lies.
@@ted9030 I rely on weak Israeli connections, and since they’re the only option, SIM prices can jump to $100 and are tough to find. Plus, they block your SIM if they figure out you're from Gaza.
As a Hebrew speaker with less than a year learning Arabic at school, I can watch a video with Arabic talking and Hebrew subtitles and can spot some words that are cognates or has a similar ancient Hebrew cognate. For example in Arabic مدرسة madrase, you mentioned in this video is similar to בית מדרש, Beit Midrash, which is actually a school for religious learning.
‘’Hebrew is Greek’’ by Joseph Ezekiel Yahuda Becket Publications Oxford, 1982, ISBN 0-7289-0013-0). It should be noted that in the book he proves that Arabic is also Greek, but this is not reflected in the title, by economy.
I enjoy this type of long and elaborate content of yours Paul! I am even more glad seeing you being able to pronounce those Arabic and Hebrew phrases by yourself. Please keep up the good work. Less quantity is okay when the quality is good
@@DragonTheOneDZA 25 minutes for a discussion of 2 languages that are well over 1000 years old barely begins to scratch the surface. This is the tip of the iceberg on the topic. Not to say that this video isn't good, I really liked it, but you could delve waaaaaay deeper into the subject than this. There are people who built entire careers based on studying just one of these languages.
@@idraote he forgot to say the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂 …
As a Syrian Arabic speaker, I can make out a few words when hearing Hebrew sentences. Usually its the pronouns, numbers, and some verbs and nouns. Its also notable that Interrogative words in both languages are extremely similar, I'm surprised you didn't mention it, because its one of the first things I notice as an Arab when I hear Hebrew speakers. For example, "Ma" is "What" in both Arabic and Hebrew. Adding the preposition "Li" in Arabic which is "To" in both Arabic and Hebrew, will give you "Lima" meaning "Why" or literally "To what", similarly in Hebrew, we can see the word for "Why" is "Lama" very similar to Arabic. Also in Levantine Arabic, we sometimes add the definite Article "Ha" or Hal" before a word instead of traditional "Al" meaning "The" For example, "Ha'sayarra" would mean "This car" or "Hal-Kitab" would mean "This book". I believe this has an old common Semitic Root with Hebrew, because the letter "H" in Arabic or the sound "Ha" is still used in Modern Standard Arabic to indicate specificity. For example "Tha" in Arabic is "This", but "Ha-tha" is also "This" but more specific. Similarly, Hebrew uses "Ha" for "The", and "Za" for "This".
We add Ha sometimes when speaking in Iraqi dialect for a definite noun instead of ال. I always assumed it was something like a shortening of هذا / هذة . I think they all may be interconnected.
A very small correction; in Hebrew the word for "this" is zot (feminine) or zeh (masculine). Ha-mekhonit ha-zot = this car; ha-leḥem ha-zeh = this bread.
In college I minored in Arabic and in my last semester took Hebrew 101 I was so happy and shocked to see how similar these languages were , it reminded me of living in Brazil and studying Portuguese while being a native speaker of spanish . Languages are awesome and I absolutely love your videos they are always so informative and well constructed!
@@Science_Atrium Urdu is the national tongue of Pakistan. we learn English as a second language and some regional/provincial languages are also taught in some schools (Sindhi, Punjabi etc)
@@proh4718 Yes, I thought that provincial and regional languages were mostly spoken as first language, and Urdu as a national language. I've heard that only 8% of the population speaks Urdu as 1st language.
@@Science_Atrium Right now, around 70 million people speak it as a first language. In Sindh/Punjab, people usually learn Punjabi/Sindhi first, as they learn it from their parents in their households. So you could say that Urdu is a second language, but when people are outside their homes, they mostly communicate in Urdu. Officially Urdu is taught as a first language in all schools, while punjabi/sindhi are not
I'm a native Hebrew speaker, and your video is perfect. You really captured Hebrew nuance used in day-to-day talk. Chapeau! I totally agree with your bottom line: when I hear Arabic, I understand a word here-and-there, but definitely not the whole sentence. btw, some other similar words that don't show in your video: "zaman", meaning a long time ago, similar to "zman" meaning time, or "Kula makan" which is similar to "kol makom" - everywhere.
@@finn8518 Please stop harassing Jews and subjecting them to tests like this. Focus your energies not on telling Jews what to believe, but rather expend that effort to support Palestinians. You can also support the efforts of Jews in Israel/Palestine who are working right now to make a better society.
Wonderful video! As a native Hebrew speaker I found it very interesting, informative and accurate. I would like to mention the words for father and mother (av and em) you gave are very uncommon nowadays, as you alluded to later in the video, you are far more likely to come across the Aramaic loanwords aba (אבא) and ima (אמא)
22:36 one interesting fact is that the form using “sa” before a verb to indicate the future tense in MSA is not used in any single Arabic dialect but is used in Maltese
3 місяці тому+18
in tunisia 99 % arab muslim the word for god is rab while in malta 95% non arab christian the word for god is alla !
I feel so privileged to be able to speak both of these wonderful language. as always Paul, thank you for these amazing comparing languages videos. your pronunciation is great too, but if you plan to make other videos related to Arabic or Hebrew in the future, I'd be happy to help with reading word or sentences!
The Sefer-Sifr difference has an interesting parallel in Yiddish and other Jewish diasporic languages. In Hebrew sefer is any book but in Yiddish and other diasporic Jewish languages it is specifically a work of religious scholarship and/or a book of the Bible, which parallels the Arabic Sifr/Kitab distinction.
Another note from a different Germanic language: In Old English the general word for food was "mete" which became our modern "meat" like the ancient Semitic word for food narrowed to mean bread in Hebrew and meat in Arabic.
It's funny that the same thing happened with Arabic loanwords in Indonesian, spoken mostly by Muslims. In Arabic, kitab can just mean any book, but in Indonesian it's specifically used for a holy text.
That makes sense, Yiddish borrowed a lot of words from Hebrew, but mostly words with religious connotations, while more day-to-day words mostly have Germanic roots, so it would make sense that the Hebrew word for book would have religious connotations while the more Germanic bukh wouldn't
@@EllieK_814 That's fascinating. It's an exact parallel. The process was probably identical as well, i.e. a loan due to common use by people familiar with the liturgical language.
Thanks for this, Paul. Every video you produce is done with a lot of sympathy for the culture and language you're talking about and both illuminating and entertaining.
Arabs and Israelis are actually cousins of course not all the Arabs but all the Adnanis are because most of the original Israelis are children of Jacob son of Issac son of Ibrahim and the Adnanis Arabs are children of Adnan son of Ishmael son of Ibrahim and both children lived in the same Area and contacted eachother .
@ساميهبلح But Palestinians are blend of both Arabs and Cannanites christians who embraced Islam . Cannanite Christians were jews who became Christians. Means today's Palestinians are Jews in terms of race
Thank you so much, Paul, this was really wonderfully done. I loved the original video, it's stuck with me, and this was a very worthy reboot, when I will admit I've been thinking a lot about this topic (probably not just me).
We are lucky to have this channel. Great insight, information to a particular and unique group of people sharing our love of language. Great video. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication!
Oh wow, I can't wait! The last one is indeed quite old quality-wise. I'm a Hebrew speaker and I've learned for years literature Arabic, but unfortunately, it's really difficult to find a good place to learn Levantine Arabic.
The books everyone recommends for Palestinian Arabic are those by J. Elihay. There are lots of other courses that teach some kind of Levantine, but often Lebanese, Syrian, or Jordanian (which is close to Palestinian Arabic because the majority are Palestinian).
@@Langfocus No offense Paul, but for the vast majority of people learning a language from books, especially by themselves it's incredibly hard. Particularly for adults.
It's hard for me to find concrete examples of this, but for some reason Levantine feels the most natural to me, as someone who learned Hebrew first. So I intuitively feel you're right. And as an INFJ I'm fine with that lack of concrete evidence. :)
@@Langfocus here you manage to give me something new to research, INFJ, nice one. I think I'll dive i to that first, then I'll head back to you in the future in case I can support with evidence 👍 Funny thing is, I might know about English more than I know about Arabic 😅
@@LangfocusThere are mostly just substrates from Hebrew and Aramaic / Syriac rather than grammar. Conjugation of verbs in Syrian Arabic has Aramaic influence. Sometimes gh and dh are pronounced as ayin and ṣ respectively, e.g. ghadab -> ‘assab, so more like Northwest Senitic. And Check Ibrahim Bassal’s works on the matter. Until 17th century some villages still spoke Aramaic in the Levant. Around 3 still do but their population is dwindling due to the situation in Syria.
@@sreekar5691as a levantine arabic speaker, id say the vocabulary is the closest to fusha although we do have many words from outside origins or languages that predate arabic like aramaic, but the pronunciation is wayy softer than fusha arabic
@@cabwaylingo_ the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂 ..
Czech to me sounds like harder version of Serbo-Croatian with more complicated sounds and longer vowels. Still somewhat similar to Bulgarian but in reality Czech and Bulgarian are the most distanced Slavic languages. However many Czechs go here on holidays and yeah most of you surprisingly don't understand even the basics.
@@LeoNicola_lnljix you must have learned it somehow. Internet Russians would have you believe they understand all Slavics effortlessly, which must be some kind of weird tic. The reality is mutual intelligibility between Russian and Czech/Slovak for someone *with no prior exposure* is about ZERO (however, it must be said that for being so close to Czech, Slovak tends to be much more intelligible to the Russian ear when spoken than Czech, i.e. it's apparently not a transitive/linear thing)
@@ahG7na4 I lived 3 months in Prague and I remember how easy and understandable the Czech language was. You can understand all the basic words you need. You can chat with people without switching to English. Ofc it's not Russian and I can express my thoughts in all details but the Czech language (and other Slavic languages) are far closer to Russian that English, French, Arabic, etc.
So interesting! As a native Arabic speaker I always felt the similarities between the 2 languages. The approach of asking native speakers to guess the meaning made the video much more interesting and alive. Thank you!
@@96_13. I don't think anybody claims that. The claim is that Israel itself was founded by European Jews, rather than natives, whose native languages were European. Which is true.
@@keksi6844 yes he mentions that at 1:39 and specifies that modern hebrew has a minuscule Arabic influence for a few words. Most of the similarities come from their shared Semitic origins he said. So not really partially. It has more English words than Arabic words lmao.
Thank you for this video. It is more important than ever for people, especially Israelis/Jews and Arabs/Palestinians, to learn each other's languages and understand their own better.
I wish you added the Canaanite shift. When A turned into O in Canaanite languages Arabic - Aramaic - hebrew Salam - Shlama - Shalom La - La - Lo Tayeb - tava - tov Kahin (كاهن) -Cahana - Cohen Banat (بنات) - Bnata - Banot Miat (مئات) - me'ot Malikat (ملكات) - malkot Lisan -Lishana - Lashon Ras - Resha - Rosh Kas (كاس) -Kasa - Kos Alam (علام) - Alma- Olam
@@romero522 Yes, but the a suffix in Aramaic is the same as the ha-something prefix in Hebrew, it's the same as "the" in English (which is to say unless the a is a part of the word in Aramaic it's likely "the cohen" rather than "cohen")
תודה רבה פול! Thanks for this wonderful video, as a Hebrew speaker I do understand some Arabic naturally, but having studied Arabic for quite a few years, especially the Palestinian dialect, I pretty much understand everything. It's so nice to focus on similarities at a time like this… The timing of this could not have been better, thanks for everything.
@@naamashang5107 the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂 ..
Excellent video that correctly noted the historic roots of languages respective words and pronunciations. One I think you missed is that עבד in biblical hebrew also means to serve or worship just like the arabic cognate, and modern hebrew uses that understanding for religious contexts (e.g. עובדי עבודה זרה = servants of foreign worship).
As an Orthodox Jew, I was thinking about this point because we still use the word "Avodah" to mean either prayer, or serving (worshiping) G-d in general.
I'm a native Arabic speaker, and I've been learning Hebrew for a few months. Before I started, I could only understand a few words from speeches. But after learning the letters and how some changed pronunciation, I began to spot more words when I read. For example, I learned that the unfamiliar-sounding "ġatov" means "raṭib," which means wet. I'm sure Arabic and Hebrew speakers would recognize even more words if they didn't change pronunciation.
@@ProudMesopotamianGirl I couldn't relate the word ratib to wet in Arabic until someone else wrote it as rutub. It would have been clearer if we use the Arabic alphabet and write رطب like people do with Hebrew words. Thanks
I speak decent Hebrew as a third language and have been trying to pick up Arabic lately and absolutely loved this video! I have to say, comparing cognates (and especially true cognate-false friends) has been one of my favourite parts, so I'm thrilled that I'm coming away with some new ones. טעם/طعم - I wasn't familiar with طعم/طعام, but I assume they're also related to مطعم? צדיק/صديق - I knew both of these though I never would've made the connection that they might be cognate, makes me wonder what the original sense of the root was.
Yes, مطعم is another noun configuration of that root. In Arabic, having a م in the first position often turns the noun into being a place or person depending on the vowels. Compare KTB with مكتب etc. From my very limited understanding of Hebrew, that seems to be the case as well in that language.
5:55 Eden missed the word התעמלות hit3amlut, which is pretty common, meaning (sport) exercise, which would've helped him It is interesting that in Hebrew the root 3ml shifted to more physical work, while in Arabic the root 3bd shifted to a more spiritual meaning of work. To any fans of Community, Abed has the 3ayn consonant, and means worshipper. Also you might've heard of people named 3abdallah, meaning a worshipper of Allah
Yes, in Arabic the literal meaning of 'abd is slave/servant, and it can be used figuratively to refer to a worshipper. For example the name Abdullah you mentioned more specifically means "slave/servant of God" There is the word 'ibadah which is often translated as "worship" but it more specifically refers to one's servitude (to god), like religious duties and acts of devotion
@@Syiepherze in Hebrew "3eved" means slave as well but not always in a religious sense. The name Ovadia in Hebrew and Abdallah in Arabic have the same meaning actually.
As an Arabic and Aramaic speaker, I can understand a fair bit of Hebrew when it’s in isolation. Short sentences, words, etc. The numbers are also almost identical. Like you pointed out at the end of the video, the biggest barrier to understanding more is that the European-influenced pronunciation style of Hebrew is the dominant one, so letters like ayn, Ha, qof, Ta, and so on are not pronounced by most Israelis with their original Semitic sounds. When I’ve heard Mizrahi Jews speak, it’s much clearer. Also, where Hebrew and Arabic words have different roots sometimes, usually the Hebrew word is using an Aramaic root that I know. Paul, you may find it interesting that the root KTB/كتب is actually an Aramaic borrowing into Arabic. The root SFR was the original Arabic root dealing with writing, like it is in Hebrew today. That’s why the very old word for book in Arabic uses that root.
After or during the time of the First Temple, Aramaic became widely used by Jewish people of the time. Many Jewish religious texts are written in Aramaic, so it’s likely that Hebrew borrowed from Aramaic as well. Aramaic was essentially the international language of the region.
@@Nashmi-JOYes, Dr. Mahmoud al Jallad has written on this and it has appeared in at least one lecture. I’m unsure of the exact one, but will try to find for you.
6:03 In this example, In Hebrew we normally wouldn't say "ani avadti ha-yom." Normally we would not include the first word, which means I. This is because for the verb to work, the ending -ti refers to yourself
This is my favorite video that you've done. I've never thought about Hebrew and Arabic being related (Indo-European languages I understand better than Semitic languages), but you not only explained how they are, but gave some pretty convincing examples to bring their common history to life. Really well done.
Thanks for sharing your expertise in both languages. I like your comparative analysis and especially the dynamic rhythm that you have to your presentation. Hello from Marseille and כל הכבוד
Gosh I never get tired of listening about the neat features of Semitic languages! Would be really interesting to take a look at Maltese vs Hebrew tbh, two super European-influenced semitic languages from super divergent branches and born of different circumstances! Not quite sure how different Maltese is from Arabic to warrant it, but could be fun haha
Remember, when this Canadian made a video in Japanese teaching Arabic to a Japanese-speaking audience like it was a class in a Japanese school? That was hilarious.
it's not that hard to imagine, Palestinians and Israelis are both very well educated people and English is taught in schools from kindergarten. Im Palestinian and my English was near native level around the time I entered college. Now not everyone around here can or do reach this level, but it's very doable if you put in some extra personal effort.
as a hebrew speaker, we can occasionally understand few words in a row when arabic speaker are being interviewed on media. But on daily basis, both languages aren't mutually inteligible
I'm only part way thru the video but it seems like English and the other germanic languages. Can't understand them, but once you point out the similarities, it's easier to understand
Mostly because modern Hebrew has changed the way consonants were spoken. A lot of the consonants before the reconstruction of Hebrew sound much like arabic consonants.
@@Im_SanenoughI don’t think that’s the only reason. I’ve listened to Mizrahi Hebrew (pharyngeals and all) and the non-intelligibility is the same (Derech Hashalom is an example).
@mahmoudalawneh8808 i made the comment based on the video showing how old consonants forms resonate with arabic very well. does Mizrahi preserve the old consonants considering they come from an Arab background or do they speak the same way with Ashkenazis ?
Hey, Israeli here, I’ve been studying Arabic for the last few years and I speak them both, Love the idea of language learning as a bridge between people, cultures and hopefully peace انشالله
Great video! As a native Hebrew speaker, I’d like to share an observation regarding the Arabic word 'l-madrasa' (school), which appears in 12:40. It closely resembles the Hebrew term 'Beit Midrash' (בית מדרש), which refers to a Torah study hall. This is essentially a type of religious school, or at least an institution where students primarily study religious subjects. Also, the word Arabic word "sayyara" (car), which appears in 20:25, sounds like the Hebrew verb "le-sayer" (לסייר), which means to wander around or to tour, and this is a thing people do using cars🙃 As for the question at the end of the video, as a native Hebrew speaker, I don’t understand it at all. However, when I listen to Arabic, I can pick out some words that sound similar to Hebrew, though that doesn’t always help in grasping the overall context
As a Tigrinya speaker I also see a lot of similarities. We say makina for car (from Italian, machine), but to drive it we say sewar/zewar. Ane makina zewire. (I car drove).
sayyara in arabic came from sara(سرى) if you are going to a place we say sara as a past and 'yasri' means walking. think the name came from the sorce sara.
To answer your second question: I am fluent in Portuguese and French. I don’t understand spoken Romanian. But when I see it written, I can figure out when a word starts and where it ends and, suddenly, things become clear. Oh, this word looks like French that! Oh, this word looks like Italian that! Oh, this word looks like Latin that! Very interesting video, btw!
And since we are talking about it, I am also a native speaker of Cape Verdean Creole. While Guinea-Bissau Creole is obviously understandable, I was surprised to see that Papiamento is slightly understandable. The Gulf of Guinea Creoles are not.
I am an American Jew who first learned Hebrew for religious purposes. When I heard you mentioned medrasah in Arabic I was reminded of the Hebrew bet-midrash. I checked wikipedia which states: The word "midrasha" is based on the term beit midrash, "house of study"; the root דרש means "to seek [knowledge]", and is then generalized to mean "expound". It is cognate with the Arabic "madrasah," which also refers to a place of learning.
in Arabic, madrasah is based on the root d-r-s which means study, then you add ma in the beginnig which means the place of, like maktaba means liberary or "place of books", then at the end the ah means it is a feminine word.
I am Jew from Israel, Regarding Midrasha - it is more high level word less used today, it refers to holly studies. So Madrasa in the sentence is more school for religion studies in higher level Hebrew. On same sentence, MARA, can be translated to a lady in Hebrew. Mar for male means Mister, and Mara is for a lady, this days we use in Hebrew Marat that is lady of .... I don't understand Arabic but when they use: "Marat" I interprets they are referring to ladies.
@@stephenfisher3721 the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂 …
@ROOM-ls4mc Any Israeli child can read the Old Testament in Hebrew to some degree. Certainly the language has changed in 3,000 years but much less than English from the times of Chaucer. There are verb forms and grammar unique to Biblical Hebrew. The Hebrew of the Mishna is even closer to Modern Hebrew. Maimonides wrote in Hebrew while living in Egypt around 800 years ago.
19:32 this isn't totally true. In fact the standard modern Hebrew accent is the sephardi one, which eliezer Ben Yehuda mainly based on the accent of algerian jews, as he spent a lot of time there. The traditional ashkenazi accent has way more radical sound shifts, and it could be difficult for a standard Hebrew speaker to even understand an ashkenazi Hebrew speaker. Some ultra orthodox people still speak that way. It is true though that ashkenazi jews softened the sephardi accent when learning it, but I'm not sure how much algerian jews were pronouncing those letters before speaking Hebrew daily either. Notably yemenite jews (mainly due to racism early in Israel's history) are a bit more insular than the rest of Israeli jews and they still pray with a very traditional and unintelligible accent
The standard pronunciation for Hebrew originated as the Sephardic one with a significant Ashkenazi accent, so certain sounds that used to exist in Sephardic Hebrew don’t really exist in Modern Hebrew so much
Thank you Paul - a masterful job as always! My native language is English, I've learned Hebrew to mother-tongue-level fluency, and I've studied both Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial Palestinian Arabic - the Jerusalem dialect. As you probably know, there are variations in vocabulary and pronunciation in the colloquial dialects within Palestine and Israel - such that you can tell where someone is from by their accent and word choice. Since Arabic is my third language and I'm far from fluent (alas), I find it more difficult to understand some native Palestinian speakers than others, depending on where they're from - but at the same time can usually get the gist of what someone from Lebanon or Jordan is saying. Lastly, MSA is indeed much more difficult to learn than Hebrew. This is a complicated topic for sure, but fascinating. Thank you again for your superb video.
@@Langfocus wow...I apologize that my answer may be a bit long, because I've studied eclectically and over a protracted period. I studied MSA at Hebrew University in Jerusaelm, and then after a long gap at Tel Aviv University - and used the materials provided by those institutions, which were based in Hebrew (when I first started learning MSA I was still learning Hebrew, which was a bit nuts, but definitely helped my understanding of both languages' grammar). In between, I studied the colloquial Palestinian with a variety of private teachers, two of them Palestinian-Israelis and one Jewish Israeli, and all of them excellent teachers who used their own self-produced materials and their creativity. On my own I found a book of short stories written in colloquial Levantine dialect, "الحكواتي", from دار فضاءات للنشر والتوزيع - الاردن. Most of the material was quite difficult for me, but it enabled me to learn colloquial Arabic without forfeiting my literacy (for some reason colloquial Arabic is taught through transliteration, which I find unhelpful). I'm terrible at learning online - I like to work with a real person - and so my studies have been sporadic, depending on various intrusions of "real life". I apologize for not being so helpful. I would add, regarding the revival of the Hebrew language, that it was used continuously - primarily liturgically but not only. Newspaparrs and poetry were being published in Hebrew in Europe even before Elizer Ben Yehuda's dedicated revival., and of course there has always been a continuous Jewish presence in what is now Israel - however small, and whatever additional languages (Yiddish, Ladino) those people used. Regarding modern-Hebrew pronunciation, it's actually the Sephardic pronunciation of the historic land of Israel, and not akin to the liturgical Hebrew of European Jews. Regarding the ability of modern-Hebrew speakers to understand the Bible: I think it is greater than that of the English speaker trying to understand Shakespeare, as the primary differences are grammatical and not lexical. Moreover, just as the King James Version of the Bible informs English speech and literature, so the Hebrew Bible informs the everyday speech, idioms, pop songs and of course the literature of Israeli Hebrew speakers. All things i continued thinking about after watching your wonderful video! Please forgive my waxing long. I value and enjoy your work so much ❤️
As an Arabic speaker, I say if someone speaks Arabic had some introduction to Hebrew, especially in terms of phonology, they will understand easily the topic of Hebrew conversation with some focusing.
At universities in France we had many Arabs take introductory courses into Hebrew because they major in Arabic studies and needed to take a second Middle Eastern language. It's nice and is we did more things like this we would be closer to leave.
as an hebrew speaker i know someone who can't understand a single word in hebrew and he speaks only arabic but we understand each other just fine since both are similar
I really liked how you included the parts of the native speakers guessing the meaning of some simple sentences! I was also wondering why you decided to do the example pronunciations yourself in this video, since you usually have native speakers do them?
I think because he learned both languages while studying in Israel, so he decided that his command over both languages was sufficient to do the voiceovers himself
Thanks! Well, my answer has two parts: (1) For languages I have some history of speaking or at least studying (as opposed to just researching for a video), I like to do the samples myself. But (2) I didn't do that for a long time, because I felt like I had to make everything 100% perfect to please everyone. But I'm trying to drop my perfectionism and be willing to share work that has flaws in it. These days everyone thinks those native speakers' voices are AI, so the perfection doesn't even improve my reputation.
@@Langfocus Your accent in Hebrew is pretty damn good! I can't speak for the Arabic but you sounded good to me (a non-Arabic speaker) for those samples as well. Kol hakavod!
as a Palestinian, i learned Hebrew very quickly and pretty much on my own without any formal classes. I'd say my level at my peak was around high intermediate but i had to let it go for two reasons, #1 i left Palestine and moved to Texas for 10 years, and #2 even before i left i never had any real chances to use the language considering the political situation and the segregation between the two populations. Living in the West Bank we never meet any Hebrew speakers or we're ever in a situation where we could use it, so i lost motivation to continue. I can still speak it ok-ish and i can understand it decently enough if the topic isnt complex, but overall im just so rusty due to neglect and lack of practice.
I find that Hebrew is much more commonly spoken by older Palestinians (those who were adults pre-second Intifada). Probably because, ironically, the borders between Israel proper and the West Bank and Gaza were more open and more Palestinians and Israelis could interact with each other *before* signing a peace agreement. Ugh, the Middle East is so depressing.
@@benjaminr6153 thats very true. My dad used to tell me how he went to Ramat Gan and Haifa and all those places inside Israel-proper in his private car back in the 70s before things went to shit. Unfortunately the situation just keeps getting worse and worse and the two populations are getting more and more extreme and i frankly cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel (no pun intended lol).
@@AysarAburrub Israelis used to go shop in Gaza if you can believe that! The failure of Oslo, the second intifada, and the growth of settlements made an entire generation-plus of Israelis and Palestinians lose their goddamn minds. My conversations with Israelis and Palestinians frequently leave me banging my head against a wall.
@@benjaminr6153 Yes, before the first intifada, many Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza worked with Israelis and knew Hebrew. The best speaker of Hebrew in Baton Rouge Louisiana when I lived there was an Arab originally from Gaza.
@@AysarAburrub Yeah, my cousin (who was born in British Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s) told me once he used to go to places which are now Palestinian territories and would interact with Palestinian Arabs all the time; of course this is not possible for most Israeli Jews now. It's a sad state of affairs. I hope things get better in our lifetime.
So the main two shifts that happened were: 1- The ancient shift: When the two languages split away from central semetic (Aprox. 5000-7000 years ago). 2- The modern shift: When Europeans Jews learned Hebrew, bringing the European pronunciation from their native languages (Aprox. 80-200 years ago).
European Jews knew hebrew ever since entering diaspora (for literature, religion and learning). But if you mean learning to speak the newly created spoken version i get what you mean.
Modern Hebrew pronunciation comes from Sephardic NOT Ashkenazi (Jews who lived in Europe). Ashkenazi pronunciation is super super different. There exist more vowels and sounds in Ashkenazi pronunciation; it preserved more of the original pronunciation but suffered from vowel shifts (like English).
@@PrimeConnoisseur Those who knew it only knew it as a literary language (as I implied in my original comment), so it's only natural that when they learn a different spoken language, they bring the pronunciation of their mother tongues (which I believe Paul himself made clear in the video).
@@tartarus1322 It's well known that the Ashkenazi pronunciation had the most influence, so if you're gonna make such a drastically different claim, you're gonna have to provide sufficient evidence.
Interesting that in English, both "bread" and "meat" have been used in the past to mean "food". So you had green meat (vegetable matter), white meat (dairy), red meat (animal flesh), etc. And then in Hebrew and Arabic, you have "false" cognates that mean bread in one and meat in the other.
I speak decent Hebrew and have been trying to pick up some Arabic, and these have been some of my absolute favourite parts. I wish he would've expanded a bit on Madinah (city in AR) and Medina (country in HE) as they both come from the root word Din, which originally meant law and transitioned to specifically religious law in both languages. Madinah/Medina in both cases basically meant the "The place with the courts" and one simply chose the municipal courts which the other, the federal. PS this is a technicality, but false cognates have similar meaning and sound as a coincidence despite unrelated etymology, these are true cognates (related origins) and just false friends (divergent meanings)
Great video. A little comment though. Modern hebrew pronunciation tried to follow traditional sephardic pronunciations (the traditional pronunciation used by spanish jewish communities) but really ended up creating a simplified pronunciation system that is neither ashkenazi nor sephardic nor iranian, etc. The second thing is that although modern hebrew was "recreated" in the sense that it was used to become the language of a state and secular affairs, it was still very much a living language. A lot of rabbinical works pertaining to daily life (how to do this and that during this festival, how to kill an animal to make it kosher, etc.) was written in Hebrew in order to be understood by laypeople in different communities before anyone had thought about creating a "modern hebrew".
“Living language” normally refers to a language that has an ongoing community of native speakers that use it in all areas of life. In the case of Hebrew, it was used for literature and some written communication, but wasn’t spoken as a native language by anyone. And if anyone used it as a spoken lingua franca, it was in limits areas of life. So it’s referred to as a “dead language”, but not an “extinct” language. (An extinct language is no longer used for any purpose). That’s just terminology though. I know you’re right that it was continuously used in writing.
Hebrew speaker here, learnt Arabic and Tigrinya, most common vocabulary is common for all three, sometimes Tigrinya feels closer than Arabic, especially in pronunciation and some vocabulary, Tigrinya also switches k to x, note that the older Emphatic sounds in Hebrew are reconstructed as Ejectives as in Tigrinya as well. Tigrinya grammar is further away, though the classical form Ge'ez has a more Hebrew like structure.
I worked in Eritrea for several weeks and was able to pick up a few phrases immediately because of the influence of Arabic and Italian (and I speak Hebrew and Spanish). Was interesting how easy some phrases were to learn.
As a clarification - The accent that became the mainstream for Hebrew is more of a mix between north African accents which Eliezer Ben Yehuda preferred the sound of, and European accents. e.g. modern Hebrew שבת (Shabbat) vs European Shabbos (meaning "Sabbath"). Many Israelis from Arabic speaking countries will still pronounce ח and ע differently (some ר as well), and Yemenite Jews will pronounce additional sounds differently when praying
Yes, they intended to use Sephardic pronunciation, but then some changes took place when Ashkenazim adopted it. But Modern Hebrew doesn't use the traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation.
Additional context for anyone interested - The term Sephardi is from Hebrew Spharad (ספרד meaning Spanish and Spain respectively), but the name refers to people who follow the prayer customs / religious customs of the expelled Spanish jews, which includes most jews from Arabic speaking countries (except Yemen), Iranian jews, and others. In this case the Sephardi dialect was learned by Eliezer Ben Yehuda in Algiers. Most European jews are Ashkenazi, but smaller groups of Sephardim exist/ed in Europe as well after the Spanish expulsion of the jews (e.g. in the Netherlands and the Balkans). Great video @@Langfocus!
So in the sentence at 21:30 it is supposed to be غاليةً ghaaliyatAN because of the verb كان (kaana) and her sisters that work this way making it منصوب or accusative. Also in the numbers at 14:25 Arabic also uses the masculine numbers for counting feminine words and feminine numbers for counting masculine words. This is the case too in many dialects but I think some dialects simplify the system.
wow, we have a great إعراب enthusiast here, when I watched it I felt something unnatural there in the sentence but totally didn't put my hand on it, great job my friend
@@allaab9385 Well I wouldn't say that that was very advanced إعراب just basics 😆🫡 If you want a real pro you should watch فرائد لغوية and his playlist شرح ألفية ابن مالك he is very نحو pro! I also watched some lectures from المقررات المفتوحة and I liked محمد العمري's teaching 👀
Thanks for a brilliant video! I've lived in Israel for over 30 years, but only started learning Arabic. I was amazed at the amount of common roots! Incidentally, as a native Russian speaker I can understand a little of all other written Slavic languages, and a very little of spoken Ukranian.
Amazing video!! So thorough! I am always surprised by how much Italian and Portuguese I understand just from knowing Spanish. I've recently started ACTUALLY studying Brazilian Portuguese and I just feel like I'm learning different ways to say Spanish words most of the time 😅 I am also studying the revival of my indigenous tongue, Taíno.. what's incredible is how many indigenous American peoples share similar or same words for some common words like "ni" for water from various indigenous from south to north America. That being said, the languages themselves vary so much that knowing Taíno definitely doesn't help me understand different indigenous American languages 😅
The word "shabat" שבת in Hebrew has meaning. It comes from the verb "shavat" שבת which means "stopped working (had a strike)". God "stopped working" on that day' that's why it was called shabbat. Other languages took that name' but it has meaning only in Hebrew.
in fact, Shavat also have a cognate in Arabic, which is سُبَاتْ (pronounced as Subat) And it means prolonged or comfortable sleeping, and also means hibernation.
@@mujemoabraham6522 in hebrew it will be: hu be-sheina Amuqa hu- הוא- he be- ב - in sheina- שינה sleep (can be also tnuma/nimnum from the root נום- nwm that mean short sleep) Amuqa- עמוקה- deep( feminine) from the root עמק- Amq( ain,mem. quf)
I am a native speaker of Hokkien (a variety of Southern Min), but even Eastern Min (which is also in the Min group of Chinese) is largely incomprehensible to me. Chinese is such a large language family.
English sounds like a drunk Frisian trying to speak French, but it is easy to learn, many of the written words still look old Dutch.. enough genoeg licht light zicht sight macht might, knecht Knight (=servant), flight vlucht etc etc
I love how well researched your videos are. One thing that irks me is this myth that Hebrew was unused for thousands of years except in prayer. Hebrew was not a dead language. It wasn't just used in prayer either. It was used internally among Jews for business, to write poetry, and for many other uses. No, it was not used daily because Jews were in exile. To survive, they had to speak the language of the place they lived in. But all along, changes were happening. You can see this in books of legal responsa and biblical commentaries. New words being created etc. For religious Jews, it was always a living language. A person who speaks/understands Mishnaic Hebrew with no knowledge of modern Hebrew can 100 % understand modern Hebrew. It's just a process of learning some new words. The core experience is the same. I say this as someone fluent in biblical, Mishnaic, and modern Hebrew.
Very interesting Paul. I have to add that the root ע.ב.ד in Hebrew also can be used as worship. It is used a lot in Biblical and Rabbinical Hebrew, but also in modern Hebrew. For instance, עבודת השם means "worship of the Lord" and an idolatry is called עבודת אלילים.
This is such a great deep dive into Hebrew and Arabic! They seem to be similar enough that knowing one will give you an advantage in learning the other, but nowhere near mutually intelligible. To answer the ending question: I grew up speaking English and German from an American father and German mother, and Dutch is a language closely related to both of them. But when I hear spoken Dutch, there are so many differences that I can seldom understand a word. At least I can pick out a pretty good amount of words when I encounter written Dutch.
As a Middle Eastern Arabic speaker, I noticed that Moroccan Arabic also uses archaic, ancient Arabic words. It sounds very strange to me. Nice video, by the way. I wish one day Hebrews and Arabs could live together in peace.
We are cousins, and that means we are family. And families sometimes bicker, but as you grow older you learn to appreciate the family you have. I hope we can all mature one day, and not let the question of "who started it" or "who was here first", "who deserves it more" or "i am real and you are fake" bother us anymore
Absolutely love this! Thank you for the beautiful content. I speak both Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Arabic. I do know just a little bit of Hebrew. Hebrew also shares incredible similarities with my Assyrian dialect (Duhok, Iraq). Also, you were spot on regarding the original Hebrew alphabet pronunciations. However, I’d like to point out one more thing: I firmly believe that the original Hebrew did not have a “V” sound at all. Beth was always “B.” I could conclude that by comparison with the two Semitic languages I speak. I’ve come across many similar words with the letter Beth in all languages with the exact same meaning but “B” is pronounced “V” in Hebrew while in Assyrian it sometimes shifts into “W/U” which is not in the original pronunciation either. These changes likely happened over time to make speech easier/smoother. For example, the word “Babel” contains two letters Beth in both Hebrew and Assyrian. In Hebrew it’s pronounced Bavel while in Assyrian Bāwel. But if we go back to the original pronunciation, it’s Babel. Just for the reference, the Babylonian/Iraqi Jewish dialect of Hebrew does follow the exact model you demonstrated in the video plus no “V” sound. Cheers and thank you!
In fairness, the best evidence that Proto-Semitic never had v is that it doesn't show up anywhere else but Hebrew, but Hebrew has almost certainly had it (or the similar /β/) since its pre-biblical development. The development of the six dual consonants is related to (though I'm not sure which came first actually) the Hebrew equivalent to the Arabic "Shadda" called the "Dagesh", though its not maintained in modern Hebrew outside religious text. For speakers of biblical hebrew, they actually would've considered each pair as a single sound, with the fricative being the typical pronounciation, and the plosive the doubled, but a single sound nonetheless. Later did the split become more than just grammatical
@@selezian Dagesh kal (light) still exists to differentiate those sounds, dagesh hazak (strong) used to apply to basically all the consonants and represented a doubling of the consonant. Different grammatical features that in writing used the same symbol.
You right! Hebrew did not *originally* have a "v" sound! The "v" sound in place of Bet came as a result of Aramaic influence! In old Aramaic, the letter Bet had 2 sounds: a regular /b/ and /β/, which sounds like a v but without your teeth touching your lips. This /β/ sound becomes the /w/ sound you mentioned in Aramaic, but in Hebrew it shifts to a /v/, similar to how in Italian, the Latin verb "habere" becomes "avere".
16:20 That's not precise. The changes to Hebrew phonology in its different dialects happened centuries before the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, while it was still the language of prayer. Just like Latin has evolved despite having no native speakers. Modern Hebrew kinda became the highest common denominator of all the dialects.
It's interesting to see that the split between the different Semitic sub families happens before coining most vocabulary for Sedentary lifestyles, thus they share mostly the vocabulary of an agricultural nomadic society, see a nice overview on this: "Hebrew - a linguistic introduction" / Pablo Kirtchuk. most of Hebrew's sedentary vocabulary are Akkadian loanwords
@@susannabrandon7358 even door דלת comes from Akkadian, the question is how and when did Akkadian coin these terms, Akkadian is historically the first attested Semitic Urban culture, and the most differentiated East Semitic branch
A lot of the changes in the pronounciation of hebrew are not due to the revival of hebrew but happened much before that. The letter het ח and ayin ע did got the ashkenazi pronounciation in modern hebrew (in most dialects), but almost all the other changes you mentioned existed by this stage in all hebrew speakers, including sepharadic jews in north africa and the middle east.
As a Hebrew speaker who hears Arabic almost everyday I will pick up a word or too and can at least figure out the subject their talking about, but I'm from Israel so we use a lot of Arabic slang too which helps and the people I hear most might use some Hebrew slang too so it's much easier to understand. Great video too! Very informative!
I think this was a very important video to make, showing how we have many more similarities than we do differences when we get down to it. Also I'm glad you're redoing your old videos, Paul! I'm personally gonna be keeping an eye out for if you redo Tagalog, maybe in the context of Chinese loans or sumn to also connect it to current events, Idk I bet the wife and kid keep you pretty busy but it's always nice to see you post, hoping we'll get another soon!
Fairly fluent in Hebrew. Lived in Amman for a year. I was able to get by remembering that G = J / B = V / Sh = S, and I used simple sentences at the suk (shuk) to go shopping and to give directions to taxi drivers (before GPS or Google Translate existed). I can understand the basic gist of conversations in Palestinian Arabic but get the details wrong. I also worked alongside mostly Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem for 4 years and would listen to their conversations - I knew if they were talking about food, or their families, or a car accident, or travel, or work, or paying a bill over the phone, but I'd get the details wrong. Palestinians and Arabs in Israel use a lot of loan words in Hebrew because it's much easier than using those terms in Arabic (like mazgan for air conditioning or Misrad HaPanim for Ministry of the Interior or Kupat Cholim for Health Insurance company). Then there are words in Arabic that are so ingrained into Israeli culture, like telling someone "sahktein" before they eat (Arabic for bon appetite) or "ahlan" as a greeting or "sababa" for ok.
Useless trivia… Kupat Holim is an interesting word combination which literally means a “cash register of sick people”. This odd combination of words is a direct translation of the German word Krankenkasse. This is because the Israeli health insurance companies (which predate the establishment of the state) were modeled after the health insurance companies in Germany (which in both countries began as mutual-aid societies).
I'm a native Azerbaijani speaker, and I was in Kazakhstan this summer. Previously, I knew that our languages were similar, but I noticed that I can understand the topic of the speech when someone is speaking Kazakh, and I could understand perfectly separate words. I was even able to say basic sentences after a week 😅. It was an interesting experience for me.
The early videos weren't trash at all, I remember the first video on this and as an arabic speaker I was impressed. That's how I discovered this channel (also your arabic vs Maltese/Portuguese/Spanish videos)
The old video was absolutely not trash, your channel is great! So excited for this video!
شكله تغير كثيرًا
Yes, I agree. The first Arabic language video was superb.
My thoughts exactly
I agree 100%
Same thought. It was that video that made me know/love this channel
I love it when languages are like “Yeah this word in language A is an everyday common noun, but its cognate in language B is seen as archaic and only used in certain context like religion”
Yeah that happens in Portuguese where "ruber" (red) became "vermelho", which comes from "vermillion" (a specific shade of red), unlike most other Romance languages which use, e.g., rojo. You can still use "rubro", though, it just sounds way too poetic for everyday use.
Yeah, like English and it's romance vocabulary. A totally normal word in Spanish or French can be something completely obscure and poetic/academic in English, while still remaining an actual englush word.
@@DrVictorVasconcelos in Standard Catalan is vermell, although in Valencian and classical Catalan is roig. Same as Portuguese
@@NastenkaVasileva yeah that's why us, Romance language speakers might sound posh to natives when communicating in English. The fact we are taught mainly literary vocabulary instead of more casual forms adds up to this discrepancy. And to make things more complicated, an old French or a Latin root like "discrepancy" could be archaic or become a false friend in modern Romance languages.
Like "tu" in French and "thou" in English.... one is archaic and mainly known from King James bible.
The return of one of the greatest language channels ever. Welcome back.
@@marsoff9898 he forgot to say the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂
@@ROOM-ls4mcIf you had watched the video you'd hear him literally talk about how modern hebrew is a revived language but I guess you're too ignorant for that and instead start to spread missinformatiom about the video...
9:53 In some Saudi dialects the word "yalad" also means boy يلد, It is interesting that it exists in Hebrew
اتوقع حتى العراقيين و بعض دول الشام كما يقولونها "يلد"
حمضيات يلد 😂
الله يعز المملكة يا رب
It's because there was 3 tribes of jews living in Arabia before Islam, until the prophet eventually destroyed most of them.
@@zeinanammour37 false , they were evicted by the commands of Allah because they betrayed the Muslims to the unbelievers.study history and do not spread lies.
فكرت فيها وضحكت، عمومًا الله ينصر فلسطين ويحررهم
I love the idea of seeing speakers of the different languages react to the other language. I think it's a great touch.
I am from Gaza and , i am lucky enough to understand bothe of them . Such a great video.
i didnt know you guys had internet
From* does not have to mean currently in gaza
@@wicksavage3459 by the way my family is not hamas yet this didn't protect my family from losing there home .
@@ted9030 I rely on weak Israeli connections, and since they’re the only option, SIM prices can jump to $100 and are tough to find. Plus, they block your SIM if they figure out you're from Gaza.
@@ted9030 lmao wtf
Your pronunciation of Arabic is perfect. You've really been working on it!
As a Hebrew speaker with less than a year learning Arabic at school, I can watch a video with Arabic talking and Hebrew subtitles and can spot some words that are cognates or has a similar ancient Hebrew cognate.
For example in Arabic مدرسة madrase, you mentioned in this video is similar to בית מדרש, Beit Midrash, which is actually a school for religious learning.
Arabs are Semites, you who claim to be Semites in fact you group of Europeans Africans and few jews Arabs so by killing G A Z A kids you anti semtic
‘’Hebrew is Greek’’ by Joseph Ezekiel Yahuda Becket Publications Oxford, 1982, ISBN 0-7289-0013-0). It should be noted that in the book he proves that Arabic is also Greek, but this is not reflected in the title, by economy.
@epus40 saying that Hebrew is Greek is quite extreme, although I can see some connections, such as loan words etc.
@@aharonha The Greeks created the Russian alphabet. (...¿º
@@epus40 Or maybe the Russians copied it to be used by them for their own language
I enjoy this type of long and elaborate content of yours Paul! I am even more glad seeing you being able to pronounce those Arabic and Hebrew phrases by yourself. Please keep up the good work. Less quantity is okay when the quality is good
Man ! Your old vid were never trash ! I learned so much from you 🙏🏽
My only problem about this video is that it is too short 😄
Thank you and many thanks to Eden and Mahmoud.
What the hell do you mean short?
It's half an hour long
@@DragonTheOneDZA 25 minutes for a discussion of 2 languages that are well over 1000 years old barely begins to scratch the surface. This is the tip of the iceberg on the topic.
Not to say that this video isn't good, I really liked it, but you could delve waaaaaay deeper into the subject than this. There are people who built entire careers based on studying just one of these languages.
@@DragonTheOneDZAhalf an hour is a short video, your brain is fried from UA-cam shorts
@@samirppppLets chill....
@@idraote he forgot to say the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂 …
As a Syrian Arabic speaker, I can make out a few words when hearing Hebrew sentences. Usually its the pronouns, numbers, and some verbs and nouns. Its also notable that Interrogative words in both languages are extremely similar, I'm surprised you didn't mention it, because its one of the first things I notice as an Arab when I hear Hebrew speakers. For example, "Ma" is "What" in both Arabic and Hebrew. Adding the preposition "Li" in Arabic which is "To" in both Arabic and Hebrew, will give you "Lima" meaning "Why" or literally "To what", similarly in Hebrew, we can see the word for "Why" is "Lama" very similar to Arabic.
Also in Levantine Arabic, we sometimes add the definite Article "Ha" or Hal" before a word instead of traditional "Al" meaning "The" For example, "Ha'sayarra" would mean "This car" or "Hal-Kitab" would mean "This book". I believe this has an old common Semitic Root with Hebrew, because the letter "H" in Arabic or the sound "Ha" is still used in Modern Standard Arabic to indicate specificity. For example "Tha" in Arabic is "This", but "Ha-tha" is also "This" but more specific. Similarly, Hebrew uses "Ha" for "The", and "Za" for "This".
We add Ha sometimes when speaking in Iraqi dialect for a definite noun instead of ال. I always assumed it was something like a shortening of هذا / هذة . I think they all may be interconnected.
A very small correction; in Hebrew the word for "this" is zot (feminine) or zeh (masculine). Ha-mekhonit ha-zot = this car; ha-leḥem ha-zeh = this bread.
@@_oaktree_ I just realized - is there no 'that' in Hebrew? I can't think of it.
Hope you are safe, from Israel
@@leviashanken7281 ש
In college I minored in Arabic and in my last semester took Hebrew 101 I was so happy and shocked to see how similar these languages were , it reminded me of living in Brazil and studying Portuguese while being a native speaker of spanish . Languages are awesome and I absolutely love your videos they are always so informative and well constructed!
Damn, so you know English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Hebrew. I only know Urdu, and English
@@proh4718 Is Urdu your native language? I though people in Pakistan usually spoke Urdu as a second language
@@Science_Atrium Urdu is the national tongue of Pakistan. we learn English as a second language and some regional/provincial languages are also taught in some schools (Sindhi, Punjabi etc)
@@proh4718 Yes, I thought that provincial and regional languages were mostly spoken as first language, and Urdu as a national language. I've heard that only 8% of the population speaks Urdu as 1st language.
@@Science_Atrium Right now, around 70 million people speak it as a first language. In Sindh/Punjab, people usually learn Punjabi/Sindhi first, as they learn it from their parents in their households. So you could say that Urdu is a second language, but when people are outside their homes, they mostly communicate in Urdu. Officially Urdu is taught as a first language in all schools, while punjabi/sindhi are not
I'm a native Hebrew speaker, and your video is perfect. You really captured Hebrew nuance used in day-to-day talk. Chapeau!
I totally agree with your bottom line: when I hear Arabic, I understand a word here-and-there, but definitely not the whole sentence.
btw, some other similar words that don't show in your video: "zaman", meaning a long time ago, similar to "zman" meaning time, or "Kula makan" which is similar to "kol makom" - everywhere.
Specifically zman/zaman is borrowed from Persian.
I hope you‘re on the right side of history and stand against the crimes of your government. Free Palestine❤️
@@finn8518 free pale-stine from hamas
@@duduboyFree isntreal from Likuud
@@finn8518 Please stop harassing Jews and subjecting them to tests like this. Focus your energies not on telling Jews what to believe, but rather expend that effort to support Palestinians. You can also support the efforts of Jews in Israel/Palestine who are working right now to make a better society.
Wonderful video! As a native Hebrew speaker I found it very interesting, informative and accurate. I would like to mention the words for father and mother (av and em) you gave are very uncommon nowadays, as you alluded to later in the video, you are far more likely to come across the Aramaic loanwords aba (אבא) and ima (אמא)
Interesting. Those are similar to the Arabic words as well and are even used the same in some Arabic dialects.
@@yasmin7903also in tamazight
@@yasmin7903 Well, Aramaic is a Semitic language as well, so that's why it uses very similar words sometimes
Ubah and imah is also used in arabic by people in saudi arabia
Arabs are Semites, you who claim to be Semites in fact you group of Europeans Africans and few jews Arabs so by killing G A Z A kids you anti-semtic
22:36 one interesting fact is that the form using “sa” before a verb to indicate the future tense in MSA is not used in any single Arabic dialect but is used in Maltese
in tunisia 99 % arab muslim the word for god is rab while in malta 95% non arab christian the word for god is alla !
Interesting, as a Libyan I can understand Maltese very well
@@mlgdigimonme too I am algerain
As an Israeli, I hear it a lot in the Islamic chanting "Khayber Khayber ya Yahood. Jaish Muhamad saya'ud". I usppose it's in MSA.
@@tFighterPilotk.
I feel so privileged to be able to speak both of these wonderful language.
as always Paul, thank you for these amazing comparing languages videos.
your pronunciation is great too, but if you plan to make other videos related to Arabic or Hebrew in the future, I'd be happy to help with reading word or sentences!
How did you learn them
@@vanetee3369 Arabic is my native language, then learned Hebrew on my own online. was and still is a fun experience!
i should learn both too but i don't have much time
@@homosapien.a6364 I'm interested in learning Hebrew as an Arabic speaker would you mind helping me? Cuz I didn't find good resources
@@vanetee3369try chatgpt to help you out with the sources for learning. It helped me with spanish like that
Fantastic! Especially loved the imput of the fluent speakers on this one!
The Sefer-Sifr difference has an interesting parallel in Yiddish and other Jewish diasporic languages. In Hebrew sefer is any book but in Yiddish and other diasporic Jewish languages it is specifically a work of religious scholarship and/or a book of the Bible, which parallels the Arabic Sifr/Kitab distinction.
Another note from a different Germanic language: In Old English the general word for food was "mete" which became our modern "meat" like the ancient Semitic word for food narrowed to mean bread in Hebrew and meat in Arabic.
It's funny that the same thing happened with Arabic loanwords in Indonesian, spoken mostly by Muslims. In Arabic, kitab can just mean any book, but in Indonesian it's specifically used for a holy text.
That makes sense, Yiddish borrowed a lot of words from Hebrew, but mostly words with religious connotations, while more day-to-day words mostly have Germanic roots, so it would make sense that the Hebrew word for book would have religious connotations while the more Germanic bukh wouldn't
i remember in greek kitapi means something along the lines of registry book i don’t exactly remember unfortunately
@@EllieK_814 That's fascinating. It's an exact parallel. The process was probably identical as well, i.e. a loan due to common use by people familiar with the liturgical language.
Thanks for this, Paul. Every video you produce is done with a lot of sympathy for the culture and language you're talking about and both illuminating and entertaining.
It's almost like these languages are two ancient brothers who don't get along anymore.
Cain and Abel
Tower of Babel.
(I am not even religious... 🙂)
Arabs and Israelis are actually cousins of course not all the Arabs but all the Adnanis are because most of the original Israelis are children of Jacob son of Issac son of Ibrahim and the Adnanis Arabs are children of Adnan son of Ishmael son of Ibrahim and both children lived in the same Area and contacted eachother .
@@ساميهبلح israelis ≠ israelites
@ساميهبلح But Palestinians are blend of both Arabs and Cannanites christians who embraced Islam . Cannanite Christians were jews who became Christians. Means today's Palestinians are Jews in terms of race
Thank you so much, Paul, this was really wonderfully done. I loved the original video, it's stuck with me, and this was a very worthy reboot, when I will admit I've been thinking a lot about this topic (probably not just me).
"Madrasa" in Arabic is a cognate of the Hebrew word "Midrasha" (מדרשה), which also means "a place of learning"
In some Arabic dialects we still use "Midrasa"
Yes, but the Hebrew word is specifically for a religious place of learning (like to learn the Torah, Talmud, etc.)
@@yuzan3607 Don't we basically use madrasa or midrasa in all dialects? Which dialect doesn't?
@@Amghannam some of Maghreb region dialects using ècole instead of madrasa
@@allaab9385 That's French, not Arabic, xD
Have been waiting for you to reboot this subject for a long time ..great video
We are lucky to have this channel. Great insight, information to a particular and unique group of people sharing our love of language.
Great video. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication!
Oh wow, I can't wait! The last one is indeed quite old quality-wise. I'm a Hebrew speaker and I've learned for years literature Arabic, but unfortunately, it's really difficult to find a good place to learn Levantine Arabic.
Aren’t there Arabs in Israel who speak Levantine Arabic?
The books everyone recommends for Palestinian Arabic are those by J. Elihay. There are lots of other courses that teach some kind of Levantine, but often Lebanese, Syrian, or Jordanian (which is close to Palestinian Arabic because the majority are Palestinian).
@@TheBreadB
Obviously
@@Langfocus
No offense Paul, but for the vast majority of people learning a language from books, especially by themselves it's incredibly hard. Particularly for adults.
@TheBreadB there are a lot of Arabs. Not everyone feels comfortable talking to them after... recent events.
Super excited for this one!
Levantin Arabic is intermixed with Syrian/Syriac/Arameic, which is why they end up closer to Hebrew
It's hard for me to find concrete examples of this, but for some reason Levantine feels the most natural to me, as someone who learned Hebrew first. So I intuitively feel you're right.
And as an INFJ I'm fine with that lack of concrete evidence. :)
@@Langfocus here you manage to give me something new to research, INFJ, nice one. I think I'll dive i to that first, then I'll head back to you in the future in case I can support with evidence 👍
Funny thing is, I might know about English more than I know about Arabic 😅
@@LangfocusThere are mostly just substrates from Hebrew and Aramaic / Syriac rather than grammar. Conjugation of verbs in Syrian Arabic has Aramaic influence. Sometimes gh and dh are pronounced as ayin and ṣ respectively, e.g. ghadab -> ‘assab, so more like Northwest Senitic. And Check Ibrahim Bassal’s works on the matter. Until 17th century some villages still spoke Aramaic in the Levant. Around 3 still do but their population is dwindling due to the situation in Syria.
@@LangfocusI hear Levantine Arabic is the most similar to Fusha, is that true?
@@sreekar5691as a levantine arabic speaker, id say the vocabulary is the closest to fusha although we do have many words from outside origins or languages that predate arabic like aramaic, but the pronunciation is wayy softer than fusha arabic
This video hits different when you understand Arabic, Hebrew and English! good job
i LOVE you having native speakers like eden and mahmoud, it made the video even more interesting and accurate
@@cabwaylingo_ the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂 ..
As a Czech native speaker, I understand Slovak more than 90%, Sorbian and written Polish about 50-60%, but Silesian is much harder to understand.
I'm a Russian native speaker and I decently understand both Czech and Slovak
Czech to me sounds like harder version of Serbo-Croatian with more complicated sounds and longer vowels. Still somewhat similar to Bulgarian but in reality Czech and Bulgarian are the most distanced Slavic languages.
However many Czechs go here on holidays and yeah most of you surprisingly don't understand even the basics.
@@LeoNicola_lnljix you must have learned it somehow. Internet Russians would have you believe they understand all Slavics effortlessly, which must be some kind of weird tic.
The reality is mutual intelligibility between Russian and Czech/Slovak for someone *with no prior exposure* is about ZERO (however, it must be said that for being so close to Czech, Slovak tends to be much more intelligible to the Russian ear when spoken than Czech, i.e. it's apparently not a transitive/linear thing)
@@ahG7na4 I lived 3 months in Prague and I remember how easy and understandable the Czech language was. You can understand all the basic words you need. You can chat with people without switching to English. Ofc it's not Russian and I can express my thoughts in all details but the Czech language (and other Slavic languages) are far closer to Russian that English, French, Arabic, etc.
So interesting! As a native Arabic speaker I always felt the similarities between the 2 languages. The approach of asking native speakers to guess the meaning made the video much more interesting and alive. Thank you!
So why do you claim that Jews are the European people?
@@96_13. I don't think anybody claims that. The claim is that Israel itself was founded by European Jews, rather than natives, whose native languages were European. Which is true.
@@96_13. They are of diverse races .zips are European
@@shakyshakums yes ,true 💯💯
@shakyshakums by Jews. Jews are not European.
As an Arabic speaker, when I hear Israeli people talk I can catch a few words, which is fascinating to me
same for me listening to arabic as a hebrew speaker!
Modern Hebrew was created partially from Arabic.
@@keksi6844Yes, that's mentioned at 1:39
@@keksi6844 yes he mentions that at 1:39 and specifies that modern hebrew has a minuscule Arabic influence for a few words. Most of the similarities come from their shared Semitic origins he said. So not really partially. It has more English words than Arabic words lmao.
@@keksi6844Very barely.
Old time subscriber(I still remember the old formats)and native Hebrew speaker,I learned allot today thank you.
Thank you for this video. It is more important than ever for people, especially Israelis/Jews and Arabs/Palestinians, to learn each other's languages and understand their own better.
لا شكراً افضل ان اكون جاهلاً على تعلم العبرية الجديدة 😐
@@عبداللهالمهري-ح1و من تعلم لغة قوم امن مكرهم
@@Mentous680 اي اذا هكذا سبب اوكي
I wish you added the Canaanite shift. When A turned into O in Canaanite languages
Arabic - Aramaic - hebrew
Salam - Shlama - Shalom
La - La - Lo
Tayeb - tava - tov
Kahin (كاهن) -Cahana - Cohen
Banat (بنات) - Bnata - Banot
Miat (مئات) - me'ot
Malikat (ملكات) - malkot
Lisan -Lishana - Lashon
Ras - Resha - Rosh
Kas (كاس) -Kasa - Kos
Alam (علام) - Alma- Olam
@@romero522 Wouldn't Cahana be like הכהן?
@@yoavlavi8368 Cahana is in Aramaic
Cohen in Hebrew
@@romero522 Yes, but the a suffix in Aramaic is the same as the ha-something prefix in Hebrew, it's the same as "the" in English (which is to say unless the a is a part of the word in Aramaic it's likely "the cohen" rather than "cohen")
@@yoavlavi8368 yes, although i never saw it without the suffix. Aramaic speakers were more or less in love with their "the"
תודה רבה פול! Thanks for this wonderful video, as a Hebrew speaker I do understand some Arabic naturally, but having studied Arabic for quite a few years, especially the Palestinian dialect, I pretty much understand everything. It's so nice to focus on similarities at a time like this… The timing of this could not have been better, thanks for everything.
Did you learn Arabic in the occupation military?
@@michaelalek6490 i've never been in the army I actually chose to study Arabic, no need to ask what you think of that… Have a good day
@@naamashang5107 the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂 ..
@@ROOM-ls4mcModern hebrew speakers can fluently understand ancient texts
Excellent video that correctly noted the historic roots of languages respective words and pronunciations. One I think you missed is that עבד in biblical hebrew also means to serve or worship just like the arabic cognate, and modern hebrew uses that understanding for religious contexts (e.g. עובדי עבודה זרה = servants of foreign worship).
And many other points where Biblical Hebrew is closer to Arabic than Modern Hebrew is. I kept noticing those in the section about differences.
@@eritain at the time of biblical Hebrew, which was the other dominant West Semitic language?
As an Orthodox Jew, I was thinking about this point because we still use the word "Avodah" to mean either prayer, or serving (worshiping) G-d in general.
I'm a native Arabic speaker, and I've been learning Hebrew for a few months. Before I started, I could only understand a few words from speeches. But after learning the letters and how some changed pronunciation, I began to spot more words when I read. For example, I learned that the unfamiliar-sounding "ġatov" means "raṭib," which means wet. I'm sure Arabic and Hebrew speakers would recognize even more words if they didn't change pronunciation.
"ratuv" is wet (as far as I remember). Very close to "ratib"
Interesting
@@dlvivlviv Yep, רטוב. 👌🏻 (I used ġ just to emphasize the French-style "r" sound, just to show how much it changed the word's pronunciation.)
@@ProudMesopotamianGirl They changed three letters sound 1- R to GH - 2- TT to T - 3- B to V so the word RATTUB became GHATUV ( Westernized )
@@mujemoabraham6522 Exactly, 💯💯 I used ġ to symbolize the sound gh 🙂↕️
@@ProudMesopotamianGirl I couldn't relate the word ratib to wet in Arabic until someone else wrote it as rutub. It would have been clearer if we use the Arabic alphabet and write رطب like people do with Hebrew words. Thanks
I speak decent Hebrew as a third language and have been trying to pick up Arabic lately and absolutely loved this video! I have to say, comparing cognates (and especially true cognate-false friends) has been one of my favourite parts, so I'm thrilled that I'm coming away with some new ones.
טעם/طعم - I wasn't familiar with طعم/طعام, but I assume they're also related to مطعم?
צדיק/صديق - I knew both of these though I never would've made the connection that they might be cognate, makes me wonder what the original sense of the root was.
Yes, مطعم is another noun configuration of that root. In Arabic, having a م in the first position often turns the noun into being a place or person depending on the vowels. Compare KTB with مكتب etc. From my very limited understanding of Hebrew, that seems to be the case as well in that language.
5:55 Eden missed the word התעמלות hit3amlut, which is pretty common, meaning (sport) exercise, which would've helped him
It is interesting that in Hebrew the root 3ml shifted to more physical work, while in Arabic the root 3bd shifted to a more spiritual meaning of work.
To any fans of Community, Abed has the 3ayn consonant, and means worshipper.
Also you might've heard of people named 3abdallah, meaning a worshipper of Allah
Yes, in Arabic the literal meaning of 'abd is slave/servant, and it can be used figuratively to refer to a worshipper. For example the name Abdullah you mentioned more specifically means "slave/servant of God"
There is the word 'ibadah which is often translated as "worship" but it more specifically refers to one's servitude (to god), like religious duties and acts of devotion
@@Syiepherze in Hebrew "3eved" means slave as well but not always in a religious sense. The name Ovadia in Hebrew and Abdallah in Arabic have the same meaning actually.
@@Dor150we have the name Obaida in Arabic which means servant of God as well. I think that’s even closer to Ovadia in Hebrew
As an Arabic and Aramaic speaker, I can understand a fair bit of Hebrew when it’s in isolation. Short sentences, words, etc. The numbers are also almost identical. Like you pointed out at the end of the video, the biggest barrier to understanding more is that the European-influenced pronunciation style of Hebrew is the dominant one, so letters like ayn, Ha, qof, Ta, and so on are not pronounced by most Israelis with their original Semitic sounds. When I’ve heard Mizrahi Jews speak, it’s much clearer.
Also, where Hebrew and Arabic words have different roots sometimes, usually the Hebrew word is using an Aramaic root that I know.
Paul, you may find it interesting that the root KTB/كتب is actually an Aramaic borrowing into Arabic. The root SFR was the original Arabic root dealing with writing, like it is in Hebrew today. That’s why the very old word for book in Arabic uses that root.
Can you give me a source that KTB is derived from aramaic and the arabic was SFR
don't the most commonly spoken aramaic dialects today have a phonology influenced by greek?
After or during the time of the First Temple, Aramaic became widely used by Jewish people of the time. Many Jewish religious texts are written in Aramaic, so it’s likely that Hebrew borrowed from Aramaic as well. Aramaic was essentially the international language of the region.
Ketubah is the word for a Jewish wedding contract, and it is (usually) written in Aramaic.
@@Nashmi-JOYes, Dr. Mahmoud al Jallad has written on this and it has appeared in at least one lecture. I’m unsure of the exact one, but will try to find for you.
6:03 In this example, In Hebrew we normally wouldn't say "ani avadti ha-yom." Normally we would not include the first word, which means I. This is because for the verb to work, the ending -ti refers to yourself
I know it’s not required, but I often hear people using the subject pronoun before a past tense verb.
@@Langfocus Oh ok! Anyways thank you for showcasing these two amazing languages
This is my favorite video that you've done. I've never thought about Hebrew and Arabic being related (Indo-European languages I understand better than Semitic languages), but you not only explained how they are, but gave some pretty convincing examples to bring their common history to life. Really well done.
Thanks for sharing your expertise in both languages. I like your comparative analysis and especially the dynamic rhythm that you have to your presentation. Hello from Marseille and
כל הכבוד
In some dialects of Yemeni arabic we sometimes say خبير khabeer to mean friend or mate, which is similar to the hebrew word for friend.
Its very likely that most Yemenite people are Jewish or of Jewish descent due to the ancient presence of Jews in Yemen before Islam.
Yes indeed
@@PrimetimeXHimyarite kingdom was a Jewish kingdom afaik.
@@PrimetimeX That is crazy. In hebrew the word Khaver has the root of "connect".
Hebrew is Yemeni accent until now must country side villaget .in Yemen speaking almost 80/100. Hebrew
Gosh I never get tired of listening about the neat features of Semitic languages! Would be really interesting to take a look at Maltese vs Hebrew tbh, two super European-influenced semitic languages from super divergent branches and born of different circumstances! Not quite sure how different Maltese is from Arabic to warrant it, but could be fun haha
Same! I am fascinated by Maltese, it's the weirdest (or most unique) of the Semitic languages, I'd love to see it compared with Arabic or Hebrew
Remember, when this Canadian made a video in Japanese teaching Arabic to a Japanese-speaking audience like it was a class in a Japanese school?
That was hilarious.
It made sense to me at the time. 😄
Any link?
Great comparison as usually! I think the timing is great for the topic as well.
I like your channel, in a world with increasing tensions we can learn about similarities between us than differences.
I wish you success brother 👍😎
I love to see this sentiment from an Evil Leader ;)
They're native Hebrew & Palestinian but threir english is perfect.
Yeah, Eden lives in Canada now, and Mahmoud has been learning English since he was a kid and now studies in the US.
@@Langfocusnow i feel great to speak it fluently alone in Iraq (no passport lol)
it's not that hard to imagine, Palestinians and Israelis are both very well educated people and English is taught in schools from kindergarten. Im Palestinian and my English was near native level around the time I entered college. Now not everyone around here can or do reach this level, but it's very doable if you put in some extra personal effort.
Many people in Israel and Palestine speak excellent English.
as a hebrew speaker, we can occasionally understand few words in a row when arabic speaker are being interviewed on media. But on daily basis, both languages aren't mutually inteligible
I'm only part way thru the video but it seems like English and the other germanic languages. Can't understand them, but once you point out the similarities, it's easier to understand
Mostly because modern Hebrew has changed the way consonants were spoken. A lot of the consonants before the reconstruction of Hebrew sound much like arabic consonants.
@@tomrogue13 yes, I think this is a great exmaple to compare
@@Im_SanenoughI don’t think that’s the only reason. I’ve listened to Mizrahi Hebrew (pharyngeals and all) and the non-intelligibility is the same (Derech Hashalom is an example).
@mahmoudalawneh8808 i made the comment based on the video showing how old consonants forms resonate with arabic very well. does Mizrahi preserve the old consonants considering they come from an Arab background or do they speak the same way with Ashkenazis ?
The root עבד can also mean worship in hebrew, like in לעבוד אלילים
לא רק אלילים...
נכון וגם ״עבד השם״ ו״עבדיה״
@@bigdubi24 servant of God and ?
@@leviashanken7281 ovadiyah is a name
Its also the word slave in Hebrew
Hey, Israeli here,
I’ve been studying Arabic for the last few years and I speak them both,
Love the idea of language learning as a bridge between people, cultures and hopefully peace
انشالله
I was just thinking about this! Wow! Great Timing!
Great video!
As a native Hebrew speaker, I’d like to share an observation regarding the Arabic word 'l-madrasa' (school), which appears in 12:40. It closely resembles the Hebrew term 'Beit Midrash' (בית מדרש), which refers to a Torah study hall. This is essentially a type of religious school, or at least an institution where students primarily study religious subjects. Also, the word Arabic word "sayyara" (car), which appears in 20:25, sounds like the Hebrew verb "le-sayer" (לסייר), which means to wander around or to tour, and this is a thing people do using cars🙃
As for the question at the end of the video, as a native Hebrew speaker, I don’t understand it at all. However, when I listen to Arabic, I can pick out some words that sound similar to Hebrew, though that doesn’t always help in grasping the overall context
There are no native Hebrew speakers. Real Hebrew di ed centuries ago, you speak an Arabized Yiddish.
As a Tigrinya speaker I also see a lot of similarities. We say makina for car (from Italian, machine), but to drive it we say sewar/zewar. Ane makina zewire. (I car drove).
@@aag3752 here we go. feisty idiot.
sayyara in arabic came from sara(سرى) if you are going to a place we say sara as a past and 'yasri' means walking. think the name came from the sorce sara.
@@aag3752 Native modern Hebrew, OK? Happy?🤦♂
What a timing for this video, considering... Anyhow, thank you for the upload, and the first version in 2015 was ABSOLUTELY NOT trash. 🙂
To answer your second question:
I am fluent in Portuguese and French. I don’t understand spoken Romanian. But when I see it written, I can figure out when a word starts and where it ends and, suddenly, things become clear. Oh, this word looks like French that! Oh, this word looks like Italian that! Oh, this word looks like Latin that!
Very interesting video, btw!
And since we are talking about it, I am also a native speaker of Cape Verdean Creole. While Guinea-Bissau Creole is obviously understandable, I was surprised to see that Papiamento is slightly understandable. The Gulf of Guinea Creoles are not.
I am an American Jew who first learned Hebrew for religious purposes. When I heard you mentioned medrasah in Arabic I was reminded of the Hebrew bet-midrash.
I checked wikipedia which states:
The word "midrasha" is based on the term beit midrash, "house of study"; the root דרש means "to seek [knowledge]", and is then generalized to mean "expound". It is cognate with the Arabic "madrasah," which also refers to a place of learning.
in Arabic, madrasah is based on the root d-r-s which means study, then you add ma in the beginnig which means the place of, like maktaba means liberary or "place of books", then at the end the ah means it is a feminine word.
It just occurred to me that Rashi, though it's an acronym, has the added meaning of mid-rash! Though it lacks the d.
I am Jew from Israel, Regarding Midrasha - it is more high level word less used today, it refers to holly studies. So Madrasa in the sentence is more school for religion studies in higher level Hebrew. On same sentence, MARA, can be translated to a lady in Hebrew. Mar for male means Mister, and Mara is for a lady, this days we use in Hebrew Marat that is lady of ....
I don't understand Arabic but when they use: "Marat" I interprets they are referring to ladies.
@@stephenfisher3721 the current Hebrew language is not like the ancient Hebrew, and your new language was written 300 years ago in Europe , while the original language is extinct 😂 …
@ROOM-ls4mc
Any Israeli child can read the Old Testament in Hebrew to some degree. Certainly the language has changed in 3,000 years but much less than English from the times of Chaucer. There are verb forms and grammar unique to Biblical Hebrew. The Hebrew of the Mishna is even closer to Modern Hebrew.
Maimonides wrote in Hebrew while living in Egypt around 800 years ago.
19:32 this isn't totally true. In fact the standard modern Hebrew accent is the sephardi one, which eliezer Ben Yehuda mainly based on the accent of algerian jews, as he spent a lot of time there. The traditional ashkenazi accent has way more radical sound shifts, and it could be difficult for a standard Hebrew speaker to even understand an ashkenazi Hebrew speaker. Some ultra orthodox people still speak that way. It is true though that ashkenazi jews softened the sephardi accent when learning it, but I'm not sure how much algerian jews were pronouncing those letters before speaking Hebrew daily either. Notably yemenite jews (mainly due to racism early in Israel's history) are a bit more insular than the rest of Israeli jews and they still pray with a very traditional and unintelligible accent
Yes!!!!!
The standard pronunciation for Hebrew originated as the Sephardic one with a significant Ashkenazi accent, so certain sounds that used to exist in Sephardic Hebrew don’t really exist in Modern Hebrew so much
Thank you Paul - a masterful job as always! My native language is English, I've learned Hebrew to mother-tongue-level fluency, and I've studied both Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial Palestinian Arabic - the Jerusalem dialect. As you probably know, there are variations in vocabulary and pronunciation in the colloquial dialects within Palestine and Israel - such that you can tell where someone is from by their accent and word choice. Since Arabic is my third language and I'm far from fluent (alas), I find it more difficult to understand some native Palestinian speakers than others, depending on where they're from - but at the same time can usually get the gist of what someone from Lebanon or Jordan is saying. Lastly, MSA is indeed much more difficult to learn than Hebrew. This is a complicated topic for sure, but fascinating. Thank you again for your superb video.
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! What materials (if any) did you use for the Jerusalem dialect?
@@Langfocus wow...I apologize that my answer may be a bit long, because I've studied eclectically and over a protracted period. I studied MSA at Hebrew University in Jerusaelm, and then after a long gap at Tel Aviv University - and used the materials provided by those institutions, which were based in Hebrew (when I first started learning MSA I was still learning Hebrew, which was a bit nuts, but definitely helped my understanding of both languages' grammar). In between, I studied the colloquial Palestinian with a variety of private teachers, two of them Palestinian-Israelis and one Jewish Israeli, and all of them excellent teachers who used their own self-produced materials and their creativity. On my own I found a book of short stories written in colloquial Levantine dialect, "الحكواتي", from دار فضاءات للنشر والتوزيع - الاردن. Most of the material was quite difficult for me, but it enabled me to learn colloquial Arabic without forfeiting my literacy (for some reason colloquial Arabic is taught through transliteration, which I find unhelpful). I'm terrible at learning online - I like to work with a real person - and so my studies have been sporadic, depending on various intrusions of "real life". I apologize for not being so helpful. I would add, regarding the revival of the Hebrew language, that it was used continuously - primarily liturgically but not only. Newspaparrs and poetry were being published in Hebrew in Europe even before Elizer Ben Yehuda's dedicated revival., and of course there has always been a continuous Jewish presence in what is now Israel - however small, and whatever additional languages (Yiddish, Ladino) those people used. Regarding modern-Hebrew pronunciation, it's actually the Sephardic pronunciation of the historic land of Israel, and not akin to the liturgical Hebrew of European Jews. Regarding the ability of modern-Hebrew speakers to understand the Bible: I think it is greater than that of the English speaker trying to understand Shakespeare, as the primary differences are grammatical and not lexical. Moreover, just as the King James Version of the Bible informs English speech and literature, so the Hebrew Bible informs the everyday speech, idioms, pop songs and of course the literature of Israeli Hebrew speakers. All things i continued thinking about after watching your wonderful video! Please forgive my waxing long. I value and enjoy your work so much ❤️
As an Arabic speaker, I say if someone speaks Arabic had some introduction to Hebrew, especially in terms of phonology, they will understand easily the topic of Hebrew conversation with some focusing.
Agree
At universities in France we had many Arabs take introductory courses into Hebrew because they major in Arabic studies and needed to take a second Middle Eastern language. It's nice and is we did more things like this we would be closer to leave.
as an hebrew speaker i know someone who can't understand a single word in hebrew and he speaks only arabic but we understand each other just fine since both are similar
I really liked how you included the parts of the native speakers guessing the meaning of some simple sentences! I was also wondering why you decided to do the example pronunciations yourself in this video, since you usually have native speakers do them?
I think because he learned both languages while studying in Israel, so he decided that his command over both languages was sufficient to do the voiceovers himself
Thanks!
Well, my answer has two parts: (1) For languages I have some history of speaking or at least studying (as opposed to just researching for a video), I like to do the samples myself. But (2) I didn't do that for a long time, because I felt like I had to make everything 100% perfect to please everyone. But I'm trying to drop my perfectionism and be willing to share work that has flaws in it. These days everyone thinks those native speakers' voices are AI, so the perfection doesn't even improve my reputation.
@@Langfocus Your accent in Hebrew is pretty damn good! I can't speak for the Arabic but you sounded good to me (a non-Arabic speaker) for those samples as well. Kol hakavod!
as a Palestinian, i learned Hebrew very quickly and pretty much on my own without any formal classes. I'd say my level at my peak was around high intermediate but i had to let it go for two reasons, #1 i left Palestine and moved to Texas for 10 years, and #2 even before i left i never had any real chances to use the language considering the political situation and the segregation between the two populations. Living in the West Bank we never meet any Hebrew speakers or we're ever in a situation where we could use it, so i lost motivation to continue. I can still speak it ok-ish and i can understand it decently enough if the topic isnt complex, but overall im just so rusty due to neglect and lack of practice.
I find that Hebrew is much more commonly spoken by older Palestinians (those who were adults pre-second Intifada). Probably because, ironically, the borders between Israel proper and the West Bank and Gaza were more open and more Palestinians and Israelis could interact with each other *before* signing a peace agreement.
Ugh, the Middle East is so depressing.
@@benjaminr6153 thats very true. My dad used to tell me how he went to Ramat Gan and Haifa and all those places inside Israel-proper in his private car back in the 70s before things went to shit. Unfortunately the situation just keeps getting worse and worse and the two populations are getting more and more extreme and i frankly cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel (no pun intended lol).
@@AysarAburrub Israelis used to go shop in Gaza if you can believe that! The failure of Oslo, the second intifada, and the growth of settlements made an entire generation-plus of Israelis and Palestinians lose their goddamn minds. My conversations with Israelis and Palestinians frequently leave me banging my head against a wall.
@@benjaminr6153
Yes, before the first intifada, many Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza worked with Israelis and knew Hebrew. The best speaker of Hebrew in Baton Rouge Louisiana when I lived there was an Arab originally from Gaza.
@@AysarAburrub Yeah, my cousin (who was born in British Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s) told me once he used to go to places which are now Palestinian territories and would interact with Palestinian Arabs all the time; of course this is not possible for most Israeli Jews now. It's a sad state of affairs. I hope things get better in our lifetime.
Updates are great, but your earlier videos were awesome, too! 🎉😊❤
So the main two shifts that happened were:
1- The ancient shift: When the two languages split away from central semetic (Aprox. 5000-7000 years ago).
2- The modern shift: When Europeans Jews learned Hebrew, bringing the European pronunciation from their native languages (Aprox. 80-200 years ago).
Modern Hebrew pronunciation was heavily influenced by Sephardic liturgy pronunciation from Northern Africa as well
European Jews knew hebrew ever since entering diaspora (for literature, religion and learning). But if you mean learning to speak the newly created spoken version i get what you mean.
Modern Hebrew pronunciation comes from Sephardic NOT Ashkenazi (Jews who lived in Europe). Ashkenazi pronunciation is super super different. There exist more vowels and sounds in Ashkenazi pronunciation; it preserved more of the original pronunciation but suffered from vowel shifts (like English).
@@PrimeConnoisseur Those who knew it only knew it as a literary language (as I implied in my original comment), so it's only natural that when they learn a different spoken language, they bring the pronunciation of their mother tongues (which I believe Paul himself made clear in the video).
@@tartarus1322 It's well known that the Ashkenazi pronunciation had the most influence, so if you're gonna make such a drastically different claim, you're gonna have to provide sufficient evidence.
Interesting that in English, both "bread" and "meat" have been used in the past to mean "food". So you had green meat (vegetable matter), white meat (dairy), red meat (animal flesh), etc. And then in Hebrew and Arabic, you have "false" cognates that mean bread in one and meat in the other.
I speak decent Hebrew and have been trying to pick up some Arabic, and these have been some of my absolute favourite parts. I wish he would've expanded a bit on Madinah (city in AR) and Medina (country in HE) as they both come from the root word Din, which originally meant law and transitioned to specifically religious law in both languages. Madinah/Medina in both cases basically meant the "The place with the courts" and one simply chose the municipal courts which the other, the federal.
PS this is a technicality, but false cognates have similar meaning and sound as a coincidence despite unrelated etymology, these are true cognates (related origins) and just false friends (divergent meanings)
I was wondering why this sounded so similar when I heard it haha
One of many examples of semantic shifts in sister languages.
The Arabic "madrasa" also has a Hebrew cognate, "Beit medrash" (house of study) but it specifically means schools of religious study
Great video. A little comment though. Modern hebrew pronunciation tried to follow traditional sephardic pronunciations (the traditional pronunciation used by spanish jewish communities) but really ended up creating a simplified pronunciation system that is neither ashkenazi nor sephardic nor iranian, etc.
The second thing is that although modern hebrew was "recreated" in the sense that it was used to become the language of a state and secular affairs, it was still very much a living language. A lot of rabbinical works pertaining to daily life (how to do this and that during this festival, how to kill an animal to make it kosher, etc.) was written in Hebrew in order to be understood by laypeople in different communities before anyone had thought about creating a "modern hebrew".
“Living language” normally refers to a language that has an ongoing community of native speakers that use it in all areas of life. In the case of Hebrew, it was used for literature and some written communication, but wasn’t spoken as a native language by anyone. And if anyone used it as a spoken lingua franca, it was in limits areas of life. So it’s referred to as a “dead language”, but not an “extinct” language. (An extinct language is no longer used for any purpose).
That’s just terminology though. I know you’re right that it was continuously used in writing.
I commented about the same thing lol
thank you for re-doing this one! i have been working on my arabic and hebrew lately, for uhh no reason in particular :v, so i really enjoyed this one!
Hebrew speaker here, learnt Arabic and Tigrinya, most common vocabulary is common for all three, sometimes Tigrinya feels closer than Arabic, especially in pronunciation and some vocabulary, Tigrinya also switches k to x, note that the older Emphatic sounds in Hebrew are reconstructed as Ejectives as in Tigrinya as well. Tigrinya grammar is further away, though the classical form Ge'ez has a more Hebrew like structure.
I worked in Eritrea for several weeks and was able to pick up a few phrases immediately because of the influence of Arabic and Italian (and I speak Hebrew and Spanish). Was interesting how easy some phrases were to learn.
As a clarification - The accent that became the mainstream for Hebrew is more of a mix between north African accents which Eliezer Ben Yehuda preferred the sound of, and European accents. e.g. modern Hebrew שבת (Shabbat) vs European Shabbos (meaning "Sabbath"). Many Israelis from Arabic speaking countries will still pronounce ח and ע differently (some ר as well), and Yemenite Jews will pronounce additional sounds differently when praying
Yes, they intended to use Sephardic pronunciation, but then some changes took place when Ashkenazim adopted it. But Modern Hebrew doesn't use the traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation.
Additional context for anyone interested - The term Sephardi is from Hebrew Spharad (ספרד meaning Spanish and Spain respectively), but the name refers to people who follow the prayer customs / religious customs of the expelled Spanish jews, which includes most jews from Arabic speaking countries (except Yemen), Iranian jews, and others. In this case the Sephardi dialect was learned by Eliezer Ben Yehuda in Algiers. Most European jews are Ashkenazi, but smaller groups of Sephardim exist/ed in Europe as well after the Spanish expulsion of the jews (e.g. in the Netherlands and the Balkans).
Great video @@Langfocus!
So in the sentence at 21:30 it is supposed to be غاليةً ghaaliyatAN because of the verb كان (kaana) and her sisters that work this way making it منصوب or accusative.
Also in the numbers at 14:25 Arabic also uses the masculine numbers for counting feminine words and feminine numbers for counting masculine words. This is the case too in many dialects but I think some dialects simplify the system.
wow, we have a great إعراب enthusiast here, when I watched it I felt something unnatural there in the sentence but totally didn't put my hand on it, great job my friend
@@allaab9385 Well I wouldn't say that that was very advanced إعراب just basics 😆🫡 If you want a real pro you should watch فرائد لغوية and his playlist شرح ألفية ابن مالك he is very نحو pro! I also watched some lectures from المقررات المفتوحة and I liked محمد العمري's teaching 👀
Yes, you're right. I actually went back and forth between AN and UN, and settled on the wrong one.
Thanks for a brilliant video! I've lived in Israel for over 30 years, but only started learning Arabic. I was amazed at the amount of common roots!
Incidentally, as a native Russian speaker I can understand a little of all other written Slavic languages, and a very little of spoken Ukranian.
Amazing video!! So thorough!
I am always surprised by how much Italian and Portuguese I understand just from knowing Spanish. I've recently started ACTUALLY studying Brazilian Portuguese and I just feel like I'm learning different ways to say Spanish words most of the time 😅
I am also studying the revival of my indigenous tongue, Taíno.. what's incredible is how many indigenous American peoples share similar or same words for some common words like "ni" for water from various indigenous from south to north America. That being said, the languages themselves vary so much that knowing Taíno definitely doesn't help me understand different indigenous American languages 😅
The word "shabat" שבת in Hebrew has meaning. It comes from the verb "shavat" שבת which means "stopped working (had a strike)". God "stopped working" on that day' that's why it was called shabbat. Other languages took that name' but it has meaning only in Hebrew.
in fact, Shavat also have a cognate in Arabic, which is سُبَاتْ (pronounced as Subat) And it means prolonged or comfortable sleeping, and also means hibernation.
@@allaab9385 Interesting.
@@allaab9385 هو في سبات عميق It means " He is in a deep sleep " .
God almighty does not feel tired
Respect God
@@mujemoabraham6522
in hebrew it will be: hu be-sheina Amuqa
hu- הוא- he
be- ב - in
sheina- שינה sleep (can be also tnuma/nimnum from the root נום- nwm that mean short sleep)
Amuqa- עמוקה- deep( feminine) from the root עמק- Amq( ain,mem. quf)
I am a native speaker of Hokkien (a variety of Southern Min), but even Eastern Min (which is also in the Min group of Chinese) is largely incomprehensible to me. Chinese is such a large language family.
Ive heard the difference is something like English to German. They are obviously related but not mutually intelligible beyond a few words.
This is exactly the analogy I like to use
English sounds like a drunk Frisian trying to speak French, but it is easy to learn, many of the written words still look old Dutch.. enough genoeg licht light zicht sight macht might, knecht Knight (=servant), flight vlucht etc etc
I think they're a bit closer than that, maybe more like English and Dutch, but generally yes
Thanks!
Thank you very much for the support! 🙌🏼 I appreciate it!
It is an important thing to point out these similarities at a time like this. Thank you, excellent video.
I love how well researched your videos are. One thing that irks me is this myth that Hebrew was unused for thousands of years except in prayer. Hebrew was not a dead language. It wasn't just used in prayer either. It was used internally among Jews for business, to write poetry, and for many other uses. No, it was not used daily because Jews were in exile. To survive, they had to speak the language of the place they lived in. But all along, changes were happening. You can see this in books of legal responsa and biblical commentaries. New words being created etc. For religious Jews, it was always a living language. A person who speaks/understands Mishnaic Hebrew with no knowledge of modern Hebrew can 100 % understand modern Hebrew. It's just a process of learning some new words. The core experience is the same. I say this as someone fluent in biblical, Mishnaic, and modern Hebrew.
Very interesting Paul. I have to add that the root ע.ב.ד in Hebrew also can be used as worship. It is used a lot in Biblical and Rabbinical Hebrew, but also in modern Hebrew. For instance, עבודת השם means "worship of the Lord" and an idolatry is called עבודת אלילים.
18:03 in Arabic there is a word that also similar (rih) means strong wind
it's exciting to hear you call your old videos trash, because that means I have something new to learn from your new ones
This is such a great deep dive into Hebrew and Arabic! They seem to be similar enough that knowing one will give you an advantage in learning the other, but nowhere near mutually intelligible. To answer the ending question: I grew up speaking English and German from an American father and German mother, and Dutch is a language closely related to both of them. But when I hear spoken Dutch, there are so many differences that I can seldom understand a word. At least I can pick out a pretty good amount of words when I encounter written Dutch.
As a Middle Eastern Arabic speaker, I noticed that Moroccan Arabic also uses archaic, ancient Arabic words. It sounds very strange to me. Nice video, by the way. I wish one day Hebrews and Arabs could live together in peace.
We are cousins, and that means we are family. And families sometimes bicker, but as you grow older you learn to appreciate the family you have. I hope we can all mature one day, and not let the question of "who started it" or "who was here first", "who deserves it more" or "i am real and you are fake" bother us anymore
@@ahmedalrays as do i, we’re cultural, religious, and genetic cousins.
Absolutely love this! Thank you for the beautiful content. I speak both Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Arabic. I do know just a little bit of Hebrew. Hebrew also shares incredible similarities with my Assyrian dialect (Duhok, Iraq).
Also, you were spot on regarding the original Hebrew alphabet pronunciations. However, I’d like to point out one more thing: I firmly believe that the original Hebrew did not have a “V” sound at all. Beth was always “B.” I could conclude that by comparison with the two Semitic languages I speak. I’ve come across many similar words with the letter Beth in all languages with the exact same meaning but “B” is pronounced “V” in Hebrew while in Assyrian it sometimes shifts into “W/U” which is not in the original pronunciation either. These changes likely happened over time to make speech easier/smoother.
For example, the word “Babel” contains two letters Beth in both Hebrew and Assyrian. In Hebrew it’s pronounced Bavel while in Assyrian Bāwel. But if we go back to the original pronunciation, it’s Babel.
Just for the reference, the Babylonian/Iraqi Jewish dialect of Hebrew does follow the exact model you demonstrated in the video plus no “V” sound.
Cheers and thank you!
In fairness, the best evidence that Proto-Semitic never had v is that it doesn't show up anywhere else but Hebrew, but Hebrew has almost certainly had it (or the similar /β/) since its pre-biblical development. The development of the six dual consonants is related to (though I'm not sure which came first actually) the Hebrew equivalent to the Arabic "Shadda" called the "Dagesh", though its not maintained in modern Hebrew outside religious text. For speakers of biblical hebrew, they actually would've considered each pair as a single sound, with the fricative being the typical pronounciation, and the plosive the doubled, but a single sound nonetheless. Later did the split become more than just grammatical
@@aji_jacobson I'm not a specialist, but from what I know dagesh pretty much exists in modern Hebrew and b/v, k/kh, p/f still depend on it.
@@selezian Dagesh kal (light) still exists to differentiate those sounds, dagesh hazak (strong) used to apply to basically all the consonants and represented a doubling of the consonant. Different grammatical features that in writing used the same symbol.
You right! Hebrew did not *originally* have a "v" sound! The "v" sound in place of Bet came as a result of Aramaic influence!
In old Aramaic, the letter Bet had 2 sounds: a regular /b/ and /β/, which sounds like a v but without your teeth touching your lips. This /β/ sound becomes the /w/ sound you mentioned in Aramaic, but in Hebrew it shifts to a /v/, similar to how in Italian, the Latin verb "habere" becomes "avere".
16:20 That's not precise. The changes to Hebrew phonology in its different dialects happened centuries before the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, while it was still the language of prayer. Just like Latin has evolved despite having no native speakers. Modern Hebrew kinda became the highest common denominator of all the dialects.
Peace making video !
Please don't belittle your old videos, I think they are educational and great! This one was excellent also, thank you so much!
It's interesting to see that the split between the different Semitic sub families happens before coining most vocabulary for Sedentary lifestyles, thus they share mostly the vocabulary of an agricultural nomadic society, see a nice overview on this:
"Hebrew - a linguistic introduction" / Pablo Kirtchuk. most of Hebrew's sedentary vocabulary are Akkadian loanwords
Interesting! The Hebrew word for architect (אַדְרִיכָל) comes from Akkadian.
@@susannabrandon7358 even door דלת
comes from Akkadian, the question is how and when did Akkadian coin these terms, Akkadian is historically the first attested Semitic Urban culture, and the most differentiated East Semitic branch
In Hebrew we also use
הלך לעולמו
In the sense of dying and it literally means he went to his world
A lot of the changes in the pronounciation of hebrew are not due to the revival of hebrew but happened much before that.
The letter het ח and ayin ע did got the ashkenazi pronounciation in modern hebrew (in most dialects), but almost all the other changes you mentioned existed by this stage in all hebrew speakers, including sepharadic jews in north africa and the middle east.
As a Hebrew speaker who hears Arabic almost everyday I will pick up a word or too and can at least figure out the subject their talking about, but I'm from Israel so we use a lot of Arabic slang too which helps and the people I hear most might use some Hebrew slang too so it's much easier to understand.
Great video too! Very informative!
I think this was a very important video to make, showing how we have many more similarities than we do differences when we get down to it.
Also I'm glad you're redoing your old videos, Paul! I'm personally gonna be keeping an eye out for if you redo Tagalog, maybe in the context of Chinese loans or sumn to also connect it to current events, Idk
I bet the wife and kid keep you pretty busy but it's always nice to see you post, hoping we'll get another soon!
Fairly fluent in Hebrew. Lived in Amman for a year. I was able to get by remembering that G = J / B = V / Sh = S, and I used simple sentences at the suk (shuk) to go shopping and to give directions to taxi drivers (before GPS or Google Translate existed). I can understand the basic gist of conversations in Palestinian Arabic but get the details wrong. I also worked alongside mostly Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem for 4 years and would listen to their conversations - I knew if they were talking about food, or their families, or a car accident, or travel, or work, or paying a bill over the phone, but I'd get the details wrong. Palestinians and Arabs in Israel use a lot of loan words in Hebrew because it's much easier than using those terms in Arabic (like mazgan for air conditioning or Misrad HaPanim for Ministry of the Interior or Kupat Cholim for Health Insurance company). Then there are words in Arabic that are so ingrained into Israeli culture, like telling someone "sahktein" before they eat (Arabic for bon appetite) or "ahlan" as a greeting or "sababa" for ok.
Useless trivia… Kupat Holim is an interesting word combination which literally means a “cash register of sick people”. This odd combination of words is a direct translation of the German word Krankenkasse. This is because the Israeli health insurance companies (which predate the establishment of the state) were modeled after the health insurance companies in Germany (which in both countries began as mutual-aid societies).
Just a little correction- Israeli Hebrew speakers do use 'sahtein' from time to time, but not as bon appetite to someone who is eating
@@MaxPower-11 So what? Why is it "useless"? It's useless to know things?
I'm a native Azerbaijani speaker, and I was in Kazakhstan this summer. Previously, I knew that our languages were similar, but I noticed that I can understand the topic of the speech when someone is speaking Kazakh, and I could understand perfectly separate words. I was even able to say basic sentences after a week 😅. It was an interesting experience for me.
I think because they're both Turkic languages, right?
@_oaktree_ yeah, you're right
The Arabic "Madrasa" has a cognate in Hebrew too; 'Bet Midrash' refers to a religious school, or a school of religious study.
So interesting video
Great job 👍🏻
The early videos weren't trash at all, I remember the first video on this and as an arabic speaker I was impressed. That's how I discovered this channel (also your arabic vs Maltese/Portuguese/Spanish videos)