Hebrew is one of the oldest continuously recorded languages in the world, with texts dating back over 3,000 years.

Hebrew was effectively revived from near extinction after European Jews adopted the Germanic Yiddish, becoming one of the only languages in history to return to full daily use.

Hebrew is extremely close to Aramaic, the language of most Jews in Roman Judea.

Eliezer Ben Yehuda is considered the father of modern Hebrew for standardizing vocabulary and promoting its everyday revival.

Ancient Hebrew was originally written without vowel markings.

Modern Hebrew still uses vowel points (nikkud) only in educational or religious texts.

Hebrew is written right to left, though numbers aren’t always.

There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew has five letters with special final forms used only at the ends of words.

Hebrew letters also function as numerals, similar to Roman numerals.

Biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew differ the way Old English and modern English do.

Hebrew is one of the two official languages of Israel. The other is Arabic, which is related.

The word “Hebrew” (Ivrit) is grammatically feminine.

The Hebrew word for “alphabet,” alef bet, is named after the first two letters, similar to “alpha beta.”

Many English words come from Hebrew, including amen, hallelujah, sabbath, cherub, and seraph.

The Hebrew word “shalom” means peace, hello, and goodbye.

Hebrew grammar relies heavily on 3 letter root systems (shoresh).

Hebrew has both print script and cursive script, which look very different.

Ancient Hebrew inscriptions appear on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The earliest known Hebrew writing is from the Gezer calendar (10th century BCE).

The Hebrew Bible contains 304,805 letters.

Classical Hebrew has no separate word for “is” in the present tense.

Hebrew originally had no punctuation.

Modern Hebrew borrowed many words from Arabic, Yiddish, Russian, English, and others.

Hebrew names often have meanings, such as Daniel (“God is my judge”) or Adam (“earth”).

Many Jewish prayers and blessings are preserved in Hebrew unchanged for centuries.

Hebrew has multiple words for God, each with a unique nuance.

The modern Hebrew word for “electricity,” chashmal, originally meant “amber” or “brilliance” in Ezekiel’s vision.

The word “kosher” in Hebrew means “fit” or “proper,” not only food safe.

In modern Hebrew, foreign words must fit Hebrew phonology, so “computer” becomes מחשב (machshev).

Hebrew has gendered numbers, which change their form depending on what you are counting.