History of the Hebrew Language

The scriptures state that before the flood there was only one language. When God spoke the universe into existence he used a language. When he spoke to man he used the same language. When the first man Adam spoke to the animals (giving them their names) he used the same language which he had learned from G-d. Adam then taught it to his wife Chava (Eve) and his children. His children then taught it to their children and down through the generations until the Tower of Babel, at which time God came down and confused their languages.
It is interesting to note that the Tower of Babel ocurred around 3,000 BCE, the same time that the Sumerian and Egyptian cultures arose. The Hebrews , Sumerians and Egyptians all used the same style of pictographic writing. Is it possible that all of these pictographs come from the original Hebrew prior to the Tower of Babel? (See "Ancient Near East Writings" for more on the similarities of Hebrew, Sumerian and Egyptian writing.
ALPHABET
Let us look at the "aleph", the first letter of the Hebrew Alephbet, to see the evolution from Hebrew to our own English alphabet.
Approximately 3,000 BCE, the original Hebrew picture (paleo-Hebrew) for this letter was the head of an ox. Between 2,000 and 1,000 BCE, the picture was simplified. The Greeks adopted the Hebrew alephbet around 800 to 600 BCE for their own use, but reversed the picture and the Hebrew aleph became the Greek alpha. Between 600 and 200 BCE the Greek alphabet evolved to what is very close to the modern Greek alphabet. The Romans then adopted the Greek alphabet sometimes with a few changes of their own. The English alphabet uses the Latin alphabet.
Let us look at the second letter of the Hebrew alephbet, the beyt, which follows a very similar progression.
Both the Sumerian and Egyptian have a very similar picture of the Ox's head and the house.
NUMBERS
The ancient cultures did not have a separate numbering system as we do, but instead used their alephbet to double as their numbering system. The aleph represented number 1. Around 600 BCE the Babylonian culture adopted the Hebrew alephbet for their Aramaic language. Over the next couple of hundred years the aleph began to take a little different shape. Around 200 BCE the aleph transformed to a letter which became our number one.
Let us look at the second letter of Hebrew alephbet, the beyt as it would have appeared around 3,000 BCE which then follows a very similar progression and became our number two.
LANGUAGE
Many of our English words come from the Hebrew language, for example the words "map", "napkin" and "apron" actually comes from the same Hebrew word "mappa". Though it has made a few changes over the centuries, the history of these words are easily traced back to their orgins. The Hebrew word mappa means "a cloth". Mappa was adopted by the Latin language for the word "map" becuase at one time, maps were written on cloth. Over time the "m" was replaced by an "n", which was very common as these two letters are sounded with the nose, and became "nappa", a cloth. One type of cloth was used at the dinner table, a "napkin". Another type of cloth was tied around the waist to keep the clothes clean, a "napron". The "n" in "napron" eventually swapped places (a common happening during the formation of words) with the article "a" and became "an apron".
There are many other words that have there root in the Hebrew language. Here are only a few.
For additional information on Hebrew's influence on English and all other languages around the world, see Professor Isaac Mozeson's "Edenics" articles.
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