Hebrew
Hebrew was revived as a spoken language two millennia after it ceased to be spoken, and is considered a language revival "success story". The language was extinct as a spoken language until the 19th century when it was revived by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda; prior to that, though respected and preserved as the holy language of Judaism, it was considered impractically archaic or too sacred for day-to-day communication, although it was, in fact, used as an international language between Jews who had no other common tongue, with several Hebrew-medium newspapers in circulation around Europe at the beginning of the 19th century, and a number of Zionist conferences being conducted exclusively in Hebrew. It is now, however, spoken by over 7,000,000 people. Most of these live in Israel, where Hebrew is the official and most commonly spoken language, but many in Jewish communities outside Israel have undertaken its study.
Read more about this topic: List Of Revived Languages
Famous quotes containing the word hebrew:
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace.”
—Bible: Hebrew Isaiah 52:7.
“The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy
soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm CXXI (l. CXXI, 58)
“Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our
vines have tender grapes.”
—Bible: Hebrew The Song of Solomon (l. II, 15)