Hebrew

About Hebrew

Hebrew is the official language of Israel, spoken by about 9 million people. It was the language of the Bible and of Jewish prayer for thousands of years, and it was revived as an everyday spoken language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The guides give modern Hebrew as it is spoken in Israel today.

Hebrew is written from right to left in an alphabet of 22 letters, and most vowels are not written. The guides add a spelling in Latin letters. The sound written ch or kh is like the ch in Scottish "loch". The word for "you" changes with the person you speak to: ata to a man and at to a woman. Stress usually falls on the last syllable. The everyday greeting shalom means peace and works for both hello and goodbye.

FamilyAfroasiatic, Semitic
Speakersabout 9.3 million, first and second language (2019)
Official inIsrael
ScriptHebrew alphabet, 22 letters, right to left
Codeshe (ISO 639-1), heb (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Ethnologue (2019), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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