Thread: Hebrew

I have always thought that Russian is difficult to read because of the stress problem, and the fact that it affects the pronounciation of vowels, particularly О and Я. It's like when in class we sometimes get given newspaper articles, and have to read them aloud. It's hard because you often don't know where to put the stress.

Anyways, then I started looking at Hebrew. Am I right in thinking the alphabet consists of only consonants, and vowels are written as dots and stuff below the consonant they procede. But these vowel symbols are only written for learners, i.e like stress marks in Russian or the dots on the Ё. So if you get a Hebrew newspapers, you will need to know the words already to be able to know what vowels it has and therefore how to say it?
Are the vowels in Hebrew proper vowels. Someone told me they are very short.

Lastly, Как по-русски Hebrew.

Originally Posted by TATY

Lastly, Как по-русски Hebrew.

иврит

Originally Posted by Milanya

Originally Posted by TATY

Lastly, Как по-русски Hebrew.

иврит

Isn't that the Hebrew word for Hebrew also?

Originally Posted by TATY

Isn't that the Hebrew word for Hebrew also?

It is.

TATY

Yeah, you're right - no consonants in writing, except texts for learners/children and religious writings. System of dots is called "Nikud". As to the shortness of vowels, well, I think they all sound short to the westerner's ear but are actually different .

The same thing goes for arabic, am i right?

Yes, the same thing goes for Arabic. They are both born from the same linguistic heritage, I think. In Arabic newspapers, there is a presumed level of competence in the vocabulary, so all vowel markings are omitted. Except for the first letter of their alphabet 'alif', which is written in the same line as consonants. So, even though I don't know any Hebrew, I wouldn't be surprized if your observation was correct, as I'm pretty sure Hebrew and Arabic are related. (semetic languages?)

Darobat

Yes, the same goes with Arabic.

Originally Posted by Milanya

Originally Posted by TATY

Lastly, Как по-русски Hebrew.

иврит

Actually 'иврит' is used when referred to the modern version of the language. The ancient one is normally called 'древнееврейский язык'.