|
 |
Hebrew and Arabic: How similar? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4913 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 21 30 April 2012 at 5:47am | IP Logged | ||
|
Hello!
I briefly studied Arabic when I was about 14, I learned a bunch of words, no grammar and no pronunciation... But now I am thinking about taking it again, and I also have a real interest in Hebrew. How similar are the two? Does anyone know both well enough that they can really give a good overview of the discount I would get going from Arabic to Hebrew? I would try to learn the Levantine Dialect outside of university as I would be learning MSA at school. I know they're both semitic, but is it like Italian and Spanish? Or more like Spanish and Romanian? Thanks, Danny 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fazla Hexaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6263 days ago 166 posts - 255 votes Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin | Message 2 of 21 30 April 2012 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||
|
More like Galician and Aromanian.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| csjc Tetraglot Newbie IcelandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5601 days ago 20 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Dutch Studies: Norwegian, French, Japanese | Message 3 of 21 30 April 2012 at 8:40am | IP Logged | ||
|
I speak Hebrew and have never studied Arabic. As a result I have a very basic understanding of how the
triconsonantal root system works in Arabic, and listening to it I can pick up a word here and there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pigsonfire Newbie United States Joined 5076 days ago 26 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Cantonese | Message 4 of 21 30 April 2012 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||
|
They really aren't "similar" if you are suggesting intelligibility. Remember, Hebrew branched off from the Semitic tree around 1200BC. These 3000 years have really allowed the two to develop into different languages that merely share the same Semetic "root". There are similarities in syntax, roots and cognate vocabulary but you would probably have an easier time understanding French as an English speaker than you would understanding Arabic as a Hebrew speaker.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 21 30 April 2012 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Except that Modern Hebrew as spoken today 1) was constructed based on the vocabulary of the ancient language, esp. the Hebrew of the Mishnah, and 2) in resurrecting Hebrew, there was a great deal of borrowing from other languages, in particular, Arabic. Hebrew also included various changes meant to simplify and modernize the grammar, such as discarding the dual form (which exists in Classical Arabic as well, don't know about MSA), eliminating many initial consonantal mutations, and the like. If anything, these probably make Modern Hebrew incrementally easier for a learner with an Indo-European native language. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| csjc Tetraglot Newbie IcelandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5601 days ago 20 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Dutch Studies: Norwegian, French, Japanese | Message 6 of 21 01 May 2012 at 4:17am | IP Logged | ||
|
I would say that Hebrew is considerably easier to learn for a native speaker of an Indo-European language, than
Arabic is. The phonology is considerably more familiar to most than that of MSA and the grammar can be said to very much resemble Indo-European languages. The morphology however, and much of the vocabulary, are purely semitic. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 7 of 21 01 May 2012 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Right, especially because the standard adopted for Modern Hebrew also no longer differentiates between certain pairs of sounds, such as: ק-כ ח-כ Also, Arabic has the guttural voiced gh sound, absent from many western languages including English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| laban Triglot Groupie Israel Joined 5823 days ago 87 posts - 96 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew*, English, Italian Studies: Norwegian, German | Message 8 of 21 05 May 2012 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Sorry to disappoint you, but you won't get any "discount" there. Some people may try and
tell you how these two languages should have some mutual-intelligibility - relying on some cold linguistics reasoning, but, fact of the matter is, hebrew speakers can't get any arabic and same goes the other way around (not to mention completely different writing systems with a different character set). Edited by laban on 05 May 2012 at 7:31pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
