What is Hebrew?

Answer 1

Hebrew (עִבְרִית, Ivrit) is a Semitic language from the Afro-Asiatic language group. Culturally, it is considered the Jewish language.

In its modern form, it is spoken by most of the seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for well over two thousand years.

It is one of the official languages of Israel, along with Arabic. As a second language it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel.

• Jewish answer:

According to Jewish tradition (based on Genesis ch.10), there are three language groups: that of Japheth (Indo-European), that of Ham (African and other languages), and that of Shem (Arabic, Hebrew, Assyrian, Aramaic, Elamite, and some others).

Tradition teaches that God created the world with/through the Hebrew language and that the word-roots and letters have deeper meanings. The Hebrew language was used, taught and expanded upon by Eber (an ancestor of Abraham; Genesis ch.11), for whom it is named. It is also known as Lashon Hakodesh, the holy language. Religious Semites maintained Aramaic as a vernacular to be used in secular contexts, while Hebrew was used for Torah-teaching and prayer.

Answer 2

There's no such word as "Hebrewism"

"Hebrewism" used to be used as a slang term to refer to the movement in the Jewish Enlightenment that believed that Hebrew should be modernized and be made into a Jewish Lingua Franca. They were opposed by the Yiddishists and Vernacularists. Hebrewism is no longer used as most Jews support Hebrew as the Jewish Lingua Franca in the aftermath of Israel's creation.

Answer 3

Jewish tradition states that the Hebrew language was directly from God. It was the language with which He created the world (Rashi commentary, Genesis 2:23, quoting the midrash); and it is the language in which He spoke on Mount Sinai.
Since it is a holy language and is used for prayer and the teaching of religious tradition, it was not spoken in mundane contexts and wasn't taught to just anyone. It was handed down from individual teachers to disciples as part of the original tradition; and the same goes for the art of writing (letters on parchment, as opposed to cuneiform or hieroglyphics). Thus, certain Hebrew Psalms (92 and 139) and teachings are attributed to Adam, the first man. The wider public, most of whom descended relatively quickly into idolatry and sin, were not given access to the treasures of the original tradition, since by their actions they implicitly repudiated it.
After the Flood, the Hebrew language had a brief period in which it was generally known, thanks to Noah (see Rashi commentary on Genesis 11:1). This is why many hundreds of Hebrew words have cognates in languages as diverse as German and Japanese. The alphabet, which secular scholars trace back to the Greeks (Alpha, Beta) and from there to the Phoenicians, is according to our tradition actually one step older than that: it is a variant of the Hebrew aleph-bet, which those of the Phoenicians and Greeks closely mimic. The earliest known Greek inscription (the Dipylon) was written from right to left.

• Link: The Flood
  

After the Flood also, the knowledge of Hebrew eventually declined (see Genesis ch.11) and was preserved only among the Western Semites, the ancestors and cousins of Abraham. Eber, from whom our word "Hebrew" (Ivrit) is named, was a Semitic descendant of Noah and ancestor of Abraham. He was one of the major transmitters of the original traditions. He is credited with having broadened the Hebrew language, and some Hebrew grammatical constructs are attributed to him by certain Jewish researchers.

As time passes, languages grow and adapt. Thus today we can identify many Hebrew words and types of usage that go all the way back (these are the ones that are most likely to be found in the Hebrew Bible and to have cognates in other languages). And then there are Late Biblical Hebrew; the Hebrew of the Mishna; Medieval Hebrew, and so on. All of these have a broad overlap, but each has introduced its added vocabulary-words and usages.

Today, Torah-Hebrew includes some words that were borrowed from the Persian, some words taken from ancient Greece, Aramaic words, etc.

Note that Hebrew never died out among the Jewish people, since it has always been used in Rabbinical writings and in the prayer-services and daily blessings.