In the Beginning – A Short History of the Hebrew Language Hoffman Paperback

In the BeginningA Short History of the Hebrew Language\nAuthor(s): Joel Hoffman\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: New York University Press, United States\nImprint: New York University Press\nISBN-13: 9780814736906, 978-0814736906\nSynopsis\nDecodes the long history of Hebrew and its influential place as the ancestor of many modern written languages\n Hebrew as a language is just over 3,000 years old, and the story of its alphabet is unique among the languages of the world. Hebrew set the stage for almost every modern alphabet, and was arguably the first written language simple enough for everyone, not just scribes, to learn, making it possible to make a written record available to the masses for the first time.\nWritten language has existed for so many yearssince around 3500 BCEthat most of us take it for granted. But as Hoffman reveals in this entertaining and informative work, even the idea that speech can be divided into units called \""words\"" and that these words can be represented.