Biblical Hebrew - Nomenclature

Nomenclature

The earliest written sources refer to Biblical Hebrew by the name of the land in which it was spoken: שפת כנען 'the language of Canaan' (see Isaiah 19:18). The Hebrew Bible also shows that the language was called יהודית 'Judaean, Judahite' (see, for example, 2 Kings 18:26,28). In the Hellenistic period Greek writings use the names Hebraios, Hebraïsti (Josephus, Antiquities I, 1:2, etc.), and in Mishnaic Hebrew we find עברית 'Hebrew' and לשון עברית 'Hebrew language' (Mishnah Gittin 9:8, etc.). The origin of this term is obscure; suggested origins include the Biblical Eber, the ethnonyms Ḫabiru, Ḫapiru, and ˁApiru found in sources from Egypt and the near east, and a derivation from the root עבר 'to pass' alluding to crossing over the Jordan river. Jews also began referring to Hebrew as לשון הקדש 'the holy tongue' in Mishnaic Hebrew.

The term Classical Hebrew may include all pre-medieval dialects of Hebrew, including Mishnaic Hebrew, or it may be limited to Hebrew contemporaneous with the Hebrew Bible. The term Biblical Hebrew refers to pre-Mishnaic dialects (sometimes excluding Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew). The term 'Biblical Hebrew' may or may not include extra-Biblical texts, such as inscriptions (e.g. the Siloam inscription), and generally also includes later vocalization traditions for the Hebrew Bible's consonantal text, most commonly the early-medieval Tiberian vocalization.