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The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau, via Latin from the Greek Ἑβραῖος ( Hebraîos) and Aramaic 'ibrāy, all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan) people ( Hebrews). As a non- first language, it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations, and by theologians in Christian seminaries. Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around the world today the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. After Israel, the United States has the second-largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans).
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According to Ethnologue, Hebrew was spoken by five million people worldwide in 1998 in 2013, it was spoken by over nine million people worldwide. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language, after which it became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine and subsequently the lingua franca of the State of Israel with official status. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce and Jewish poetic literature. Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, declining in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt carried out against the Roman Empire by Jews living in Judaea. Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to the language as Ivrit, meaning Hebrew however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit, meaning Assyrian, which is derived from the name of the alphabet used, in contrast to Ivrit, meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. 'the language of Judah') or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible, but as Yehudit ( transl. 'the holy tongue' or 'the tongue holiness') since ancient times. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ, lit. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, around the time of the Babylonian captivity. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. It is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still in use, with the other being Aramaic. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still spoken today, and serves as the only truly successful example of a dead language that has been revived.
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It was largely preserved throughout history as the main liturgical language of Judaism (post- Second Temple) and Samaritanism. Historically, it is regarded as one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants: the Judeans and Samaritans.