Today is the Hebrew Language Day!
And here are some facts about this unique language:

1. The word “Hebrew” עברית is derived from the name “Eber” עבר, an ancestor of the Israelites. During the Kingdom of Judea, the name of the language was called Yehudit.

2. The most similar language to Hebrew is Arabic, these 2 languages share dozens of similar roots and words.

3. Hebrew was a common spoken language among the Israelites and the Jews about 2000 years ago, but in 200AD it became extinct. It was revived and became a modern language only in the early 20th century.

4. Hebrew is considered to be a holy language, many ultra-orthodox will only use it for prayer. As an everyday language they will use the local languages ​​combined with Hebrew such as Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic.

5. Hebrew letters can change depending on their location in the world. For example, the letter M is ״מ״. At the beginning of a word, M is written as מ and at the end of a word it’s written as ם.

6. There are 9 million people in the world who speak Hebrew fluently. Only 6 million speak Hebrew as a native language, and they make up about 0.077% of the world population.

7. Although the number of Hebrew speakers is quite low - Hebrew names are actually the most common names given in the world. For example: David, Michael, Sarah, Mary.