# Hebrew v. Greek



## Yoshkual

I've observed lately that Greek and Hebrew have some similarities, especially in the alphabetical and letter structure and the suffixes that i've noticed (such as 'DomiNI' v. 'EloheiNU'). I was hoping someone would tell me if there are any further similarities uniquely between these languages, and, if there are more, why the languages have so much in common.
Thanks, in advance.


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## origumi

One by one.

Alphabet: Greek borrowed the Phoenician alphabet, which was practically identical to the Hebrew in letters, their order and shape (the Hebrew alphabet is either taken from or simply the same as the Phoenician). When adapted to the Greek language, the similarities were not lost.

Domini: I guess you refer to the word dominus, Latin for master, derived from dom- (house) with the Latin suffix -inus that can make it an adjective or a secondary noun. Hebrew -nu means _our_, its cognates exist in seveal Semitic languages, and has no relations to the Latin (or Indo-European) suffix.

Greek words in Hebrew: many such words are attested, some were borrowed during the Hellenistic period (from the time of Alexander until the Byzatine Empire) and in modern times (scientific terms and alike).

Hebrew words in Greek: the Septuagint and other religious material translated from Hebrew (or Aramaic, a sister language to Hebrew) influenced Greek.


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## Abu Rashid

Firstly languages and writing systems are very different beasts. The Greek writing system is similar to the Northern Semitic writing system, because it was borrowed from it.



			
				Yoshkual said:
			
		

> why the languages have so much in common.



Actually they have very little in common. It was fashionable for some Biblical scholars to try and find similarities between them for a period in the 19th. century, but they gave up when they realised they were imagining most of it (no doubt due to some doomed attempt to explain why the NT was in Greek and not Hebrew). Some even tried to claim Greek was a Semitic language (some fanatics still promote this idea today).


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## Zeevdovtarnegolet

Abu Rashid said:


> Firstly languages and writing systems are very different beasts. The Greek writing system is similar to the Northern Semitic writing system, because it was borrowed from it.
> 
> 
> 
> Actually they have very little in common. It was fashionable for some Biblical scholars to try and find similarities between them for a period in the 19th. century, but they gave up when they realised they were imagining most of it (no doubt due to some doomed attempt to explain why the NT was in Greek and not Hebrew). Some even tried to claim Greek was a Semitic language (some fanatics still promote this idea today).



I agree, but it is nonetheless true that Greek inherited a tremendous pre-Indo European substrate with many terms presumably from surrounding Mediterranean languages.  There was also a good deal of Semitic borrowing way in antiquity before any of the more modern borrowings crept into Greek through Ottoman influence.


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## Abu Rashid

Borrowings really don't constitute similarity between languages.

Persian is riddled with Arabic borrowings, but the two languages are worlds apart.

English has quite a few Arabic borrowings, but the language itself is nothing like Arabic.

Likewise today most languages are taking on board massive amounts of English vocabulary, yet those languages remain nothing like English.

Yes, being the Eastern-most surviving European language does mean there's probably a lot more borrowing between Greek and the Semitic languages, but as I said, borrowing does not constitute similarity between languages.

I think the OP has more become confused by the fact the writing system was borrowed, as many people tend to assume writing system = language.


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## Zeevdovtarnegolet

True but I did not say that.  I was just saying that western scholars tend to underestimate the linguistic and other cultural contributions of neighboring civilizations when they consider the Hellenistic world.


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## Abu Rashid

Of course, because generally speaking they view it from a Euro-centric bias.


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## Yoshkual

I suppose I was confused. I'm only a high school student, with little education in linguistics and I made a lot of conclusions when I saw the few similarities that I did.
thanks for the insight, I was going to use what I know of Hebrew to help my friend get a small grasp of Greek (if they really were similar), which she wants to study in college, and I really wouldve hindered her learning.


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## Abu Rashid

Yeh it wouldn't have helped at all. Greek is European whilst Hebrew is Semitic, from the same family as Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopian etc.

They share a few similarities because they were quite big languages around the same time period (ie about 2000-3000 years ago, and so they influenced each other a little). But they share no more than say English and Modern Turkish, which just happen to exist around the same time, and therefore have a few borrowings from one another.


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