[In the N. T. the expression Hebrew tongue' cEppaFcrri, 9'7"Eppai's &cavil-0s, John v. 2 ; XiX. 20 ; Acts xxi. 4o ; xx. 2, etc.) is used to desig,nate the Syro-Chaldaic dialect of the people of Palestine at the commencement of the Christian era.] 2. History of Hebrew Learning.—It is not till the closing part of the gth century that we find, even among the Jews themselves, any attempts at the formal study of their ancicnt tongue. In the Talmudic writings, indeed, grammatical remarks frequently occur, a.nd of these some indicate an acute and accurate perception of the usages of the language ; but they are introduced incidentally, and are to be traced rather to a sort of living sense of the language than to any scientific study of its structure or laws. What the Jews of the Talmudic period knew themselves of the Hebrew they com municated to Origen and Jerome, both of whorr devoted themselves with much zeal to the study of that language, and the latter of whom espe cially became proficient in all that his masters. could teach him concerning both its vocabulary and its grammar (Euseb. Hist. Eccles.; Hieron. Adv. Rufin. p. 363 ; Epist. aa' Damas. Prof. ad ,o bum, ad Paralipom, etc. ; Carpzov, Crit. Sac. vi. sec. 2). As represented by Jerome the Church was quite on a par with the synagogue in acquaint ance with the language of the ancient Scriptures ; but how imperfect that was in many respects may be seen from the strange etymologies, which even Jerome adduces as explanatory of words, and from his statement that from the want of vowels in Hebrew the Jews pronounce the same words with different sounds and accents, pro voluntaa lectorum ac varietate regionum' (Ep. ad Evan gelwn).
Stimulated by the example of the Arabians, the Jews began towards the end of the gth century to bestow careful study on the grammar of their ancient tongue ; and with this advantage over the Ambian grammarians, that they did not, like them, confine their attention to one language, but took into account the whole of the Shemitic tongues. An African Jew, Jehuda ben Qarish, who lived about A.D. 880, led the way in this direction ; but it was reserved for Saadia ben Joseph of Fayum, Gaon (or spiritual head) of the Jews at Sora in Babylonia, and who died A.D. 942, to compose the first formal treatise on points of Hebrew grammar and philology. To him we are indebted for the Arabic version of the O. T., of which portions are still extant [ARABIC VERSIONS] ; and though his other works, his commentaries on the O. T., and his grammatical works, have not come down to us, we know of their existence from, and have still some of their contents in the citations of later writers. He was followed 'by R. Jehuda b. David Chajug, a native of Fez, who flourished in the ith century, whose services have procured for him the honourable designation of chief of grammarians' [CHAjuG]. Front him the succession of Jewish grammarians embraces the following names [for details see separate articles]. R. Salomo Isaaki, Rashi) a native of Troyes in France, d. ab. ros ; Abu'l Walid Mervan ibn Ganach, a physi cian at Cordova, d. 120 ; Moses Gikatilla, ab. too ; Ibn Esra, d. 1194; the Kimchis, especially Moses and David, who flourished in the r3th cen tury ; Isaak b. hlose (Ephodaeus, so called from the title of his work l'IDN rt"Sp.) ; Solomon Jarchi wrote a grammar, in which he sets forth the seven conjugations of verbs as now usually given ; Abra ham de Balmez of Lecci ; and Elias Levita 0472 1549). The earliest efforts in Hebrew lexico graphy with which we are acquainted is the little work of Saadia Gaon, in which he explains seventy Hebrew words ; a codex containing this is in the Bodleian library at Oxford, from vvhich it has been printed by Dukes in the Zeitschrift far die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Bd. 5, Hft. r, p. 115, ff. In
the same codex is another small lexicographical work by Jehuda b. Qarish, in which Hebrew words are explained from the Talmud, the Arabic, and other languages ; excerpts from this are given in Eichhorn's Eiblioth. der Bib/. Litt. iii, 951-9So. More copious works are those of Ben Ganach, where the Hebrew words are explained in Arabic , of R. Menahem ibn Saruk, whose work has been printed with an English translation by Herschell Philipowski, Land. 1854 ; of R. Salomo Parchon (ab. 6o), specimens of whose work have been given by De-Rossi in his collection of Various Readings, and in a separate work entitled Lexicon 'led. select. quo ex antiquo et inedito R. Parchonis Lexico novas et diversas rariornin et difficilzizrum vocum significa tiones szIrtit, J. B. De-Rossi, Parm. i805 ; of David Kimchi in the second part of his Maki, entitled D'tthrkl "'MD (often printed ; best edition by Bie senthal and Leberecht, 2 vo/s., Berl. 1838-47); and of Elias Levita (Tishbi, Bas. 1527, and with a Latin translation by Fagius, 4to, 1541). The Concordance of Isaac Nathan (1437) also belongs to this period.
The study of the Hebrew language among Christians, which had only casually and at inter vals occupied the attention of ecclesiastics during the middle ages, received an impulse from the re vived interest in Biblical exegesis produced by the Reformation. Something had been done to facili tate the study of Oriental literature and to call attention to it by the MSS., Hebrew and Arabic, which the Emperor Frederic II. brought into Europe after the fourth crusade in 1228 (Cuspinian, De Cavaribus, p. 419 ; Boxhorn, Hist. Univ., p. 779); and a few men such as Raymund Martini, a native of Catalonia (b. rz36), Paulus Bugensis, Libertas Cominetus, who is said to have known and used fourteen languages, etc., appeared as lights in the otherwise beclouded firmament of Biblical learning. But it was not until the begin. Ring of the 16th century that any general interest was awakened in the Christian church for the study of Hebrew literature. In 15°6 appeared the grammar and lexicon of Reuchlin, which may be regarded as the first successful attempt to open the gate of Hebrew learning to the Christian world ; for though the work of Conrad Pellican, De Afodo legendi et intelligena'i Hebraa, Bas. 15o3, had the precedence in point of time, it was too imperfect to exert much influence in favour of Hebrew studies. A few years later Santes Pagnini, a Dominican of Lucca issued his Institutionzim Hebraicarum Libb. iv., Lyon 1526 ; and his Thesaurus Ling. Sand., lb. 1529 ; but the former of these works is inferior to the Grammar of Reuchlin, and the latter is a mere collection of excerpts from David Kimchi's Book of Roots, often erroneously understood. No name of any importance occurs in the history of Hebrew philology after this till we come to those of Sebastian Munster, and the Buxtorfs. The former translated the grammatical works of Elias Levita, and from these chiefly he constructed his own Dictionarium Hebr., adj. Chald. vocabulis, Bas. 1523 ; and his Opus Grammaticum ex yards lzbris concinnatum, Bas. 1542. The latter rendered most important service to the cause of Hebrew learning. [BurrottF.] The grammars and lexicons of the older Buxtorf were for many years the principal helps to the study of Hebrew in the Christian Church, and one of them, his Lexicon Chald. Talmud. et Rabbinicum, Bas. 164.o, is still indispensable to the student who would thoroughly explore the Hebrew language and litemture. The names also of Forster and Schindler may be men tioned as marking an epoch in the history of these studies. Previous to them scholars had followed almost slavishly in the track of rabbinical teaching.