 | Hebrew is regarded as the language of the Hebrews/Israelites and their ancestors. Hebrew had ceased to be an everyday spoken language by around 200 AD, and survived into the medieval period only as the language of Jewish liturgy. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and is now the language of 9 million people worldwide, of whom 7 million are from Israel.
As a foreign language, it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel, and by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations, as well as by theologians, and in Christian seminaries.
The Torah is written in Classical Hebrew, and presents a form that flourished around the time of the Babylonian exile. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon HaKodesh "The Holy Language", since ancient times.
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