# Hebrew as the official language of the U.S. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [August 19, 2000, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967 "2000-08-19T15:28:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rekap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4491bb/32.png) [@Rekap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rekap)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2000, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/1 "2000-08-19T15:28:23Z")
In a column from 21-Jan-1994, someone asked if Hebrew ever was considered as an official language of the U.S. You answered that this never happened. In giving further history on the question of an official language, you quote Dennis Baron. Baron himself mentions this Hebrew issue in his book “The English-Only Question”, writing that: “Anti-British sentiment after the Revolutionary War even led to possibly apocryphal suggestions that the newly emerging United States speak a language different from English. Some reformers advocated Hebrew, felt by many eighteenth-century language experts to be the language of the garden of Eden (many of the early colonists had identified themselves as Israelites in a new promised land, while a popular belief that persisted through the nineteenth century also derived the Americna Indians from the ancient Hebrews).” (1990, p. 42) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2000, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/2 "2000-08-19T17:04:30Z")
[Did Hebrew almost become the official U.S. language?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_026.html) You do note that even your quoted source notes that the story is “possibly apocryphal”? Despite the religious fervor of some of the earlier citizens and the association of the native peoples with the lost tribes of Israel (a belief that hangs on in some quarters), I doubt that there is much to the story. It makes a nice footnote, I guess, although a better footnote would be to run down all the suggested languages and mention the number of advocates (usually in the single digits) that each language had. ---
**Author:** ![GaWd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f08c70/32.png) [@GaWd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaWd)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2000, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/3 "2000-08-21T10:50:49Z")
Seeing as the number of Jews, and therefore people who would be fluent in Hebrew, were so, so, SO low after the Revolutionary war, I’d have to say this is as apocryphal as the source says it might be. Jews didn’t see a huge immigration to the US until a time later, AFAIK. Yiddish has had much more of an impact than Hebrew ever did on American English. -Sam ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2000, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/4 "2000-08-21T13:02:48Z")
I suspect that the number of Jews in the U.S. had little to do with anyone promoting Hebrew as a national language. Instead, Hebrew was seen as “God’s original language”. The universities of this period required that their students learn Hebrew (as well as Greek), so they could read the original biblical texts. I can’t find a cite, but I remember reading a story about a king who, as an experiment, had some orphaned babies brought up with limited human contact, to see what language they would naturally speak. The king was eventually told that “They spake very good Hebrew”, although obviously with what we know now that’s pretty dubious. ---
**Author:** ![GaWd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f08c70/32.png) [@GaWd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaWd)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2000, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/5 "2000-08-21T13:05:37Z")
Sorry Whitetho, I shoulda posted a very large **WAG** in my OP somewhere. I’d be very curious to see the number of schools/persons in the US who were able to speak Hebrew fluently in that period. -Sam ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2000, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/6 "2000-08-21T17:17:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by whitetho \* > The universities of this period required that their students learn Hebrew (as well as Greek), so they could read the original biblical texts. The original bible texts were written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2000, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/7 "2000-08-21T18:11:19Z")
Depends on which books, friedo. Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic, which is very similar to Hebrew, but his words were mostly recorded in Greek. Aside from a few isolated verses, like some of His exclamations upon the Cross, I don’t think that any of the Bible was actually originally recorded in Aramaic. ---
**Author:** ![Rekap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4491bb/32.png) [@Rekap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rekap)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2000, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/8 "2000-08-21T21:31:39Z")
From what I’ve been reading, I don’t think that the suggestions to use Hebrew as the language of the U.S. had anything to do with being Jewish or with already being able to speak the language. I think that, assuming that people really DID consider using Hebrew, they picked it for ideological reasons. I brought up this information in the first place because the original answer in the column made no mention of it, even though the person had directly asked about it. ---
**Author:** ![Danielinthewolvesden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Danielinthewolvesden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danielinthewolvesden)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2000, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hebrew-as-the-official-language-of-the-u-s/29967/9 "2000-08-26T07:07:57Z")
Well, chronos is mostly right. Some of the later parts of the OT read like they were originally written in greek or aramaic, then translated. Only a few verses, tho. 99% orig in Hebrew, at least. Almost all of the NT was orig written in greek. It is possible that Matthew was orig done in aramaic. However, Biblical scholars now think that Matthew simply drew heavily from “Q”, which was a collection of the words of JC, likely written while He was alive, and certainly in Aramaic. This source has disappeared. Thus, all the “words” of JC had to be translated into greek. Some feel that the 1st draft of Matt had the text in Greek, and the actual Words in Aramaic, which would explain certain wordings.