# Is Hebrew & Arabic mutually understandable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 16, 2002, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384 "2002-06-16T18:34:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384/21 "2002-06-17T18:32:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cmkeller \* > \*\*The OP also asked about Amharic. Assuming that that’s an alternate name for Aramaic, that language is very close to Hebrew, and is in fact the language that most of the Talmud is in. It’s almost certain that Hebrew speakers would be able to get the gist of an Aramaic statement. \*\* Nope, he means _Amharic_, which is spoken in Israel by Ethiopian immigrants. No connection to Aramaic (which comes from _Aram_, an ancient name for the region now known as Syria. For a Hebrew speaker, understanding Aramaic is like a modern English speaker understanding Middle English - it’s possible, but it’ll give you a headache. Incidentally, another language similar to Hebrew was Phoenician, the language of Tyre, Sidon, Carthage and pre-roman Iberia, among other places. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384/22 "2002-06-17T20:06:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Iteki(actually) \* > **From the little I have seen of Manx I am not entirely sure I would have been able to understand, but that could also be to do with the typically crap level of my Irish.** It’s probably just because Manx orthography is completely different to Irish and Scottish Gaelic orthographies, as it was invented by an English speaker who more or less wrote down the words the way it seemed to _him_ they should be spelled. If your spoken Irish is any good you’d probably be able to understand a fair bit of spoken Manx. ---
**Author:** ![Lodrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@Lodrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lodrain)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384/23 "2002-06-17T20:39:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by toadspittle \* > \*\* > > The Finno-Ugric language family is what you’re looking for, I believe. But what is “Koran” (aside from the Holy book, that is)? I’ve never heard of it. \*\* He speaketh of Korean, said to be distantly related to the Finno-Ugric languages and Japanese by a few researchers. [A cite](http://humanities.byu.edu/classes/ling450ch/reports/japanese.htm). [Another cite](http://www.cic.sfu.ca/tqj/JapaneseStudy/european.html) ---
**Author:** ![Iteki\_actually](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b2d939/32.png) [@Iteki\_actually](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki_actually)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384/24 "2002-06-17T21:48:50Z")
Indeed _she_ does 😉 Plain and simple typo, sorry toadspittle! Ruadh, my spoken Irish is, unfortunatly, crap. Had the same teacher for Latin and Irish in secondary and lost the relative fluency I had had until then. As you can guess from the fact that the teacher taught both Latin and Irish, she taught them \*\* from the perspective of being “dead” languages. \ ---
**Author:** ![Efrem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@Efrem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Efrem)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384/25 "2002-06-17T22:24:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Alessan \* > \*\*Nope, he means _Amharic_, which is spoken in Israel by Ethiopian immigrants. \*\* [nitpick]Yes, it is spoken in Israel, but the hub is in Ethiopia where it is the offical language.[/nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384/26 "2002-06-17T22:58:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lodrain \* > \*\* > > He speaketh of Korean, said to be distantly related to the Finno-Ugric languages and Japanese by a few researchers. Just to clarify: if that is shown to be true, it’ll make them somewhat less closely related than English and Farsi. Most of the thread has been discussing narrow language families (such as Germanic, Celtic, etc.) Finno-Ugric is a language family of similar scope to, say, Indo-European. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384/27 "2002-06-17T23:00:00Z")
Dammit! I meant, of course, _Ural-Altaic_ (which includes Finno-Ugric) is a language family of similar scope, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-hebrew-arabic-mutually-understandable/114384.md?page=1)