Advantages of Vocabulary of European Origin for Learning Modern Hebrew

Latin and Greek are important donor languages to Hebrew, which does not belong to the Indo-European but Semitic language family. The present study conducted a vocabulary survey to examine the advantage of frequently used Modern Hebrew vocabulary of European origin and their English equivalents for learning Modern Hebrew as a foreign language. The Oxford 3000 list was used as the primary reference of high-frequency English words and their Hebrew equivalents. As a result, 186 loanwords of Latin or Greek origin are included in the most frequently used 3,000 Hebrew words and approximately 150 loanwords can be used with a similar pronunciation in English and Italian. Therefore, the present study concluded that knowledge of high-frequency Hebrew vocabulary of Greek or Latin origin could assist speakers of English and Italian in learning Modern Hebrew.