Professor Jo Ann Hackett gives an introduction to the linguistic setting of Biblical Hebrew in her textbook, A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew.
Biblical Hebrew (BH) is a member of the Canaanite branch of the Semitic language family, along with Phoenician, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite. It is also closely related to Aramaic, Ugaritic, and even Arabic. The literature of the Hebrew Bible extends from ca. 1100 B.C.E. to ca. 150 B.C.E. In the Bible itself, the word ‘Hebrew’ is not used by Israelites or Judahites to describe their own language. Instead, we have ‘the language of Canaan’ (Isa 19:18) and ‘Judahite’ (e.g. 2 Kgs 18:26 = Isa 36:11). The prologue to the Wisdom of Ben Sira (written in Greek) contains our first extant attestation of ‘Hebrew’ being used of the language: Ben Sira’s grandson claims to have translated his grandfather’s words from the original Hebrew.
