Israel is a very distinctive country, which in the course of a long history has acquired its own characteristic culture, cuisine and traditions. This characteristic also applies to the situation with the state language in Israel.
Israel is a country in which representatives of a large number of different nationalities live. As a result, the linguistic situation in the country is also characterized by great diversity.
State languages of Israel
Only the state status in Israel has two languages at once - Hebrew and Arabic. The main one is Hebrew: it is spoken by almost 5 million people, while the total population of Israel is about 8 million. It is one of the most ancient world languages, the history of which, according to experts, is about 3 thousand years old. The word "Hebrew" in translation from this language means "Hebrew", since the noun "language" in this dialect has a feminine gender.
The second official language of Israel is Arabic. Despite the fact that these two languages formally have equal status in the legislation of the state, in practice the procedure for their application differs significantly. For example, street and road signs in large cities of the country are usually duplicated in Arabic, but in some cases, a special court decision was required to write on them in this language.
Other languages of Israel
Due to the large number of people belonging to other ethnic groups, other languages have also become widespread in Israel. Moreover, to designate their status in the state, a special term was introduced - "officially recognized languages", which, although it does not make them equal to the state, nevertheless reflects the high assessment of their importance by the Israeli government.
These languages include three dialects - Russian, English and Amharic. At the same time, English has become widespread due to its status as an international means of communication: a significant part of tourists who come to Israel speak exactly English. And the Russian language turned out to be among the most widespread due to the impressive number of Russian immigrants of Jewish origin who moved to the country, but continue to actively use their native language.
The Amharic language, which is the official dialect of the peoples of Ethiopia, spread in Israel largely due to its belonging to the group of Semitic languages. Today, some radio programs are broadcast in Amharic in Israel, and documents written in Amharic are accepted by the judiciary. In addition to these languages, in the cities of Israel you can hear French, Spanish, Romanian, Polish or Hungarian dialects, and about 6% of the population speak Yiddish.
