I learned the Hebrew alphabet when I was three years old in kindergarten. By Grade 1, at my Jewish day school, I was taking classes in how to read, write and speak modern Hebrew. What perhaps I didn’t realise at the time was that I was part of something much bigger: the modern revival of an ancient language.

Hebrew, the language of the Bible, was the mother tongue of the Jewish people for centuries. But after our exile from the land of Israel nearly two thousand years ago, Hebrew gradually stopped being used for everyday speech. It became a sacred language that was preserved for prayer, Torah study and religious rituals, while Jews around the world spoke the languages of their host countries. Sometimes these evolved into hybrid dialects, like Ladino (a Judeo-Spanish mix) or Judeo-Arabic.

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters, all of........

© The Sydney Morning Herald