Hebrew language Christian seminaries. The Torah (the first five books), and most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form specifically in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, around the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as "" (), "the Holy Language", since ancient times. The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French "Ebrau", via Latin from the Greek "Ἑβραῖος" ("Hebraîos") and Aramaic "'ibrāy", all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew "Ibri" (), one of several names
Yemenite Hebrew is written [in the Scriptures]: Ewes ("raḥelim"), two-hundred.' He answered him, 'The language of the Torah is by itself, and the language employed by the Sages is by itself!'" (לשון תורה לעצמה, לשון חכמים לעצמן). This passage from the Talmud is often quoted by grammarians of Yemenite origin to explain certain "discrepancies" found in vocalization of words where a comparable source can be found in the Hebrew Bible, such as the Yemenite tradition in rabbinic literature to say ("maʻbīr"), rather than ("maʻăvīr") – although the latter rendering appears in Scripture , or to say ("zīʻah"), with "ḥīraq", rather than, ("zeʻah"),