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Index / Languages
   Israel /
Languages
Israel, being a country of many streams of immigration, has a multiplicity of languages. Many of these languages have little practical importance and are only used within groups and families.
Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages, but there are several laws regulating statuses of languages. Hebrew is by far the most used, the language of the nation and the main language of interaction. Still, Arabic is vital language among Arabs, used in all social arenas, from school to the legislature.
All Arabic-speakers are required to learn Hebrew in school. Arabic is taught in Hebrew schools, but as a voluntary subject.
Since 2000, Arabic is more extensively used by the Israeli authorities, and as a general rule all road signs, food labels and messages published from the government must also come in an Arabic version. Knesset called for the establishment of an Arabic language academy in 2007. Sizeable groups of Arabic speakers are Jews, but originating from Arabic countries.
Upon the establishment of the state of Israel, Yiddish was the other unique language to Jews, but with a policy of creating one unified language, Hebrew became the preferred language. Yiddish is still used to some extent in communities originating from Eastern Europe.
English is widely used, but while a common everyday language in the early times of the state of Israel, it has no a role as foreign language. In general Israelis have a good conduct of English.
In addition, Russian and English are languages spoken by many, and are often the preferred language in many contexts.
As for the many other languages, these all in all reflect origins of the many waves of immigrants to Israel through the 20th century. Estimates vary much over the sizes of the groups and there is much conflicting information about what extent that the original languages are used in everyday speech.
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