Hebrew is a member of the Afroasiatic language family. It is primarily spoken in Israel. According to the eLinguistics.net analysis using specific software modules to assess linguistic relationships, the five languages most similar to Hebrew are Arabic, Tigrigna, Amharic, Tamasheq, and Kabylian. Interestingly enough, four of the five of these languages are primarily spoken in Africa.
- Arabic (73.9)
Arabic is by far the most similar language to Hebrew. They have significant overlap in basic vocabulary and terms. Furthermore, Both languages exhibit similar grammatical structures, including root-based morphology. Words are often formed by applying patterns to a set of root consonants. - Tigrigna (52.2)
Tigrigna is a South Semitic language spoken by around 9 million people in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. There is some overlap in vocabulary due to common Semitic roots, though less extensive than the similarity between Hebrew and Arabic. In addition, both languages use root-based systems for word formation. - Amharic (40.4)
Amharic is another South Semitic language, spoken by about 32 million people in Ethiopia. It is the official language of Ethiopia. Amharic shares several cognates with Hebrew due to their common Semitic heritage. Both languages have complex verb conjugation systems that change based on person, number, and gender. - Tamasheq (31.8)
Tamasheq, a variety of the Tuareg languages, belongs to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family and is spoken by the Tuareg people across several countries in the Sahara. There is less overlap in vocabulary compared to Arabic and Hebrew, but some basic words share common roots. - Kabylian (24.3)
Kabylian is a Berber language primarily spoken in Algeria. It also belongs to the Afroasiatic family. There are some lexical similarities due to their shared roots. Throughout history, there has been cultural and linguistic exchange in the Mediterranean region.
(to be considered for the list, the language must be spoken by at least one million people)