Encyclopedic Hebrew is the register you meet the moment you look anything up, and it is not simply formal speech written down. It has a signature construction — the pronominal copula — that exists nowhere else in the language in quite this form, and a tense profile so lopsided that counting the verbs in a single paragraph tells you most of what you need to know.
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The paragraph
תל אביב היא עיר במישור החוף של ישראל, השנייה בגודלה במדינה.
tel avív hi ir bemishór hakhóf shel yisra'él, hashniyá begodlá bamediná
Tel Aviv is a city on Israel's coastal plain, the second largest in the country.
העיר נוסדה בשנת 1909 כשכונה עברית צפונית ליפו, ונקראה בתחילה אחוזת בית.
ha'ír nosdá bishnát élef tsha me'ót vetésha kishkhuná ivrít tsfonít leyafó, venikre'á batkhilá akhuzát báyit
The city was founded in 1909 as a Hebrew-speaking neighbourhood north of Jaffa, and was initially called Ahuzat Bayit.
המגרשים חולקו בהגרלה בין 66 המשפחות המייסדות.
hamigrashím khulkú behagralá bein shishím veshésh hamishpakhót hameyasdót
The plots were divided by lottery among the sixty-six founding families.
בשנת 1910 הוחלף שמה לתל אביב, שמו של תרגומו העברי של נחום סוקולוב לספרו של הרצל.
bishnát élef tsha me'ót va'éser hukhláf shma letél avív, shmo shel targumó ha'ivrí shel nakhúm sokolóv lesifró shel hértsel
In 1910 its name was changed to Tel Aviv, the title of Nahum Sokolow's Hebrew translation of Herzl's Altneuland.
השם עצמו מקראי: בספר יחזקאל הוא שמו של מקום על נהר כבר.
hashém atsmó mikra'í: beséfer yekhezkél hu shmo shel makóm al nehár kvar
The name itself is biblical: in the book of Ezekiel it is the name of a place on the river Chebar.
בתקופת המנדט הבריטי גדלה העיר במהירות, ובשנת 1950 אוחדה עם יפו.
bitkufát hamandát habrití gadlá ha'ír bimhirút, uvishnát élef tsha me'ót vakhamishím ukhadá im yafó
During the British Mandate period the city grew rapidly, and in 1950 it was merged with Jaffa.
כיום היא נחשבת למרכז הכלכלי והתרבותי של המדינה, וידועה בעיקר בשל אדריכלותה.
kayóm hi nekhshévet lamerkáz hakalkalí vehatarbutí shel hamediná, vidu'á be'ikár beshél adrikhalutá
Today it is regarded as the country's economic and cultural centre, and is known above all for its architecture.
אזור הבנייה בסגנון הבין־לאומי שבמרכזה מכונה העיר הלבנה.
ezór habniyá basignón habein-le'umí shebemerkazá mekhuné ha'ír halevaná
The area of International Style building at its centre is known as the White City.
הוא and היא are not a verb
Hebrew has no present-tense copula — that is one of the first things you learn, and it stays true: הבית גדול is a complete sentence and inserting a is into it is an error. So the very first sentence of an encyclopedia paragraph looks like a contradiction, because there sits היא, right where English puts is.
It is not a verb. It is the ordinary third-person pronoun, doing a job Hebrew grammar calls the אוגד (ogéd, "linker"), and three things prove it.
It agrees with the subject, not with the predicate. Put a feminine singular subject in front of a masculine plural predicate and watch which one the pronoun follows.
הסיבה העיקרית היא המחירים הגבוהים באזור.
hasibá ha'ikarít hi hamekhirím hagvohím ba'ezór
The main reason is the high prices in the area. (הסיבה is feminine singular, so the linker is היא — even though המחירים is masculine plural)
It has no past or future. Move the sentence into the past and the pronoun does not inflect; it is replaced by היה, which really is the verb to be. That swap is the cleanest evidence that the two are different words doing different work.
It is obligatory exactly when it is needed to keep the sentence a sentence. With a definite predicate, two definite noun phrases side by side read as apposition — a phrase, not a statement. The linker is what turns the phrase back into a sentence.
יפו היא החלק העתיק של העיר.
yafó hi hakhélek ha'atík shel ha'ír
Jaffa is the old part of the city. (without היא, יפו החלק העתיק של העיר is a noun phrase: 'Jaffa, the old part of the city')
With an indefinite predicate the danger disappears — תל אביב עיר גדולה is already a sentence — so there the linker is optional. The register keeps it anyway, and that is precisely what makes the first sentence sound like a definition rather than a remark. Speech, meanwhile, tends to replace the whole system with an invariable זה:
תל אביב זה מקום יקר בטירוף, אי אפשר לשכור שם כלום.
tel avív ze makóm yakár betirúf, i efshár liskór sham klum
Tel Aviv is an insanely expensive place — you can't rent anything there. (everyday spoken: זה regardless of the subject's gender)
What tense is an encyclopedia written in?
It is tempting to say encyclopedic Hebrew has no present tense. Counted against the paragraph above, that is too strong — but what is actually there is more interesting.
Eight sentences. Six finite verbs, and every one of them is past: נוסדה, נקראה, חולקו, הוחלף, גדלה, אוחדה. Two sentences contain no verb at all — the first, held together by היא, and the fifth, which is an adjective (מקראי) followed by a second linker. And not one finite present-tense verb appears anywhere. Every present form in the paragraph is a participle: נחשבת, ידועה, מכונה carry the three predicates, and all three are passive or stative.
There is a fourth participle, and it proves the rule rather than breaking it. המייסדות in sentence three is active — pi'el, "founding" — but it is not doing a verb's job at all; it sits on המשפחות as an attributive adjective, inside the noun phrase. The register's one active present form is not a predicate.
That is the register in one line: past tense for events, participles for description, and nothing else. An active present verb as the main predicate (כולל, משתרע, מונה) would not be wrong, but the moment you notice how rarely it shows up you can hear why the style sounds the way it does. Nobody is doing anything in an encyclopedia; things were done, and now they are known as something.
The participles that do the describing are worth learning as a set, because they come with fixed prepositions:
| Form | Reads | Binyan | Means |
|---|---|---|---|
| נוסד · נוסדה | nosád · nosdá | nif'al | was founded |
| מכונה | mekhuné | pu'al | is called, is known as |
| נחשב ל־ | nekhsháv le- | nif'al | is regarded as — ל־ is obligatory |
| ידוע ב־ | yadúa be- | pa'ul participle | is known for |
| ממוקם | memukám | pu'al | is located |
Clauses folded into phrases
בתקופת המנדט הבריטי is four words with no verb in them, and it means during the period in which the British Mandate was in force. הקמת העיר, חלוקת המגרשים, שינוי השם — each is a verbal noun heading a construct chain, each has swallowed a clause.
הקמת המוזיאון ארכה שנים רבות ועלתה הון.
hakamát hamuze'ón arkhá shaním rabót ve'altá hon
The building of the museum took many years and cost a fortune. (written — the clause 'they built the museum' has become a two-word subject)
לקח המון זמן להקים את המוזיאון הזה.
lakákh hamón zman lehakím et hamuze'ón hazé
It took ages to build this museum. (everyday — an infinitive, and the museum back as an object with את)
The register's other written marker is אשר in place of ש־ on a relative clause: העיר אשר נוסדה בשנת 1909 beside העיר שנוסדה. As on a letter from a government office, it is never obligatory and it travels with the rest of the formal package. Its inventory is on אשר, and nominalisation as a system on nominalisation.
The orthography of a reference text
Four conventions turn up in almost every encyclopedic paragraph, and three of them use the same character.
| Written | Read | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| המאה ה־19 | hame'á hatsha esré | century: article, maqaf, numeral. מאה is feminine, so the numeral is the feminine תשע עשרה, never תשעה עשר |
| כ־2,000 | ke'alpáyim | approximation: כ־ "about", with a maqaf |
| בין־לאומי | bein-le'umí | bound prefix, joined by a maqaf |
| 2,000 · 66 | — | thousands separated by a comma, as in English |
The character in the first three rows is the maqaf, U+05BE (־), not the Latin hyphen U+002D. It rides high on the line rather than at mid-height, and — the part that actually bites — it is a strong right-to-left character while the Latin hyphen is direction-neutral, so beside a numeral the wrong one can jump to the other side of the word. The full account is on the maqaf.
העיר נוסדה בראשית המאה ה־20 והתרחבה במהירות.
ha'ír nosdá bereshít hame'á ha'esrím vehitrakhavá bimhirút
The city was founded at the beginning of the 20th century and expanded rapidly.
בטקס ההשקה השתתפו כ־2,000 איש.
betékes hahashaká hishtatfú ke'alpáyim ish
Around 2,000 people took part in the launch ceremony. (note איש stays singular after a large numeral — the same frozen pattern as תוך 30 יום)
Common Mistakes
1. Leaving the linker out of a definition. English is has no Hebrew equivalent in the present, so the natural move is to write nothing — and with a definite predicate that turns the sentence into a noun phrase.
❌ יפו החלק העתיק של העיר
Incorrect as a sentence — two definite noun phrases side by side are apposition: 'Jaffa, the old part of the city'. A definition needs the linker: יפו היא החלק העתיק של העיר.
הכינרת היא מקור המים המתוקים הגדול בישראל.
hakinéret hi mekór hamáyim hametukím hagadól beyisra'él
Lake Kinneret is Israel's largest source of fresh water. (definite predicate, so היא is obligatory)
2. Using the linker pronoun for a past-tense definition. It has no tenses, and the sentence needs the verb היה instead.
❌ בשנת 1909 היא שכונה קטנה
Incorrect as 'in 1909 it was a small neighbourhood' — the linker pronoun cannot carry tense. The past takes the verb: בשנת 1909 היא הייתה שכונה קטנה, or simply בשנת 1909 הייתה זו שכונה קטנה.
בתחילת הדרך הייתה זו שכונה קטנה של כמה עשרות בתים.
bitkhilát hadérekh haytá zo shkhuná ktaná shel káma asrót batím
In the beginning it was a small neighbourhood of a few dozen houses.
3. Using the free form of the noun where the register wants the construct. בשנה is "in a year"; the dating formula is בשנת.
❌ בשנה 1909 נוסדה השכונה
Incorrect — the dating formula is the construct form: בשנת 1909 נוסדה השכונה. בשנה on its own means 'in a year' and cannot take a date after it.
בשנת 1950 אוחדו שתי הרשויות לעירייה אחת.
bishnát élef tsha me'ót vakhamishím ukhadú shtei harashuyót le'iriyá akhát
In 1950 the two authorities were merged into a single municipality.
4. Typing a Latin hyphen where the century formula wants a maqaf. The two look nearly identical on screen and behave differently in a right-to-left line.
❌ המאה ה-19
Wrong character — that is the Latin hyphen U+002D. The Hebrew joiner is the maqaf U+05BE: המאה ה־19.
הבניין הוקם בסוף המאה ה־19 ושופץ לאחרונה.
habinyán hukám besóf hame'á hatsha esré veshupáts la'akhroná
The building was put up at the end of the 19th century and was recently renovated.
Key Takeaways
- הוא / היא in a definition is a pronoun, not a verb. It agrees with the subject, it has no past or future, and moving the sentence into the past replaces it with היה, which is the real verb.
- It is obligatory when the predicate is definite, because two definite noun phrases side by side read as apposition. With an indefinite predicate it is optional, and the register keeps it anyway. Speech substitutes an invariable זה.
- Counted on the paragraph above: eight sentences, six finite verbs, all past; two sentences with no verb at all; and no finite present-tense verb anywhere. The three present-tense predicates are all passive or stative participles; the one active participle, המייסדות, is attributive rather than a predicate.
- The description runs on a small set of participles with fixed prepositions — נוסד, מכונה, נחשב ל־, ידוע ב־, ממוקם.
- Verbal noun plus construct chain replaces whole clauses: הקמת העיר, תקופת המנדט, חלוקת המגרשים.
- אשר is available as the written twin of ש־ and is never obligatory.
- Centuries (המאה ה־19), approximations (כ־2,000) and bound prefixes (בין־לאומי) all take the maqaf U+05BE, not the Latin hyphen. Thousands take a comma. And בשנת, not בשנה, introduces a date.
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