Hebrew Voice Over Agency

Working with translation and production companies

Adding audio visual services to your mix will create many new sales opportunities for your team.

Matinée has over 40 years of experience working alongside translation and production companies. So you can be sure our project managers are fully at home with the technical process of supervising and delivering localised material, in a professional and timely manner. We can add translation, voiceover and subtitling to your company’s offering, which will appear seamless to your clients and yet mesh easily with the processes in your own departments.

If you are a translation company, we will send you some helpful guidelines when providing us with copy or scripts, and we can either work from your translations or handle the whole project for you, including translation. If you are a production company, we will provide translations or subtitles in your preferred format; whether that’s subtitle-ready files (XML or PNG), or burnt in as fully-subtitled videos. Voiceover recordings can be supplied as edited files, or we can remix with the original music and effects and provide a finished video, ready to go.

Working seamlessly with your team, we can take on all or part of the process, according to your needs, and help widen your service offering.

A short history on the Hebrew language

Hebrew, one of the oldest languages in the world, belongs to the Canaanite branch of the Northwest Semitic sub-section of the Afroasiatic family of languages.

It dates back to the 10th century BCE, and was spoken up until the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, after which it became practically extinct as a spoken language. However, it continued to survive as the literary language of Judaism, in prayers and holy texts. The Torah, and most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, is written in Classical Hebrew.

In the late 19th century Eliezer Ben Yehudah led the revival of the spoken language, devoting his life to adapting Hebrew for modern life. Modern Hebrew gradually grew in use, and became the official language of the State of Israel when it was created in 1948.

Which countries have Hebrew as a national language?

Modern Hebrew is one of Israel’s two official languages, along with Arabic.

How many people speak Hebrew as their first language?

It is estimated that over five million people around the world speak Hebrew as their first language, with a further four million speaking it as their second language. Most of these live in Israel.

The United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population in the world, with over 200,000 fluent speakers.

Did you know…

• The word Hebrew is derived from the name Eber, a descendant of Shem (one of the sons of Noah, Genesis 10:21). All Hebrew descendants are called Semites, after Shem. According to Jewish tradition, all of humanity spoke Hebrew until the Tower of Babel was built. Eber refused to help, so he and his family preserved their original language.
• Eliezer Ben Yehuda created thousands of new words as part of his revival of the Hebrew language for modern use. He co-founded the Hebrew Language Committee and wrote the Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew, in 17 volumes.
• The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters – all consonants. This makes it difficult for those unfamiliar with the language to know how to pronounce words from the way they are written. There is a system for indicating vowels (dating back to the 8th century), using small dots and dashes above and below the consonants, but it is not in everyday use.
• English words of Hebrew origin include amen, behemoth, cherub, hallelujah, jubilee, kibbutz, kosher, manna, messiah, rabbi and sabbatical.

The Israeli economy

Israel, which in 2012 ranked 16th out of 187 nations on the UN’s Human Development Index, has a technologically advanced market economy.

It is one of the world’s centres for cut diamonds; other major exports include high-tech products and pharmaceuticals. Imports include crude oil, raw materials, motor vehicles and military equipment.

Israel’s concentration of high-tech industries has earned it the nickname ‘Silicon Wadi’. The country became a member of the OECD in 2010.