Hebrew originated as a Canaanite language but was largely replaced by Aramaic by 200 AD. Efforts in the mid-19th century revived Hebrew as an everyday language, led by Eliezer Ben Yehuda. Today, Hebrew is spoken by around 7 million people, mainly in Israel where it is an official language along with Arabic. The Hebrew alphabet first emerged in the late 2nd and 1st millennia BC and is closely related to Phoenician.