use strict;
my $str = 'so היי all whats up אתכם אתכם test היי?';
my $regex = qr/((?:\s*\w+)+|(?:\s*[\u0590-\u05FF]+)+?(?=\s?[A-Za-z0-9!?.]))/ip;
my $subst = '<span>$1</span>';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html