midbar

I recently wrote an essay for the journal Tradition entitled "Words of Ailing, Words of Healing" where I discussed the origins of Hebrew words relating to illness and health, in the light of the current pandemic.

One of the words I mentioned was dever דבר - "plague." After discussing the word for pandemic, magefa מגפה, I continued:

A more common Biblical word for plague is dever. This word does not appear to be related to the very common word devar meaning “word, speech.” More surprisingly, it is not cognate with the word hadbara – “extermination.” That word comes from a third Hebrew root, which meant “to follow behind” or “to push forward.” This meaning led to the word midbar – “desert,” which was a place where cattle were pushed forward to graze. In the more intense hifil form of the verb, hidbir, “pushing forward” became “subdue, overwhelm,” and from there came the meaning “to eliminate, exterminate.” (“Yadber sonenu,” we recite in the Prayer for the I.D.F., asking God to “subdue our enemies.”) 

I wrote that midbar מדבר in English is "desert". But another common translation is "wilderness." Which is correct?

Well, in some ways, this is more a question about English semantics than Hebrew. Let's look at what the two English words mean.

Today most people would say that desert is a barren land, likely arid, and probably hot and full of sand. A wilderness, on the other hand, is full of wild vegetation, but not settled by humans.

However, these were not the original meanings of the words. "Desert" was an abandoned place (think of the verb "to desert" = "to abandon".)  Only in the 20th century did desert become associated with aridity. Before that there are many examples of desert being used in places that were clearly not arid (think of "desert island", which was the original phrase, not "deserted island", despite the increase in use of the latter recently.)

Wilderness also meant something similar - an uninhabited or uncultivated place. So while there may have been differences in nuance between desert and wilderness, until relatively recently, they were pretty much synonyms.

So if both words are used to translate midbar, that shouldn't concern us too much. But that said, what was the nature of the biblical word midbar?

The answer is found in what I wrote above, that midbar originally meant "a place where cattle were pushed forward to graze." This meaning is evident in Shemot 3:1 -

וּמֹשֶׁה הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת־צֹאן יִתְרוֹ חֹתְנוֹ כֹּהֵן מִדְיָן וַיִּנְהַג אֶת־הַצֹּאן אַחַר הַמִּדְבָּר וַיָּבֹא אֶל־הַר הָאֱלֹהִים חֹרֵבָה׃
Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, drove the flock into the midbar, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 

If Moses drove his flocks there, the land was not entirely barren (but not settled). As Sarna in the JPS commentary writes, midbar is "a region of uninhabited and unirrigated pastureland." Cassuto, following Onkelos (who interprets it as "choice pasture") , goes so far as to translate the word as "grassland." This may seem strange, but verses like this one show that a midbar did not have to be arid at all:

Fear not, O beasts of the field, for the pastures in the midbar are clothed with grass. The trees have borne their fruit; fig tree and vine have yielded their strength. (Yoel 2:22) 

The Sinai midbar that sustained the Israelites for 40 years also fits the definition - it was uninhabited, but could support the nomadic tribes (with some help from above.) The focus on "uninhabited" is captured in the midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7) which writes:

Anyone who does not make themselves ownerless like the midbar cannot acquire the wisdom and the Torah. Therefore it says, "the midbar of Sinai."

There are however, other words to describe a particularly barren land in biblical Hebrew - arava ערבה and yeshimon ישימון.  Those words are offered as synonyms for a midbar that is particularly desolate, in Devarim 32:10 and Yirmiyahu 50:12.

So a midbar can be a desert - even according to the contemporary meaning. It can also be a wilderness - although a midbar in the Middle East is not likely to look like a wilderness in other parts of the world. As often happens, there is not a perfect translation. Just one more reason to try to read the Bible (or any book) when possible in the original language... 

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stam

One of the most popular words in Israel slang is stam סתם. It means "just kidding." How did it come to mean that?

In Biblical Hebrew, the verb satam סתם means two things: a) to literally stop up or close up (wells) and b) to hide, conceal (to close up in a metaphorical sense).

Today the first meaning still exists. A blocked pipe is satum סתום, and a rude way of telling someone to shut up is stom et hapeh סתום את הפה - literally, "close your mouth." A valve is a shastom שסתום. It is a blend of the similarly words with opposite meanings - satam (to close) and shatam שתם (to open).

The metaphorical sense developed further. Under Aramaic influence, the word stam came to mean "a vague or indefinite expression", "an anonymous opinion" or "in general." Klein writes that these senses developed from "something stopped up", "something closed", "something unknown." In Medieval Hebrew the adjective stami סתמי came to mean "vague, indefinite, uncertain." In Modern Hebrew, stami means "neutral", and has been used in attempts to replace the Yiddish pareve, but without much success.

The Aramaic form of stam, סתמא stama, also meant "anonymous opinion," but also meant the related "without qualification." A form of that word in Talmudic literature is mistama מסתמא - "of a general nature." In Yiddish this became mistome and in Modern Hebrew - min hastam מן הסתם. The more recent sense is "likely, probably, predictably" - since as this book puts it, "what is generally applicable is most probably applicable in a more specific case."

The meaning "without qualification" brings us closest to the current meaning in modern Hebrew slang. Another way to say "without qualification" is "just is, merely." It had that sense in Yiddish, and entered Israeli slang with the same connotation.

So stam could mean "nothing fancy." How was the meal? "Stam, nothing special." Or, "that was no stam vacation, it was amazing."

But it can also mean "for no particular reason." Why aren't you coming to the party? "Stam, I don't feel like it." Or, "I just stam called to say hi." And while that sense of stam sounds rather apathetic, the just kidding version has a very different tone. As Shoshana Kordova wrote here:

Let’s say your Israeli colleague wants to pull your leg. When you get into the office your coworker, ever a kidder, announces that the computer system is down and no one will be able to do any work until the tech people fix it. He watches as you get excited (“Yes! I get to play hooky without having to take a sick day!”) or upset (“Now I’ll have to stay longer to finish the project I need to get done today!”), and then breaks in to let you know it was all a joke. The word he reaches for could well be “stam,” but in this context the “a” sound is usually drawn out, sounding something like “Staaaaaaaaaahm!”

Or a different example here:

-That dress looks terrible on you.
-Really?!?
-Stam! It looks great on you.

Even more samples of its use can be found here.

I think this is an interesting example of a word that meant "closed up" and "concealed" and ended up meaning "probably" and "for no reason at all." And the most fascinating bit of trivia? The English word stem - as in "to stem the tide" - actually derives directly from the Hebrew satam!

Staaaaaaaaaahm...

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tzedek and tzedaka

In modern Hebrew, tzedek צדק and tzedakah צדקה have very different meanings. Tzedek is "justice, which is obligatory and compels all. Tzedaka is "charity", which is praiseworthy, but voluntary. (In Jewish law, giving charity in general is obligatory, but the amount given and the intended recipient is left to the donor's discretion.)

Both words are found in biblical Hebrew. Tzedek is found 119 times in the Bible, and tzedaka appears 157 times. In the Bible, they are essentially synonyms. They both refer to righteousness and justness. Nissan Netzer, in his book on Bereshit (p. 47), points out that there are synonym pairs in Biblical Hebrew where one word ends with the letter heh and the other doesn't. He brings the examples of otzem עוצם and otzma עצמה - which both mean "force, might", and shir שיר and shira שירה - which both mean "song."

This article by the Academy of the Hebrew Language points out that there is a slight difference between the two words in biblical Hebrew. Tzedek more often refers to the concept or value of justice, whereas tzedaka is more frequently found referring to the act (or acts) of performing justice. Evidence to this difference can be found by the fact that tzedek is only found in the singular, but tzedaka can have a plural (tzedakot צדקות).

Hebrew seems to have a hard time hanging on to synonyms. These differences in nuance, through a process known as "semantic shift", led the two words to diverge fully. Starting in Rabbinic Hebrew, they ended up as "justice" and "charity to the poor" (as an expression of justice). (The same phenomenon can be found with shir and shira. Today shir still means song, but shira refers to poetry.)

From the same root we get other Hebrew words. A tzadik  צדיק is a righteous person. And it also provides the verbs tzodek צודק -  "to be correct" and matzdik מצדיק - "to justify." These words seems to have echoes in other Semitic languages, as seen in the etymology Klein provides for the root:

Aram. צְדֵק (= he was righteous), Syr. זָדֵק (= it is right; for the change of צ to ז see the introductory article to letter ז), Ugar. ṣdq (= reliability, virtue), Arab. ṣadaqa (= he spoke the truth), Ethiop. ṣadaqa (= he was just, was righteous)

The connection between "correct" and "justice" can be found in English as well, in the related words "right" (correct) and "righteous."

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nirtzah

The Haggadah opens up with a song, to help the participants remember, via rhyme, the various actions they need to perform throughout the seder. The last section, however, is not an instruction per se - but more of a description of this final stage. This is the Nirtza נרצה section, which is followed by various songs after the seder is completed.

What does nirtza mean? I've seen it translated as "(all is) accepted" or "acceptance." The source appears to be this verse in Kohelet, which in a number of older haggadot opens the Nirtza section:

כִּי כְבָר רָצָה הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת־מַעֲשֶׂיךָ׃...
...  for your action was long ago approved by God. (Kohelet 9:7)

And so Nirtza is a time where after all of the Pesach service is completed, we can enjoy the fact that God approved our actions.

This understanding reflects the fact that in Biblical Hebrew, the verb ratzah רצה meant "to be pleased with, to be favorable to."  That is the most common meaning. There are also verses where it means "to like" or "to appease." Similarly, the derivative noun ratzon רצון means "goodwill, favor."

However, Fox, in his JPS Commentary on Kohelet writes that this is not the best translation for that verse. He says the phrase should be instead translated as "for your action was long ago desired by God." This sense of ratzah is the one commonly used today - "to want." This sense is very common in Rabbinic Hebrew, but is rarely found in Biblical Hebrew. If Fox is correct, this is probably due to Kohelet frequently using Hebrew that reflects later usage. 

Despite ratzah meaning "to want" being one of the first words learned in Hebrew (either by young children or new speakers), strangely neither Ben Yehuda nor Klein mention it in their dictionaries, rather providing only the biblical meanings.

Ratzon also changed meanings. While as we said, in Biblical Hebrew it meant "favor", in later Rabbinic writings it came to mean "will" (this is also likely the meaning in later books of the Bible, such as Esther 9:5)  In the Medieval period, much ink was spilled by rabbis who debated the nature of God's will. The rationalists, like Maimonides, much preferred to speak of God's will than His favor.

Inspired by ratzon meaning "will" (as in persistence), Eliezer Ben Yehuda took the Arabic word razin ("grave, serious") and coined the word retzini - רציני - "serious."

The sense of ratzah meaning "to be pleased" still has footing in Modern Hebrew. The related word merutzeh מרוצה means "satisfied." 

The Hebrew words for "lecture" - הרצאה hartza'ah and "lecturer" - מרצה martzeh also share the root רצה, and are related to the words we discussed above. Klein says that secondary meaning of the root meant originally "to count, enumerate, pay off" and later "to recount, narrate, deliver a lecture." He provides this etymology:

For the sense development of הִרְצָה cp. סָפַר (= he counted), סִפֵּר (= he recounted, told, narrated); Arab. manā, manā(y) (= he counted), mānā(y) (= he paid); Gk. arithmein (= to count; to pay); Eng. to tell, which means both ‘to count’ and ‘to recount’, Eng. re-count and recount; Fren. compter (= to count), and conter (= to tell, recount, narrate), which both derive from L. computāre (= to count), and It. contare, Sp. contar, which are of the same origin, and mean both ‘to count’, and ‘to tell, relate’. JAram. אַרֽצִי (= he counted, enumerated). According to several lexicographers רצה ᴵᴵ properly represents a special sense development of רצה ᴵ and orig. meant ‘to satisfy the creditor’. 

 So now perhaps this can give us another feeling when we arrive at Nirtza. We've counted (so many plagues!) and recounted the story of the Exodus. The "creditor" is indeed satisfied!

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karov, korban and kerev

The Hebrew word karov קרוב means "near." All the verbs that derive from the root of that word - קרב - mean "to come near, approach". In Biblical Hebrew, we find that meaning in the kal (karav), piel (kirev), and hifil (hikriv) forms. The hitpael form - hitkarev התקרב - only appears in Hebrew literature after the biblical period.

 The form hikriv has an additional meaning. Rabbi Amnon Bazak, in his book Nekudat Peticha (p. 219) points out that for the first two books of the Torah, hikriv means "to approach" (e.g. Bereshit 12:11, Shemot 14:10). However, in the beginning of the book of Vayikra, we find a new meaning:

דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם אָדָם כִּי־יַקְרִיב מִכֶּם קָרְבָּן לַיהוָה מִן־הַבְּהֵמָה מִן־הַבָּקָר וּמִן־הַצֹּאן תַּקְרִיבוּ אֶת־קָרְבַּנְכֶם׃

Speak to the Israelite people, and say to them: When any of you presents an offering of cattle to the LORD, he shall choose his offering from the herd or from the flock. (Vayikra 1:2)

Here hikriv means "bring an offering" and we also find the first mention of the nouns korban קרבן - "offering, sacrifice." Bazak points out that there were many sacrifices earlier in the Torah, but they always use other words like mincha מנחה (Bereshit 4:3), olah עולה (Bereshit 8:20) and zevach זבח (Bereshit 46:1). So why did the Torah start using the word korban only now?

He says that this is due to the meaning of the verb hikriv. Since previously it meant "to draw close to", he claims that only in Vayikra, when God established a permanent location in the Sanctuary, could these sacrifices be considered a way to become near to God. Previously, there might have been a spiritual closeness in sacrifices. Now, when one could actually approach the sanctuary, there was a physical dimension that expressed itself in this new word - korban.

In his book Midabrim Besefat Hatanach, Rubik Rosenthal notes (p. 140-141), that in Modern Hebrew, the words hikriv and korban have left that earlier meaning regarding ritual sacrifices, and split into two different meanings. The verb hikriv means sacrifice in the secular sense: to give up something important for a higher purpose (and the noun form of this verb is hakrava הקרבה - "self-sacrifice."). Korban, however, refers to someone harmed or killed by someone else's action - i.e. a victim. So for example, victims of terrorism are korbanot hateror קרבנות הטרור. There were those that opposed such usage, because the religious sense of korban would seem to instill a higher purpose to those who perpetrated the crimes. But as we've seen many times before, language has a path of its own, and that usage stuck.

A word that derives from this root is krav קרב - "battle." Klein says it probably originally meant "hostile approach." In Israel, a combat soldier is called kravi קרבי - "ready for battle."

A different word that at first glance looks like it should be from the same root, but perhaps isn't is kerev קרב - "midst, interior." The Ben-Yehuda dictionary provides three possibilities:

a) That kerev derives from karav. If this is the case, kerev originally meant something like "drawn close, closeness."

b) They could be from entirely different roots. This what Klein suggests:

1 midst, interior. 2 inward part, bowels, intestines. [Related to Moabite בקרב (= in the midst of), Ugar. qrb (of same meaning), Akka. qirbu (= inward part, interior), qirib (= in). These related words show that the orig. meaning of קֶרֶב was ‘midst, interior’, and that the meaning, ‘inward part, bowel, intestines’ is secondary. However, according to several scholars, Heb. קֶרֶב is related to Arab. qalb (= heart); see קבל ᴵ. 

His reference to קבל (to be opposite, which we've discussed before) brings us this entry:

BAram. לָקֳבֵל, JAram. קְבֵל, לִקְבֵל (= in front, before), Syr. מֶן קֽבוֹל (= opposite); whence Aram.–Syr., also BAram. קַבֵּל, Heb. קִבֵּל, ‘he received, accepted’), Arab. qabila (= he received, accepted), OSArab. קבל (= to receive, accept), Ethiop. qabala (= he went to meet, encountered), Akka. qablu (= battle; middle of the body, middle). However, according to some scholars Akka. qablu in the meaning ‘middle’ is related to קֽרָב (= battle). According to other scholars Akka. qablu in the meaning ‘middle’ is related to Arab. qalb (= heart; see קֶרֶב)

So according to Klein's approach, the Arabic word qalb - "heart" - developed into two different meanings. One developed into the Hebrew kibel - "to receive, accept" and the other kerev - "interior, inner part." Neither are related to karov - "near."

c) The third possibility mentioned in Ben Yehuda is that one root split into two meanings. This seems to be the approach of Gesenius, whose entry for kerev mentions the Arabic qalb but says that here the "r" softened into an "l" - i.e. the Arabic meaning came later. This understanding would allow that even qalb is related to karov.

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alachson

A reader asked about the origin of the Hebrew word for diagonal - אלכסון alakhson. It first appears in Rabbinic Hebrew (also as lokhsan לוכסן). Klein provides the following etymology:

PBH diagonal (line). [Borrowed from Greek. Lixon, neuter loxos (= standing crosswise, oblique)]

In his CEDEL, in the entry for "lekane" (a large dish or bowl), Klein says it derives from the Greek lekose (a dish, pot, pan), and that word is probably cognate with the loxos mentioned above, due to the way the sides of a dish or bowl bend inwards.

A Latin cognate of lekose is lanx, and that provides us with two English words that I would not have thought were related.

One is "balance." This is the entry in the Online Etymology Dictionary:

early 13c., "scales, apparatus for weighing by comparison of mass," from Old French balance "balance, scales for weighing" (12c.), also in figurative sense; from Medieval Latin bilancia, from Late Latin bilanx, from Latin (libra) bilanx "(scale) having two pans"

The other is even stranger - it was originally part of the phrase that became the word satire:

late 14c., "work intended to ridicule vice or folly," from Middle French satire (14c.) and directly from Latin satira "satire, poetic medley," earlier satura, in lanx satura "mixed dish, dish filled with various kinds of fruit," literally "full dish"

Interesting, no?

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erusin and eres

I was recently asked if there was any connection between the root of the Hebrew word for engagement (i.e. betrothal) - ארוסין erusin (the root being ארס) and eres ארס - "venom, poison."

Even before I could look at a dictionary, I told him that it wasn't likely, since I remembered that while erusin  with the letter samech is the form in Rabbinic Hebrew (and followed in Modern Hebrew as well), in Biblical Hebrew it is spelled with the letter sin - ארש.

But when I looked at Klein's entries for the two of them, I discovered some information I did not know previously.

Here is what he writes for ארש (having noted in the entry for ארס that these are variant spellings), with the meaning "to betroth":

Among the many attempts to find the origin of this word the most probable is the one which connects it with Akka. ērishu (= bridegroom), irshitu (= betrothal), which, according to Haupt, derive from Akka. erēshu (= to desire) ...  cp. also Arab. ‘arus (= bridegroom).

He then connects this root to the word areshet ארשת. I knew the word areshet well from the prayers on Rosh Hashana, sung after the shofar is blown. But I'm a little embarrassed to say I didn't actually know what it meant. Here's what Klein writes:

expression (a hapax legomenon in the Bible, occurring Psalms. 21:3 in the phrase אֲרֶשֶׁת שְׂפָתָיו, which is usually rendered by ‘the request of his lips’. Most Jewish commentators, however, render אֲרֶשֶׁת שְׂפָתָיו by ‘expression of his lips’. [Prob. related to Akka. erēshu (= to desire), erishtu (= desire, request).] 

While erishtu meaning "desire" is similar to the Greek erasthai meaning "to love, desire", and is the origin of the word "Eros", I have not found any sources that connect the Greek and Akkadian words. I also have not found any sources that connect the root to the Arabic ars, which meant "pimp", and entered Hebrew slang as a derogatory term meaning someone low-class and sleazy.

Stahl, in his Arabic etymological dictionary, in the entry for arus (bridegroom) says that this root might be related to arisut אריסות - "tenant farming, sharecropping" and aris אריס - "land tenant", since the transactional nature of leasing land was similar to the dowry involved in marriage. However, Klein provides a different etymology, connecting it to the Akkadian erēshu (= to till the soil). That makes it cognate with the Hebrew kharash חרש -  meaning "to plow."

And what about eres meaning venom or poison? Here is Klein's interesting entry. He says it was a post-biblical word:

From earlier אִירָס. Of uncertain origin. Perhaps, together with Syr. ‘irsā (of s.m.), a blend of Gk. ios (= poison) and L. vīrus (= poison).

Eres and "virus" are so similar, I'm surprised I never thought of a connection before.

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teiva

Today I was thinking about the word teiva תבה. In the entire Bible, it only appears twice: as the word for Noah's ark and for the baby Moshe's basket.

Here is Klein's entry for teivah:

1 ark, box. 

NH 2 Holy Ark (in the synagogue). 

PBH 3 word. 

[Prob. a loan word from Egypt. tbt (= chest; coffin). Arab. tābūt (= box, case, chest, coffer), is a Heb. loan word.]

I can easily understand how the word progressed from meaning 1 ("box") to meaning 2 ("Holy Ark in the synagogue" - although the word for the Ark that carried the Tablets of the Law in the desert is aron ארון.)  But how did teiva come to mean "word"?

This was surprisingly difficult to research. First of all, the dictionaries that I thought would help me - Ben Yehuda, Jastrow, Klein, Even-Shoshan - all mentioned the various meanings, including "word", but didn't explain the shift in meaning.

Secondly, since the meaning is "word", searching online is really challenging. If I'm looking for a web page or article, I often search for the the term and include the various meanings. That will usually pull up something helpful. But since the meaning is "word" - well, that appears on probably every page. Not really beneficial.

So I had to try a little harder. I did find some discussion of it in the dictionary Aruch Hashalem by Alexander Kohut. He says that some claim that teiva meaning "word" comes from a different source - an Arabic root meaning "to cut." And therefore, teiva means a word "cut and separate" from other letters in the text.

He then compares teiva to a common word for "word" - mila מילה.  This word is familiar from the phrase brit milah ברית מילה - "circumcision." So according to this theory, both teiva and mila come from the sense "to cut."

However, this theory is problematic. From their uses in Rabbinic Hebrew (where teiva first means "word"), mila refers to spoken words, and teiva to written words. This also fits the etymology of mila.  Klein points out that mila meaning circumcision comes from the root מול - "to circumcise", whereas mila meaning "word" comes from מלל - a root meaning "to speak, to say."

So while "cut" could be still be an origin of teiva, the parallel to mila doesn't hold up.

Kohut then provides a second theory, saying that in a teiva, the letters are connected as if they were in a box. This seems like a more reasonable theory - it keeps the various meanings of teiva with the same origin, as all of the dictionaries I checked claimed.

A further expansion on this idea is found in the Hebrew Wiktionary entry for teiva. The entry provides five meanings found in Biblical and Rabbinic sources:

1. boat (Bereshit 7:13, Shemot 2:3)
2. box (Mishna Tahorot 8:2)
3. ark (closet) that holds the Torah scrolls (Mishna Taanit 2:1)
4. a rectangle or square; the rectangle that one word is written in (Talmud Yerushalmi Eruvin 5:1, Talmud Bavli Menachot 30a)
5. a word with a space before and after it (Talmud Bavli 30a)

There is a note there saying that meaning 5 derived from meaning 4. This works well with Kohut's second theory. The only issue is that neither example provided in 4 are particularly convincing. The source from the Jerusalem Talmud says, "How did did the Israelites march in the desert? Like a teiva." This means they formed a square (in contrast with the other opinion, which says they marched in a column, like a beam.) That doesn't really mean that teiva meant "rectangle", but only that a rectangle is like a teiva, because of the shape. 

The second example, from Menachot 30a says that when writing a Torah scroll, the space between one teiva and another teiva must be the size of one small letter. While I suppose it's possible that teiva there could mean the rectangle that contained a word, the simpler meaning is that it just meant the space between one word and the following word. And the Wiktionary entry itself provides a quote from the same page in Menachot where teiva clearly means "word"!

Now, if I could find some evidence that all words were enclosed in rectangles, there would be more support for this theory. I'm not a scribe, so I can't speak from personal experience, and I couldn't find any mention of that in the sources I checked. And the nature of Wiki editing prevents me from contacting the person who wrote this theory. But if any of you out there have any proof, or even suggestions, one way or another - please let me know!

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chafifa

Chafifa חפיפה can mean both "shampooing" and "overlapping" (often used when two people are overlapping at a job, and one needs to train another). Is there a connection between these two Hebrew homonyms?

From every reliable source I've seen, they come from two homographic, but distinct, roots: חפף.

Let's look first at the root that gives us "overlapping." In this case, חפף means "to surround, cover." By extension, it can also mean "to protect" or "to be congruent" (this is the sense that leads to "overlap.") A related root is חפה.

From this root we get a number of familiar words:

• chupah חופה - the wedding canopy (which covers the bride and groom)
• chof חוף - "coast" (which surrounds the land)
• chipui  חיפוי - covering (or suppressive) fire, used in a military context to prevent an enemy from attacking

The other meaning of חפף is "to rub." From there developed the sense of "to cleanse the head by rubbing", i.e. shampooing.  This type of cleanliness is extended to a general sense of being clean, pure - and so it also gives us the word חף chaf - "innocent", often used in the phrase chaf m'pesha חף מפשע - "innocent of crime."

According to some sources, the word yachef יחף - "barefoot" also derives from a cognate of this root. The idea is that removing shoes is like rubbing or peeling them off. 

All of the roots above have Arabic cognates as well. Ruvik Rosenthal points out that there are two more Arabic roots, which have similar spellings, but aren't cognate with the ones we've discussed before. They gave us two Hebrew slang words (and I haven't been able to find any earlier Hebrew cognates).

One is the word chafif חפיף. In Arabic it means "light", "nimble" or "agile." When it entered Hebrew it came to mean "lightweight", "wishy-washy" or "sloppy", and a chafifnik is a "slacker." 

The other word is a verb - התחפף hitchafef. When talking in the past tense it means "took off", and in the imperative, it means "scram" or "get lost." While Rosenthal says it is a fourth, distinct root, this Wiktionary entry says it comes from the same root as chafif - something light as air can easily "disappear", "go away."

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pelishtim and palash

I've discussed previously how I like to listen to language podcasts, particularly those with a focus on etymology. One that I somehow forgot to mention is Words for Granted by Ray Belli. The podcast usually deals with the history of a particular English word, telling its story.

Recently, he dealt with the history of the word "Philistine." Here's his abstract of the episode:

In common usage, a "philistine" is a derogatory term for an anti-intellectual materialist. The word derives from the ancient Middle Eastern Philistines, a people best known as an early geopolitical enemy of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible. The historical Philistines were far from "philistines" (note the lowercase P). The circumstance by which the latter derives from the former can be traced back to a murder in the 17th century German city of Jena. (Yes, actually.)

I recommend giving it a listen. In it, he describes how the Philistines went from being a people living on the southern Mediterranean coast of Canaan, with uncertain, but probably Aegean origin, to the enemy of the Israelites, and eventually disappearing after the Babylonian conquest. The Greek historian Herodotus called the region previously under Philistine control Palaistinē, and then after they conquered the entire area, the Romans called it Palestine. He does his best to avoid the political discussion of the name "Palestine", and then moves on to the interesting story of why "philistine" became a term to describe a person who doesn't appreciate arts and culture.

The one point that I would like to add on to was his brief discussion of the origin of the name Philistine itself. He claimed that derived from whatever name the Philistines called themselves. Since the Philistines likely were of Greek origin (as we discussed here when talking about the origin of the Hebrew words seren and lishka), that name would not have Semitic roots.

However, I always assumed that the name actually came from Hebrew. In Hebrew the people are called Pelishtim פלשתים and the land is known as Peleshet פלשת. These words would appear to come from the root פלש palash - which in Modern Hebrew means "to invade." As the Philistines were considered to be invading sea-peoples (in both Biblical tradition as well as according to recent scholarship), I thought that this was one of those frequent cases where the name of a people was given to them by others (an exonym).

Well, first of all, my understanding of palash wasn't entirely accurate. It did take on the meaning of "invade" in post-Biblical Hebrew. But in the Bible, it meant "to roll (in dust)". That said, Klein connects the two meanings. He says the original meaning of the Biblical usage was "to burrow into", and so is ultimately identical with the other meaning - "to open through, penetrate, invade." And he brings a number of cognates from other Semitic languages where it has that meaning, including Ethiopian, which gave the word falasha for the Ethiopian Jews. (But since that term - whether it meant "wanderer" or "invader" is considered derogatory, the term Beta Israel is preferred.)

And yet, Klein doesn't claim Peleshet comes from palash. I did find some sources that do make that claim, but from what I can see the question remains unanswered (probably due to the lack of written material from the Philistines). Maybe the people called themselves something like Pelishtim or maybe it was an exonym.

However, I do think that an association between the two terms was likely understood even back in the times of the Israelites - even as a folk etymology. And this could help explain something Belli mentioned in the podcast.  He pointed out that in the Septuagint (the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), some occurrences of the word Pelishtim was translated not as "Philistines" but as allophuloi - "foreigners." This translation may very well be from an ancient understanding that Pelishtim derived from palash.

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zechut and zechuchit

Let's take a look at root that has some unexpected derivatives (at least I didn't expect them).

This interesting root is זכה and the secondary form זכך. They both mean "to be clear, clean, pure." One fairly obvious related word is zakh זך - "pure, clean" as in shemen zayit zakh שמן זית זך - "pure olive oil."

A noun that I didn't realize was related is zekhukhit זכוכית - "glass". It only appears once in the Tanach (Iyov 28:17) - and while the glass back then wasn't transparent like it generally is today, it was certainly more clear than other solids.

From the literal "pure" and "clear" in Biblical Hebrew, the root took on more of a metaphorical sense in Rabbinic Hebrew. Just like we say in English that an innocent person has been "cleared" of charges and has a "clean" record, the verb זכה means "to make someone innocent", and that innocent person is zakai זכאי - "innocent."

An innocent, pure person is considered "worthy" and even "deserving" (of goodness). And so another meaning of the verb זכה is "to deserve, to attain." This leads us to the noun zekhut זכות - which according to Klein has 5 different meanings:

1. privilege, benefit
2. legal right, title
3. favor, advantage
4. merit, virtue
5. credit side of an account, asset

In English there is a clear distinction between rights and privileges. In Hebrew there is discussion of the difference between zekhut and chova חובה - "obligation", but I'm not sure how you could contrast rights and privileges without using a foreign word for privilege like פריבילגיה. 

From zekhut comes the word zakaut זכאות - "entitlement." But since zekhut can have different connotations, it doesn't necessarily carry the negative associations that "entitlement" can have in English today. 

There are two other Hebrew roots that are likely related to זכה/זכך. One is זגג - it is the Aramaic equivalent of זכך, and is found in Hebrew as well.  The zag זג is the skin of the grape (Bamidbar 6:4), and Klein says it is probably "allusion to the transparency of the skin of the grape." In Rabbinic Hebrew, a glassmaker is a zagag זגג, and today if you need to get the windows on your car replaced you go to a zagagut זגגות - "glazier(y)."

The other related root, according to Klein, is זקק. This verb means "to purify, to refine." Distilled water is mayim mezukakim מים מזוקקים, and batei zikuk בתי זיקוק are "refineries."  

The other meaning of זקק - "to bind, force, compel" (as in זקוק zakuk - "in need of") is not related to this one, and neither is the root זיק meaning to "to spark, to sparkle" (as in zikukim זקוקים - "fireworks"). But I think we found plenty of words that are related, we are not zakukim for more..

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gizbar and geniza

Let's take a look at two Hebrew words: gizbar גזבר and geniza גניזה. They're actually related, and have a similar story.

Geniza is familiar to many of us a place to dispose of sacred books and papers, so they won't be simply tossed in the trash. The most famous was the Cairo Geniza, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish documents were found, some over 1000 years old. But before geniza had that specific meaning, it meant "storage" or "hiding." It derives from the root גנז, which appears a few times in the later books of the Bible (Esther, Yechezkel and Divrei Hayamim), with the meaning "to hide, conceal, store away."  Klein says it ultimately comes from the Persian words ganz(a) and ganj, meaning "treasure."

Gizbar means "treasurer", and comes from the same root. It also appears in a late Biblical book - Ezra. Klein provides this etymology:

Together with JAram. גִּזְבָּרָא, Syr. גֵּזַבְרָא, גִּיזַבֽרָא (= treasurer), Mand. גאנזיברא (= high priest), borrowed from Pers. ganzabara (= treasurer), from ganj̄ (= treasure)

The bara of ganzbara is cognate with the English word "bear" meaning "to carry", so the gizbar is one who carries (= is responsible for) the treasure (or treasury).

The Persian ganz may have made its way into a couple of English words as well.

There are many theories as to the etymology of the word "gazette", meaning a newspaper. One theory says that it comes from the Latin word gaza, which meant "treasury", so that a gazette is a little treasury of news. The Latin gaza derived from the Greek gaza, which in turn came from the Persian root ganza, all meaning "treasure." A different theory says that the cost of the newspaper was a "gazeta" - a half penny, and the coin was a diminutive of the Latin gaza, so it meant "of small value" (literally "a little treasure"). And as we saw, gaza can be traced back to the Persian ganza.

The cold Spanish soup "gazpacho" might also have the same origin. One suggested etymology is:

From Spanish gazpacho, perhaps via Mozarabic *gazpelağo from Latin gazophylacium (“treasure-chest in a church”), alluding to the diversity of its contents.

That's quite a treasure of etymologies!

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BOOK REVIEW: Hebrew Roots, Jewish Routes

As you might imagine, I have quite a few books about Hebrew.

Dozens of dictionaries, books that discuss the history of Hebrew, books about etymology and linguistics, and more. I've often thought - if I wanted to make a book based on Balashon, what would it look like?

Well, thankfully, I don't have to ponder that question any more. I recently received the book Hebrew Roots, Jewish Routes by Dr. Jeremy Benstein. This book does the two things that any book on Hebrew that I'd want to write would need to do: discuss the significance of Hebrew (both throughout history and in today's society), and present many stories of Hebrew roots and words.

Dr. Benstein, like me, is a immigrant from the United States, who was (according to the acknowledgements in the book), like me, influenced by Edward Horowitz's How the Hebrew Language Grew. Unlike me, he has BA in linguistics from Harvard, as well as advanced degrees in Judaic studies and cultural anthropology. (He's also the managing editor of 929 English, a very important project where a chapter of the Bible is studied daily, and I'm thrilled to have recently begun contributing). His expertise in these fields really shows, as he seamlessly navigates between Biblical texts, Jewish life throughout the millennia, and the heart and soul of Modern Israeli culture (amongst all the various populations and sub-cultures.)

He has chapters that talk about such topics as "Hebrew and Other Languages", "Ben Yehuda's Crusade for Spoken Hebrew", "God: Name, Names and 'The Name'", and "Hebrew Time: Sacred and Otherwise." Throughout these chapters, are interspersed what he calls "Wordshops" - a deep dive into a Hebrew root, from the beginning of its usage until today, with examples of the various verbs, nouns and other words that derive from that root. He explains how the development and meanings of those roots and words reflect the concepts and trends that have followed Hebrew and the Jews over the ages.

The book was a real pleasure to read. It somehow managed to enthrall a Hebrew word-nerd like me, and yet I could recommend it to anyone, even those with little or no background in Hebrew. And it was often laugh-out-loud funny, which is not what I usually get from my books about the history of Hebrew.

So if you like Balashon, get this book - you'll really enjoy it. And to Jeremy - thanks for all the hard work that must have gone into a project like this, and I sincerely thank you for writing it. Now I don't need to wonder and worry what my book on Hebrew will be. It really is a relief! (However, my books on Kohelet, and why Avraham was chosen, still need my attention...)

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gir

Let's take a look at gir גיר - the Hebrew word for "chalk."

While today that is the primary meaning, it had other meanings in the past. It appears only once in the Bible, in Yeshaya 27:9:

כְּאַבְנֵי־גִר מְנֻפָּצוֹת

The New JPS translates it as "like shattered blocks of chalk," but other translations have "lime" or "limestone."

The Aramaic equivalent, gira גירא, appears in Daniel 5:5, where it is translated as "plaster." And the Arabic cognate, jir, means "gypsum" or "quicklime". All of these words - chalk, lime, gypsum - are calcium based minerals (and plaster is made from them), and so it is understandable how one word (in different languages) could come to refer to all of them.

This is the direction Klein follows in his etymology:

Related to BAram. גִּירָא (= plaster), JAram. גִּירָא (= lime), Syr. גִּירָא (= birdlime), OSArab. גירא (= lime), Tigre gerger (= chalkstone). All these words are ultimately borrowed from Akka. kīru (= chalkstone), which itself is a loan word from Sumerian gir (of s.m.). Arab. jayyār, jīr (= lime), are Aram. loan words.

The Akkadian and Sumerian words also refer to the kilns and ovens used to make lime. From Akkadian the word entered Hebrew again, this time in the form of kor כור - "furnace." For that word Klein writes:

כּוּר m.n. melting pot, furnace (for melting metals). [Related to Aram.-Syr. כּוּרָא, Arab. kūr, Ethiop. kawer, Akka. kūru, kīru (= furnace), and to כִּירַיִם.]

Most people don't use a furnace in their daily lives, but kirayim כיריים - "stove, stove-top" is found in every home.

And one more kitchen feature might have also have the same origin. While Klein provides a different etymology, Elon Gilad in this article says that kiyor כיור - "sink," might have originated as the basin that collected the hot metal from the furnace.

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nebech and navoch

A reader asked if there was any connection between the Yiddish word nebech, meaning "an unfortunate person" (also used as an interjection expressing pity - "oy, nebech") and the similar sounding Hebrew word נבוך navoch, meaning "confused, bewildered, perplexed."

Bottom line - no. But let's look at the etymology of each.

The Yiddish nebech (which later morphed into the English "nebbish"), derives from the Czech word nebohý meaning "unhappy." That word can be broken down into two parts. The first part, ne, is ultimately cognate with the English words "no" and "not."

The second part comes from an earlier Slavic root *bogu, meaning "fortunate." It is said to go back to an Indo-European root, *bhag, meaning "to share out, apportion." The development seems to be that someone who "received a share" is fortunate and happy (but not the nebech). It has some interesting cognates in English, like the words baksheesh (a bribe, also used in Hebrew) and pagoda.

So while some Yiddish words have Hebrew origins, this isn't one of them.

Now let's discuss navoch. It is a biblical word (for example Pharaoh said the Israelites were confused - nevuchim נבוכים - at the sea in Shemot 14:3). And the Hebrew title of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed is Moreh Nevuchim מורה נבוכים.

Navoch's initial letter of nun isn't radical, and so Klein says it derives from the root בוך - meaning to be confused or perplexed. The hifil form of that root is מביך, and so a matzav mevich מצב מביך is an embarrassing situation.

Klein adds that roots that may be related to בוך are אבך (to rise or roll up, like with smoke or dust) and הפך - "to turn, turn over."

So as we've seen these are two unrelated roots. If you look online, you'll see that some people do insist that nebech does derive from navoch. I think one reason for that confusion is how nebech is spelled in Modern Hebrew. In Yiddish it was spelled נעבעך which doesn't look too similar to navoch. But when the word entered Hebrew slang, it was streamlined to נבך which does look a lot like navoch.  I can see how such an unfortunate word can lead to confusion...

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nagar

A reader asked about two words: nagar נגר and rahit רהיט. He points out an interesting similarity between the two. Both appear to derive from roots which have some some association with carpentry and with flowing. Is there some common justification for this, or is it just a coincidence?

We've already discussed rahit here - and the investigation was inconclusive. But what about nagar?

According to Klein, nagar meaning "carpenter" derives from the Akkadian naggaru, and Sokoloff goes even further back to the Sumerian nagar - all of the same meaning. It first appears in Rabbinic Hebrew.

However, the verb נגר - "to pour, flow, run" has a different origin. It appears in the Bible, and according to Klein, it is related to the root גרר - "to drag, tow, draw." Unlike nagar the carpenter, in this root the letter nun isn't radical. In Hebrew it was added on, and in other Semitic languages, it doesn't appear, like in Akkadian gararu and Arabic jarra (which would make it possibly related to the word Madrid, as we discussed recently.)

One related word is megerah מגרה - "drawer", which is "drawn out." A homonym of megerah meaning "drawer" is the older, biblical, megerah - which means "saw", the tool used for cutting, dragging the blade across the wood.

The fact that this tool was likely used by a carpenter must have caused some people to assume a connection between the two roots. As I said above, the Akkadian and Sumerian derivation of nagar - carpenter is very well established. And yet a theory connecting megerah and nagar pops up in a surprising number of recent sources, including the Even-Shoshan dictionary (in the entry for נַגָּר), Wikimilon, and even Klein himself, despite having provided the Akkadian etymology. I guess sometimes it's hard to root out outdated etymologies.

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Britain

In a recent post, I discussed Semitic connections to places in Spain. Let's take a look now at another European country - Britain.

First of all, I'd like to dismiss any idea that Britain could come from "Brit-Ish." A great job of debunking this theory was done by Philologos in 2005:

Rabbi Samuel Silver of Boca Raton, Fla., has a short question: “Is ‘British’ related to brit?” 

I take it that this question is tongue in cheek. The claim that “British” comes from the Hebrew words brit (or “covenant,” familiar to many of you in its Ashkenazic form of bris, a circumcision) and ish (“man”) so that it means “man of the covenant” has been around for a long time — 200 years, in fact. It goes back to the beginnings of the British Israelites, a movement founded in England in the early 19th century to promulgate the idea that the British people hailed from the 10 (actually nine) Lost Tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel that disappeared from history after being carried off into exile by the Assyrians in the eighth century C.E. 

The British Israel movement was founded by an Englishman named Richard Brothers, who in 1800 published a book titled “Correct Account of the Invasion of England by the Saxons, Showing the English Nation To Be Descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes.”At its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the movement had tens of thousands of followers. Among the many “proofs” offered by it, such as the claim that the Stone of Scone in Westminster Abbey was the very stone that served Jacob as a pillow on the night he dreamed his ladder of angels while fleeing from his brother, Esau, were a large number of supposed linguistic resemblances between English and biblical Hebrew. The British/brit ish equation was one of the foremost of these. 

Of course, any beginning Hebrew student could tell you that “man of the covenant” in Hebrew is ish brit and not brit ish, but the British Israelites were never a group to be deterred by even the simplest facts... 

Feel free to read the rest of his column for more explanation of why people insist on seeing patterns where the aren't any. This something I've discussed many times in Balashon, and perhaps even more in person. People frequently come up to me, knowing my interest in Hebrew etymology, and ask me if this Hebrew word is related to that English word. I certainly understand their curiosity, and even their emotional interest in finding such a bond, but in the end, we need to deal with evidence.

With all that in mind, I found a different theory about the etymology of Britain and a possible Semitic connection. I'll say from the outset that I'm skeptical of this one, but I'm not quite as ready to dismiss it out of hand.

Apparently it's been around for quite a while. Here's a summary from a geology website:

The Phoenicians, a now vanished pre-Roman civilisation in North Africa, traded directly with Cornwall. The name “Britain” comes from the Phoenician name “Baratanac”, meaning “Land of Tin”. The Greek historian Herodotus, who is the source for much of the little we know about the ancient world, describes how tin comes from the Cassiterides, ‘lands of tin’ that sat beyond Gaul (France).

The fact that tin mining took place in Britain in ancient times is not under dispute. And it's not preposterous to claim that the Phoenicians sailed to Britain. The only question is whether that particular etymology is reasonable and has any evidence.

 Let's look at the etymology itself. It took me some time, but I believe I have managed to dissect baratanac into two Semitic words that could give us Land of Tin.

First is barat. I think that this theory likely connects it to a cognate of the Hebrew word bar בר, which I've discussed here. Klein provides this entry, which makes it a reasonable candidate:

open field (a hapax legomenon in the Bible, occurring Job 39:4). [cp. BAram. בָּרָא, JAram. בָּרָא, בַּר (= open field), Syr. בָּרָא (= open field), Aram.–Syr. בּוּר (= to lie uncultivated), Arab. barr (= open country, inland, continent), Akka. barru, bāru (= open country).] 

And what about anac? This has a cognate in the Hebrew anakh אנך, found in Amos 7:7-8. While many translate it there as "lead" (or the synonymous "plumb"), there's good evidence that "tin" is a better translation. For example, there already is a Hebrew word for lead - oferet עופרת. And in the Akkadian cognate annaku, it clearly means "tin."

So it looks nice. Does it hold water? Most people say no (including a comment accepted by that geology website above). The most common etymology says it comes from a word meaning "tattooed people." Here's the Online Etymology Dictionary for Briton:

c. 1200, "a Celtic native of the British Isles," from Anglo-French Bretun, from Latin Brittonem (nominative Britto, misspelled Brito in MSS) "a member of the tribe of the Britons," from *Britt-os, the Celtic name of the Celtic inhabitants of Britain and southern Scotland before the 5c. Anglo-Saxon invasion drove them into Wales, Cornwall, and a few other corners. In 4c. B.C.E. Greek they are recorded as Prittanoi, which is said to mean "tattooed people." 

In response, those who claim a Phoenician connection point out that tattoos weren't unique to Britain at that time. And they provide other sources of evidence against other counter-claims. Read here and here for more extensive discussion.

Where am I at the end of all of this? Unconvinced. Maybe that's a sign of my lack of knowledge - I admit that I haven't researched this as extensively as a confident conclusion would demand. But I think it's also due to a feeling that many on both sides have an interest in a particular outcome. There are those that wanted to prove a connection between Britain and the biblical lands for religious reasons. Others rejected any possibility of such a connection (even if the etymology itself didn't hold up) for their own reasons, not all of which are purely academic.

But actually, being unconvinced is fine. It means that people will continue to study this question (and others), and through that effort come up with unforeseen discoveries. As a lover of language, I couldn't ask for anything more.

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tzion

I'd like to discuss the etymology of Tziyon ציון (Zion in English). But before I get to that, I have to answer a more basic question. What is Tzion?

In the Bible, the name first refers to the fortress of Jerusalem, conquered by King David, as in this verse:

וַיִּלְכֹּד דָּוִד אֵת מְצֻדַת צִיּוֹן הִיא עִיר דָּוִד׃
But David captured the stronghold of Tzion; it is now the City of David. (Shmuel II 5:7)

It has that limited sense in three other verses. However, in the other 150 occurrences in the Bible, it refers to either all of Jerusalem or the entire Land of Israel.

Its meaning was always more poetic or symbolic than a specific place name. I think, perhaps, it could be considered more of a concept than a location.  I particularly identify with Ruvik Rosenthal's description in his (Hebrew) book, Old Language, New Language: The Biblical Foundations of Modern Hebrew, where he writes (page 283) that Tzion "is a dream that desires to become reality." This is the sense found in the famous verses in Tehilim that describe the songs of Tzion (137:3) and the future return to Tzion (126:1).

The longing for this idealized Tzion was captured beautifully in Hebrew poetry of the Middle Ages, particularly by Ibn Gabriol and Yehuda HaLevi, in their poems known as Zionides (tzionim ציונים).

Their desire for Tzion likely inspired the groups in 19th century Europe, such as Hovevei Tzion (lovers of Tzion) who promoted immigration to the Land of Israel. Later they coalesced into a political movement, known as Zionism (tzionut ציונות). That term was coined by Nathan Birnbaum in 1890. And of course, the Zionist movement eventually led to the founding of the State of Israel.

Considering the centrality of Tzion in Jewish thought and prayer, it is surprising that the etymology is so unclear. Klein offers the following:

Of uncertain etymology. Some scholars derive it from צוה in the sense ‘to erect’ (cp. צִיּוּן). Others connect it with base צין, appearing in Arab. ṣāna (= he protected), so that צִיּוֹן would lit. mean ‘fortress, citadel’. Scholars, with reference to Syr. צֶהְיוּן (= Heb. צִיּוֹן), derive these words from base צהה or ציה; according to them the orig. meaning of צִיוֹן would be ‘bare hill’. Other scholars regard Syr. צֶהְיוּן as the older form.

His first theory connects tzion with the Hebrew word tziyun ציון - "monument, landmark." Tziyun has a verb form - צין - "to make a note, make a mark", from which we get the word metzuyan מצוין - "distinguished, excellent" (the positive connotation here apparently inherited from Yiddish and German.) Klein's connection of this root to צוה - "to command, to order", would make Tzion cognate with mitzva מצוה - "commandment."

I'm not aware of any other Hebrew cognates to the Arabic ṣāna**, but his third theory, that tzion ultimately derives from the roots ציה or צהה meaning "dry, drought," has two possible outcomes. One is that, as he said, that the original meaning was "bare hill" - and Jerusalem is on the border of the Judean desert, so that name could be fitting. Another possibility (mentioned here) is that tzion was named for the wild cats that were present there - the tziyim ציים, whose name Klein writes elsewhere also derives from ציה meaning "desert, dry." While we don't find wild, desert cats in Jerusalem today, it certainly has plenty of stray cats - so that origin is perhaps still relevant.

It does seem somewhat mundane to end a discussion of such a lofty concept as Tzion by describing wild cats. But this has always been the reality of Jerusalem and Tzion - trying to find a connection between the corporeal and the spiritual...

** Thanks so much to reader Yair Ron, for writing on the Facebook page:

"I'm not aware of any other Hebrew cognates to the Arabic ṣāna" - of course there is: צנה is a large shield, a body armor or a defensive wall, and Klein thinks it may be related to the same Arabic root.

Here's Klein's entry:

a large shield (covering the whole body). 2 a protective wall. NH 3 barrel shield of a revolver. [Derived from base צנן, which prob. means ‘to preserve, keep’, and possibly related to Arab. ṣāna (= he preserved, kept).] 

So that's one more possible origin.

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sepharad revisited

I've discussed a number of times that I listen to a bunch of podcasts that deal with language, linguistics and etymology. But I don't believe that I've mentioned that there are also YouTube channels that focus on those same topics.

Perhaps my favorite one is Name Explain by Patrick Foote. His charming British accent, subtle sense of humor and genuine curiosity about the etymology of words makes each video a pleasure to watch. 

Recently, I watched his video on "The Names of Iberia Explained":

Even though I've written about some of the words he discussed before, he caused me to think about them from a new perspective, and suggested some new ones that I had not heard previously.

I wrote about Sefarad ספרד - the Hebrew name for Spain - back in 2006, when I just started Balashon. It's an interesting place to write about in regards to Hebrew etymology, because it was settled at one point by the Phoenicians, and then centuries later by the Arabs, both of whom spoke languages cognate to Hebrew, and those cognates are reflected in many place names.

In that post, I wrote:

According to a theory in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Phoenicians gave the name to Gibraltar's neighbor Spain (Hispania) as well. One theory claims that the name derives from tsepan - rabbit or hyrax (in Hebrew shafan שפן) and so another name could be "The Land of Rabbits".

I should have been more careful, and pointed out, as Rabbi Natan Slifkin famously does here, that in ancient Hebrew the shafan is only a hyrax, not a rabbit. (In fact, according to Slifkin in his book, The Camel, the Hare and the Hyrax, there were no rabbits in biblical Israel. The word commonly used today for rabbit - arnav ארנב, which in the Bible only appears in the female, arnevet ארנבת - refers to a hare, which is distinct from a rabbit.)

Name Explain was aware of this distinction, and therefore said of the origin of Hispania:

this name apparently comes from the Phoenicians who, when they came to the land noticed the rabbits that were living there. The rabbits reminded the Phoenicians of the hyraxes they have in their homeland and also the Phoenicians would have to sail there, so without knowing any better they thought the rabbit filled land was an island. So they went with the name Hispania, which means Isle of Hyraxes despite the fact it wasn't an island and it wasn't full of hyraxes.

And so in addition to properly explaining how a land of rabbits was named for hyraxes, he also implied that the "Hi" in Hispania is cognate with the Hebrew  אי - "island."

In my original post, I discussed the etymology of Gibraltar:

the name comes from the Arabic Jebel el Tarik "the Mountain of Tarik." Jebel derives from the Semitic root גבל - the same as the Hebrew word גבול gvul - meaning border.

In a later post, I expanded on the word gvul, and showed how it was likely the origin of the name of the town Byblos, which eventually gave us the word "bible."

In his video, Name Explain presented a theory that I hadn't heard before, that the word gibberish derives from Gibraltar. He quotes from this site in the show notes, which writes:

Others believe it comes from the island of Gibraltar, where residents speak an interesting mix of English, Spanish, Hebrew, Hindi and Arabic. Nonresidents often believe the natives are simply speaking… well… gibberish!

At first glance, that seemed a bit far-fetched, and the alternate explanation, that it came from the word "jabber", seemed more likely. But this detailed study indicates that the Gibraltar explanation might very well be valid.

One word I did not address in my post was the town of Ibiza. Name Explain quoted a source that said it comes from the Arabic yabisa meaning "dry land", which is cognate with the Hebrew yabasha יבשה of the same meaning, which in turn comes from the root yavesh יבש - "dry."

He also discusses the origin of the capital, Madrid. Its etymology is unclear, but he does provide one theory which gives it an Arabic origin:

Others say the Moors named the city in the 8th century. Apparently, the River Manzanares was called ‘al-Magrit’, which means water source in Arabic. The surrounding area was then called Mayrit, which comes from the Arabic term Mayra (meaning water or giver of life), which later changed to Magerit, which means ‘place of water’ in Arabic. The name then evolved to Matrit and then eventually, Madrid. This may be the most likely theory, as the name Matrit is still found as a Spanish gentilic.

That theory is further discussed in this forum, where one poster says that it may derive from an Arabic word meaning "water, stream", which comes from the root jara, meaning "to flow" (as well as "to run.")

Klein writes that the Hebrew word ger גר - "foreigner, stranger" has the Arabic cognate jara - "he went astray from." Seems to me that could be the same jara as "to run" or "to flow". So if all that is true, then the name Madrid has a Hebrew cognate as well.

So from one lover of etymology to another, thanks Patrick!

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egel and igul

Is there any connection between the Hebrew words egel עגל - "calf (a young cow or other large mammal)" and igul עיגול - "circle"?

According to this article, by linguist Uzzi Ornan, the connection can be found via cognates in other Semitic languages. In Arabic, the word ajila means "he hurried, hastened" (no connection to the English word agile) and Aramaic has agala עגלא - "speed", found in the adjective ba'agala בעגלא - "quickly, speedily" which appears in the Kaddish prayer.

Ornan claims that this original meaning gave us the word egel - since calves are speedy animals (from my experience working in the dairy farm of the kibbutz I once lived on, I have to agree).

In Hebrew an agala עגלה is a "carriage, wagon", which travels quickly, and it does so because it has round wheels. The word for round in Hebrew is agol עגול, and is related to two words in Hebrew that until my research for this post, I frequently confused - ma'agal מעגל and igul עגול. They both refer to "circle", but ma'agal is the circumference of the circle, and igul is the area of the entire circle. I suppose a way for me to remember this in the future is that ma'agal also means "circuit", which is a circular route (like the circumference of the circle), while igul has a similar form to ribua ריבוע - an (entire) square. Another related word is agil עגיל - "earring."

In Aramaic, the root עגל expanded to the related root ערגל meaning "to roll." Despite my best efforts, I was not able to determine if this root is the ultimate origin of my once favorite Israeli cookie - the Argaliot ערגליות (I never figured out whether the singular was argalit ערגלית or argalia ערגליה - but in any case, I never could eat just one.) I did discover that Osem, who manufactures them now, bought the Argal ערגל bakery in 1982, who originally made them.

But where did that bakery get their name from? Was it from baking "rolls"? From "rolling" the dough? That question still needs an answer.

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