sechus

This time I got a question about a word that I wasn't really that familiar with. A reader asked about the etymology of the word sechus סחוס - "cartilage", and correctly pointed out that this is not a biblical word (and was curious what the biblical word was).

Klein, in his entry for sechus, writes:

This word arose through a misreading of חסחוס as הסחוס, whose ה was mistaken for the article and was consequently dropped. For a similar misreading see דות.

Before we get to chas'chus חסחוס, let's look at the misreading he mentions. In this case, the word chas'chus was read as has'chus, meaning "the sechus". The second example he gives, dut דות - "pit, cistern", was a misreading of the word chadut חדות as hadut הדות. A slightly different example that Klein doesn't mention, but might be more familiar to us, is the misreading of the word for sunrise, הנץ hanetz (a verb meaning he - the sun - shone) as "the netz", and therefore saying things like a "netz minyan" (with 690 hits on Google, compared to 20 for "hanetz minyan").

Now to chas'chus itself. Klein doesn't really give an etymology, but just says that it has related words in Aramaic, Syriac and Akkadian (hasisu), and that it should be compared to chasa חסה - the Hebrew word for lettuce, deriving from the Aramaic חסא - for which he says the etymology is unknown. He gives no clue as to why words for cartilage and lettuce would be connected, but Jastrow says that chas'chus might derive from the root חוס meaning "protection", and as I mentioned in the comments on this post, the leaves of the lettuce surround the core in a somewhat protective way. So maybe, but otherwise your guess is as good as mine.

This book points out that other Akkadian words for body parts have a similar feature of reduplication, and some of the examples he gives have Hebrew cognates. So the Akkadian word for skull, gulgullatu, is cognate to the Hebrew gulgolet גלגולת, and the Akkadian word for "head", qadqadu, matches the Hebrew kodkod קודקוד.

However, Klein's is not the only theory for etymology of chas'chus. Holma's Physiological Words in Assyrian-Babylonian writes that the Akkadian and Syrian words (kaskasu, kuskasa) for cartilage could derive from kasasu, "to gnaw," which would make it related to the Hebrew root כסס, also meaning "to grind, chew, gnaw." If so, it would be related to the word couscous as well, which has the following origin:

from French couscous (16c.), ultimately from Arabic kuskus, from kaskasa "to pound, he pounded."

Now to the writer's question as to the Biblical word for cartilage, I wasn't able to find one. However, the Aramaic translations to the Torah, and the Talmud identify chas'chus with the Biblical tenuch תנוך. That word, as part of the phrase תנוך אוזן - tenuch ozen - means "earlobe", and while the earlobe itself does not contain cartilage, other parts of the outer ear do. As discussed here, "the has'hus refers to all parts of the ear that are thicker than ordinary skin". So this is probably as close to a biblical word as we're going to get...

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hagun and hogen

I'm continuing to go over the email questions I received in my absence, and today I'll answer a question about the word hagun הגון. Before I get to the etymology, I'd like to compare hagun with the very simliar word hogen הוגן.

They both can mean "worthy", "proper" or "suitable". However there is a difference between them. Hagun has more of a connotation of "appropriate", whereas hogen is more synonymous with "just" or "fair". (In fact, Israelis will often say the more slangy ze lo fair זה לא פייר , but when they want to be formal, they'll substitute ze lo hogen זה לא הוגן - "that's not fair".)  Hagun is usually used for a person who acts appropriately (although it can also be used for other things), but hogen is never used for people, only more abstract things like situations, salaries or verdicts.

Klein points out that both words derive from the root הגן - hogen is the active form and hagun is the passive form, although in the original Talmudic usage there wasn't a difference in meaning between them. Both meant worthy, and we can see that they were interchangeable from such examples as this one from Avot DeRabbi Natan 23:4 - שהיא הוגנת לו, הוא הגון לה  - "she is suitable [hogenet] for him, and he is suitable [hagun] for her".

As far as the root of הגן, Klein provides the following etymology (which clearly has somewhat of a sordid past):

Related to Arab. hajuna (= was white), hijan (=white race), hajin (=descendant of a father of noble birth and a woman slave; the best of its kind; excellent), hajinah (=dromedary), JAram הוגנא (= young camel). Krauss and several other scholars dervie הגן from Gk. eugenes (=well born)

And the Online Etymology Dictionary explains the origin of eugenes:

"well-born, of good stock, of noble race," from eu- "good"  + genos "birth" 

One misconception I found online was that the words hogen and hagun are related to the word for logic, higayon הגיון. That word has gone through some major jumps in its history. In biblical Hebrew, it referred to music, song or other vocal expression (often prayer). It could also mean musing or meditation. In Talmudic Hebrew it came to mean reading, and only in Medieval Hebrew did the meaning of "logic" arrive. The root of higayon is הגה, and Klein says the original meaning was "to hum, murmur, ponder", and that the verb was used to describe the cooing of a pigeon or the growling of a lion. He writes that the origin was probably imitative -i.e. that was the sound those animals made. Later, in post-biblical Hebrew the verb also began to referring to pronouncing, spelling and editing words.

In this fascinating Hebrew article, Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun bemoans the transformation of higayon from song to logic (he says the same phenomenon applied to the root שכל). He puts the onus for this change on the Rambam, saying in doing so he made our focus on God much more sterile, intellectual and philosophical, and abandoned the traditional emphasis on faith and prayer. I'll leave it up to you if that is a hagun or a hogen conclusion...

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hatchkunim

Reader Leslie asked me about the origin of the Hebrew term for acne - hatchkunim חצ'קונים. Both Even Shoshan and Rosenthal say that it likely comes from the word cheshek חשק - meaning "desire" or "passion" - since acne is associated with adolescence, the "age of passion". (In fact some people claim to have heard acne called חשקונים, which is closer to the original spelling).

In addition to "desire", the root חשק also refers to binding, joining or attaching together. For example, a chishuk חישוק is the Hebrew word for "hoop", whose primary purpose was to bind the parts of a barrel together.

Klein says both meanings come from the same root, with the verb meaning "was attached to, loved, desired." Even Shoshan and others seem to indicate that the two meanings come from separate sources. The entry for heshek here, points out that

unlike dabaq (דבק), hasaq (חשק) always has a positive sense, never a hostile sense like "stick to in pursuit".

I think that positive association doesn't apply to acne...

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nachat and nachas

When I wrote about korat ruach קורת רוח, I sort of assumed that the synonymous phrase nachat ruach נחת רוח (literally "resting/quietness of the spirit", but also meaning satisfaction or pleasure, was of a similar construct. So I thought that the first word of the phrase - nachat - was detached from the construct phrase. But I was mistaken - the word appears on its own a few times in the Bible (Kohelet 4:6, 6:5, 9:17; Yeshaya 30:15; Mishlei 29:9). There are of course plenty of other nouns ending in the letter tav that aren't part of a construct phrase - tzalachat צלחת - "plate" and mitpachat מטפחת - "kerchief", to name two. And Klein points out that nachat comes from the root נוח - "to rest", just as shachat שחת "pit, grave" - comes from the root שוח - "to bow down, bend".

As you might imagine, the Yiddish word nachas (or naches) is closely related to the Hebrew nachat. In Yiddish it has taken on a slightly more specific meaning - often referring to the joy parents get from seeing their children's accomplishments. (As a kid in Jewish day schools, my friends and I would often have fun looking at the school yearbooks, and reading the dedications that parents wrote. We would substitute the word nachas with "nachos", leading to ridiculous phrases such as "You are a great source of nachos for your family...")

In this 2005 column, Philologos makes an interesting connection between the early use of the phrase in Kohelet 4:6 and the Yiddish expression "shep nachas". He writes (I've added the Hebrew text in brackets):

Where does the expression shepn nakhes actually come from? As often turns out to be the case with Yiddish expressions, the answer probably lies in the Bible. Yiddish nakhes comes from Hebrew nahat [נחת], “tranquility” or “contentment,” words with only a few biblical occurrences. One of these is in the verse in Ecclesiastes, Tov m’lo khaf nah.at mim’lo h.ofnayim amal u’re’ut ru’ah. [טוֹב מְלֹא כַף נָחַת מִמְּלֹא חָפְנַיִם עָמָל וּרְעוּת רוּחַ], “Better a handful of tranquility [nah.at] than two hands full of toil and vexation” — or, to paraphrase it in contemporary English, “Better to relax and enjoy life than always to strive and be frustrated.”
The image of a “handful” and “two hands full” on which this verse is based suggests the act of reaching into something — a sack of wheat, a pot of food, a bucket of water or whatever — and scooping up, or trying to scoop up, its contents. It’s wiser, the Bible tells us, to scoop up less and get pleasure from it than to scoop up more and have to struggle to keep it.

The Yiddish shepn, means, and is cognate with, the English "scoop" (note the very similar Dutch scheppen).

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korat ruach and kor ruach

Reader Gershon asked me about the meaning and origin of the phrase korat ruach קורת רוח. I thought this would be one of those easy and shorter posts I told myself I'd start writing when I renewed Balashon. But it turned out there was much more to the phrase than I thought.

The meaning of korat ruach is fairly simple - satisfaction, tranquility, or even bliss. But there's another very similar phrase - kor ruach קור רוח, meaning levelheadedness, and is associated with an unflappable person, who acts with composure in difficult circumstances. Kor means cold and ruach means spirit - so how did essentially identical phrases end up with different meanings?

Let's look at kor ruach first. This origin of this phrase is easier to understand. Someone who doesn't get heated up - a nonchalant person - will be more likely to maintain their composition. While Even Shoshan only provides modern examples of the term (and no origin), the phrase actually appears in Mishlei 17:27

חוֹשֵׂךְ אֲמָרָיו יוֹדֵעַ דָּעַת    וקר- (יְקַר-) רוּחַ אִישׁ תְּבוּנָה

The JPS translation is: "A knowledgeable man is sparing with his words; A man of understanding is reticent." Koren translates the second half as "a man of understanding is slow to anger." The difference between the two is whether they translate according to the kri (יקר - yakar) or ktiv (קר - kar). Yakar - literally "precious" - is something sparingly used, so "reticent" is appropriate. The ktiv, kar, means "cold", so "cold of spirit" fits "slow to anger". Ben Yehuda, in his entry for kar, mentions the phrase kar ruach, points out that although the phrase originates in this verse, the kri is probably the preferable reading - as it also fits better with the first half of the verse.

Korat ruach is a different story. We find it first in Avot 4:17 (or 4:22 in other editions) in the expression - יפה שעה אחת של קורת רוח בעולם הבא, מכל חיי העולם הזה - "Better one hour of bliss (korat ruach) in the World to Come than the whole life of this world." Rega Shel Ivrit says that it might be influenced in form from the biblical phrase morat ruach מורת רוח - meaning bitterness (of spirit), as found in Bereshit 26:35. There is a phrase similar to korat ruach found in the Yerushalmi (Berachot 7:4) - קרת נפשנו - korat nafshenu (from korat nefesh קורת נפש).

How did these phrases come to mean pleasure or satisfaction? Ben Yehuda in his entry for קרה discusses korat ruach, mentions that there are parallel phrases in Syriac and Arabic, and sends us to his entry for the hitpael form of the root קרר. In that section, we find a number of phrases describing someone who was נתקרר דעתו nitkarer daato - meaning that the heat of their anger had passed, and therefore they were happy again.

So kor ruach describes a person whose passion is cool, and korat ruach describes a state where the anger has cooled. I think we see here a linguistic phenomenon which has its roots in geography. In the Middle East (where Hebrew originated), heat is associated with anger and uncontrolled passion, whereas cold is a more positive state of calm. On the other hand, in the European language of English, cold has the negative connotations of distant and unemotional, but "warm" expresses affection and enthusiasm. I think it's not unlikely that each language gave a positive association with the more rare temperature in their climate, and found the more frequent one to be annoying and negative.

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tachlit and tachlis

Today one of Israel's politicians began his election campaign using the word tachlis תכל'ס. Let's take a look at the history and meaning of the word.

Tachlis (or tachles) תכלס is the Yiddish form of the Hebrew tachlit תכלית. Tachlit comes from the root כלה - "cease" - and in the Bible meant "end" or "limit" (Iyov 26:10, 28:3, Nechemiah 3:21), "completeness" (Tehilim 139:22), and "purpose" (Iyov 11:7). The last meaning became the primary meaning in post-biblical Hebrew, with the additional connotations of "aim" and "intention". However, we do see the meaning of end used in poetry, such as the prayer Adon Olam, where God is described as being בלי תכלית bli tachlit. Clearly that doesn't mean that God is without purpose, but rather He is without an end or a limit. (That phrase is the punchline to one of my favorite Jewish jokes. Q: Who are the three cowboys in Adon Olam? A: Billy Reishit, Billy Tachlit and Kid Ruchee...)

Yiddish took the word tachlit and ended up with a different pronunciation than used in Sephardic and later modern Hebrew. The accent moved from the second to first syllable, and the dagesh-less tav was pronounced as "s" instead of "t". In Yiddish, the word might have still been spelled the same as in Hebrew, but in Modern Hebrew slang it took on its own identity by having a samech replace the final tav.

The meaning also changed. From the sense of "purpose" or "aim" in Hebrew, the Yiddish form tachlis started to mean "the main point" - and then took on the meaning "practical details", "bottom line", or "brass tacks". It even can have a more general sense of "true" or "actually". So you might say in a business meeting, "Let's talk tachlis", or if after trying to figure out what restaurant to go to, you might confess that, "Tachlis, I'm not that hungry." More recently, I've heard it used on it's own, as an expression of agreement (similar to the English "true that" or "right on!").  If one person said at a party, "It's pretty boring here" another might respond, "Tachlis".

While the word is slang in modern Hebrew (and there isn't even full agreement as to whether there's an apostrophe before the samech or not), it is rather ubiquitous in spoken Hebrew. The word tachlit is still used (something multipurpose is רב-תכליתי rav-tachliti), but many Israelis - particularly those who've never heard Hebrew spoken with the Ashkenazic pronunciation  - are actually surprised to hear that tachlis derives from tachlit. Other slang words that have gone through the Hebrew -> Yiddish -> Hebrew conversion, like chevra חבר'ה - "group of friends" and maiseh מ'עישה "story" - would be easier for Israelis to trace back, because the spelling has been more closely maintained.

Did I get to the tachlit of this post? Tachlis, I guess I did.

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mazal tov and besha'a tova

We recently discussed the concept of fate and destiny in our post about bashert - let's take a look at few other phrases that also relate to that topic.

I don’t want to get in to philosophy, but there are debates in Judaism about what controls our future. There are many factors: our decisions and actions, external elements (the stars, environment, heredity), random chance, and God – either due to His will or in response to our deeds.

Mazal מזל originally referred to stars and their positions - i.e. astrology. The Zodiac constellations are called mazalot מזלות in Melachim II 23:5 (we discussed how mazal is possibly related to mezuza מזוזה here.) There are debates in the Talmud (see Shabbat 156a and Moed Katan 28a) and with later theologians and philosophers about the influence of the stars. Even the Rambam, who opposed astrology, believed that the stars influenced our world greatly – he just didn't think they controlled people.

Within these debates you find a mix of reference to and reliance on Jewish sources, concerns about idol worship and the influence of other religions, the philosophy and science of the times, as well as folklore and superstition that may have been supported by the masses even if some rabbis opposed. We can’t aim to say what the Jewish position on mazal is – it’s certainly beyond the scope of this blog, but it’s not honestly possible in general.

Mazal progressed from the original meaning of constellations, to a more general sense of an appropriate time (the stars were “in position” at certain days and times), and occasionally to external factors in general - fortune or luck. (See the Tiferet Yisrael commentary to Mishna Kiddushin 4:10 for a further discussion of this expansion of meaning).

Therefore, mazal tov מזל טוב originally had the literal meaning of a “good star/constellation” or what we might better understand as an “auspicious omen”. (The phrase itself first appears in Rashi's commentary on Bereshit 30:11, as well as in a number of locations in his commentary on the Talmud.) A modern equivalent would be to say that someone was “born under a good sign”.

It progressed from there to a wish – your event (birth, marriage, etc) should be at this good time. This phrase was often written on ketubot, wedding rings and other ritual objects. Regarding ketubot, Joseph Gutmann writes in The Jewish Life Cycle:

Sefardim preferred to place the words siman tov (good omen) top of the text, while Ashkenazim used mazzal tov (good constellation).

At this point it was equivalent to its literal translation in English – “good luck”. We also find a fuller version of this wish סימן טוב ומזל טוב יהא לנו ולכל ישראל אמן - siman tov u'mazal tov yihe lanu u'lkol yisrael amen - "siman tov and mazal tov should be for us and all of Israel, amen" - in the Kiddush Levana prayer (although in the earlier source, Masechet Sofrim, there is no mention of mazal tov). Since the prayer is about the moon, perhaps some of the astrological significance of mazal tov is implied.

During the Middle Ages, we see that in many cases there was still a strong astrological association with saying (or writing mazal tov). Sefer Hasidim writes (see this interesting article by Yaakov Etzion about mazal in general) that when a woman is about to give birth, we should pray that the child be born b'mazal tov (at the auspicious time). And there are sources that say that Jews would marry under the sign of Jupiter, the star also known as "mazal tob". But as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, there were competing ideas in Judaism - those that deferred or rejected astrology and following the Talmudic claim - אין מזל לישראל ein mazal l'yisrael - "the Jews are not subject to the stars", claimed that our prayers or meritorious actions would determine our fate. So perhaps they were the ones wishing mazal tov after a birth or a wedding, regardless of the position of the stars at the time of the event, as a prayer that the true fate was yet to be determined, and it should be good. 

And because it became associated with happy events like marriages and britot, it eventually transformed into a general phrase of congratulations. So you could say to someone mazal tov on something that had occurred entirely in the past. If someone won a contest – you could say to them “mazal tov”, even though there was no wish for the future. On the other hand, to say to someone who is about to take a difficult test or have a job interview “mazal tov” would be considered strange (even though you would say to them “good luck” in English.) Regarding the difference between the senses of "good luck" and "congratulations", Leo Rosten in The New Joys of Yiddish writes that "the distinction is as important is it is subtle." Both the Hebrew and English Wikipedia entries for "mazel tov / מזל טוב" claim that the phrase as "congratulations" originated in Yiddish and from there entered both English (with an early first use in 1862) and Modern Hebrew.

In the Sephardic tradition, siman tov was said for boys and mazal tov was said for girls. The Ben Ish Chai writes in his book Malach HaBrit, page 41, (and a disclaimer – I don’t identify with these sentiments), that the main hope after a girl’s birth is for her wedding, so the wish for mazal tov (said) at her wedding is mentioned then, whereas the boy's birth was already viewed as a good omen (siman tov).

So as people came to believe in astrology less and less, the meaning of mazal tov retained less and less of its original meaning (and the word mazal itself has transformed from the heavy "fate" to a more abstract, or even random, "luck"). Today even those who fully oppose astrology on religious grounds will have no qualms about saying mazal tov to someone on a happy occasion.

Since mazal tov was said at weddings (usually after the breaking of the glass), today it’s not uncommon that if someone breaks a glass or dish, people will say “mazel tov” – which works well for breaking the tension. And for some reason, Israelis are more likely to wish (at least on Facebook) mazal tov for someone's birthday than the Hebrew translation of "happy birthday" - יום הולדת שמח yom huledet sameach. We don't usually wish someone "congratulations" on a birthday, but perhaps the general association with happy occasions is retained here.

After mazal tov made the transformation from wish to congratulations, a linguistic vacuum was created. That gap was eventually filled by the phrase “be’shaa tova” בשעה טובה, which really has the same meaning as mazal tov (literally "at a good hour"), and is used for something up and coming (like a pregnancy or engagement), but doesn't have the “evil eye” aspect of congratulating on something that’s already happened (which isn't an issue after a birth or marriage). It sometimes appear in a longer form - בשעה טובה ומוצלחת - be'shaa tova u'mutzlachat. While the phrase be'shaa tova does appear in Medieval sources, the earliest uses I could find in the sense we've been discussing - an upcoming event - appear in the 20th century.

This site mentions parallel phrases in Yiddish and Ladino, and says the ultimate origin is the French phrase a la bonne heure - "a good hour".While this is a literal translation, it doesn't carry any astrological connotations or even relating to "fate" in general. It's more of a general wish that something occur at an appropriate or opportune time. Many languages have variants on this phrase - English has "at the right time" and Hebrew has בעתו be'ito. I'm not convinced that this is the origin of besha'a tova, although since it is often used today specifically about pregnancies, the wish that the birth be at an opportune time does make sense.

So to sum up - for an event that's already occurred, like a birth or a marriage, say mazal tov. If it hasn't happened yet - like to a pregnant woman - then b'shaa tovah. But one piece of advice - if you're not 100% sure - then even be'shaa tova can be a mistake...

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bashert

Today I was asked about the word beshert (often spelled bashert). Let's take a look.

This Yiddish word entered the Oxford English Dictionary as both an adjective - "predestined, ideal", and as a noun - "soulmate". The sense of soulmate shows the association with a marriage partner - a "match made in heaven", but in Yiddish the sense was more general and referred to "fate" or "destiny" in a wider sense. An interesting explanation of the more recent prominence of the term (and concept of soulmate as a whole) can be found in this article:

The term beshert found deeper resonance after the 18th century, when romantic love and compatibility began to replace marriages arranged on the basis of money and social standing.  

So if the parents or matchmakers weren't setting up the marriage - then perhaps it became more clear that God was.

What is the origin of the word? There are two primary theories. One says it comes from the German bescheren - "to give, to bestow - usually as a gift" (which has the third-person singular simple present beschert, past tense bescherte, past participle beschert). This root is cognate with the English word "share".

The other theory is that it derives from the German bescheren - "cut, clip", cognate with the English "shear" (which ultimately has the same common ancestor as "share"), and related to upsherin - the Hasidic practice of cutting a boys hair at three years of age. (The claim that it is related to the Hebrew באשר ba-asher - "in that" is a folk etymology.)

Those who accept the first etymology explain that the destiny described is allotted (given) by the providence of God. Some add that

 "Beschert" is often used to mean Christmas and New Year presents, which according to folklore are divine gifts, hence the connection to beshert.

On the other hand, in Fields of Offerings: Studies in Honor of Raphael Patai, Robert Gordis thinks that the origin from the sense of "shear" is more likely. He quotes Isaiah 38:12 and Job 7:6 as using the theme of "the thread of life", and from Greek mythology through Milton and Shakespeare we find examples of fate cutting that thread. Gordis writes, "that it is within this conceptual framework that the etymology of bashert is to be sought."

He brings both theories and then writes:

In favor of relating the Yiddish bashert to "shear, cut off," rather than to "share," are several considerations.
(1) The meaning "share" does not occur in Yiddish, while the verb sheren, "cut, clip," does.
(2) The Modern German root bescheren is used in a favorable sense, "give as a share or present." On the other hand, the Yiddish bashert generally carries a negative connotation, "predestined to trouble, disaster or sorrow."
(3) The theme of "determine, decide," as these very words indicate ("determine," make an end, de-cido, Latin "cut off") is generally expressed by the idea of cutting off. Hebrew offers a wealth of examples in every period of the language. For biblical Hebrew, we may note haratz, gazar, hatakh. The two latter roots continued to be used in rabbinic Hebrew. Most common of all is the root pasaq, "cut," from which is derived the basic term p'saq, "decision," frequent in rabbinic Hebrew and Yiddish (p'saq din).
(4) The ubiquity of the figure of the shears of fate supports the view that the Yiddish locution means "determined, predestined, foreordained."

But if the idea of bashert as a bad thing is confusing, he adds the following clever, if cynical, footnote:

The negative connotation is not absolute. The substantive basherte is used of one's (predestined) bride. I hesitate to suggest that this use carries an ironic nuance.

I have a feeling that the romantics will probably prefer the alternate etymology.

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fanfare and parpar

I would never have guessed that the word "fanfare" might have Semitic origins, but the Online Etymology Dictionary has this entry:

c.1600, "a flourish sounded on a trumpet or bugle," from French fanfare "a sounding of trumpets" (16c.), from fanfarer "blow a fanfare" (16c.), perhaps echoic, or perhaps borrowed (with Spanish fanfarron "braggart," and Italian fanfano "babbler") from Arabic farfar "chatterer," of imitative origin.

Now while the source might be from Arabic, if farfar is only of "imitative origin" (i.e. that's what chatter sounds like), there's not much more of a story to tell. But as with much of what we discuss here, there's more than one opinion.

Prof. Reuben Ahroni, in his book The Jews of the British Crown Colony of Aden: History, Culture, and Ethnic Relations, includes a glossary of Arabic words and writes the following regarding farfar:

farfar, mifarfar, to crush into small pieces (probably derived from Heb. porer, to crumble, shatter, smash)

And then with a footnote, includes this addition:

Ar. farfara "to flutter (of a bird)"

So now we have a Hebrew connection. Klein provides three related roots for פרר:

• to crush, crumble, break into crumbs
• to break, violate, annul, frustrate (this is the source of הפרה hafara - "violation")
• to shake, shatter

And he also mentions two forms of the pilpel form of the root, פרפר

• to break, crumble, crush
• to shake, shatter

And from this sense, Klein derives the modern Hebrew word for butterfly - parpar פרפר (flutter is related to shake). Klein doesn't say who coined parpar, but other linguists point to Eliezer Ben Yehuda. For example, this article by Shoshana Kordova:

This is another one of the slew of words the Ben-Yehuda family coined in the early 20th century.
At the time, Hebrew writers used the word "tziporet" (from the word for bird) or "tziporet kramim" (tzi-po-RET kra-MIM, meaning vineyard bird) [ציפורת כרמים] for butterfly. Tziporet appears in the Mishna, but there it means generic "flying insect" -- most likely the original reference was to the locust. But since Hebrew had other words for locust ("arbeh"[ארבה]), and none for butterfly, it was appropriated for that use.
...
They [Eliezer and his son Itamar] chose the word based on this verb [pirper פרפר - to flutter] -- and on the name of a Biblical river: “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” (2 Kings 5:12)
It had the additional appeal of sounding (a little…) like the French word for butterfly, papillon.
The word parpar itself first appears in a poem written by Ben-Yehuda the younger in 1910 titled “Parpar.”  

A commenter on this page says that the French papillon is less likely the inspiration, and suggests the Italian *farfare. I did not find that word in Italian (at least not meaning "butterfly"), but there does exist the similar farfalla, and there certainly are precedents of Ben Yehuda using Italian as an inspiration for new Hebrew words (there are those that make the claim that his glida גלידה for "ice cream" was influenced by the Italian gelato). So while the origin might be Hebrew, the similarity to French or Italian could have played a role.

And one last note. While there is an Italian butterfly shaped pasta - farfalle - Gil Marks points out that is not the origin of the egg noodle "farfel". That comes from the German word for noodles, varvelen.

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alcatraz, albatross and kad

The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the following etymology for albatross:

1670s, probably from Spanish or Portuguese alcatraz "pelican" (16c.), perhaps derived from Arabic al-ghattas "sea eagle" [Barnhart]; or from Portuguese alcatruz "the bucket of a water wheel" [OED], from Arabic al-qadus "machine for drawing water, jar" (from Greek kados "jar"), in reference to the pelican's pouch (compare Arabic saqqa "pelican," literally "water carrier"). Either way, the spelling was influenced by Latin albus "white." The name was extended, through some mistake, by English sailors to a larger sea-bird (order Tubinares).
Albatrosses were considered good luck by sailors; figurative sense of "burden" (1936) is from Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798) about the bad luck of a sailor who shoots an albatross and then is forced to wear its corpse as an indication that he, not the whole ship, offended against the bird. The prison-island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay is named for pelicans that roosted there.

The connection to the Arabic and Greek words for "jar" is interesting. We're familiar with the Hebrew word kad כד - also meaning jar, going all the way back to Bereshit 24:46, in the story of Rivka and the well. Is there a connection - and which came first?

Klein, in his entry for kad (jug, pitcher) says that the Greek kados (and following that, the Latin cadus - "jar") derive from the Hebrew. Other sources seem to agree, and while stating that it's hard to trace the roots of such old words, the likelihood of Greek borrowing from a Semitic root is higher than the other way around.

So we see here a Hebrew (or other Semitic word) being borrowed into Greek (and later Latin), and from there to Arabic, from there to Spanish and Portuguese, ending up in English. And if we want to go one step further - the modern Hebrew word for albatross - אלבטרוס - is borrowed from the English. Quite the journey.

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cholent

A number of years ago, when discussing the origin of the word daven, I said that in the future I would explain the origin of another early Yiddish word - cholent. Well, the future is now.

In the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, Gil Marks provides the following background for "cholent":

Cholent is a slow-simmered stew, often based on beans, that is served hot for Sabbath lunch.
Origin: France
Other names: Alsace and southern Germany: schalent; Austria: scholet; Hungary: sholet, solet; Lithuania: chulent; Poland: cholent; tshholnt
Sometime after the First Crusade, around the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, the Sephardic Sabbath stew, hamin/adafina, probably traveling by the way of Provence, eventually reached the Jews of France to become an indelible part of their Sabbath... From France, the stew moved eastward to southern Germany and later to eastern Europe. Among the French Ashkenazim, the stew received a news name, spelled schalet in Western Yiddish and tsholnt in Eastern Yiddish, probably from the Old French for warm, chald/chalt (chaud in modern French) or some contend, from chald-de-lit (warmth of the bed), Alternatively, some insist that the dish flowed to France directly from Spain, the name emerging from the Spanish escallento (warm).

In Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food (page 106), John Cooper quotes Max Grunbaum as saying it could also derive from the Spanish escalentar, "kept warm". Both the French and the Spanish derive from the Latin calentem - "that which is warm". This in turn comes from the Latin calere - "be hot". You can probably already guess that calere is the origin of word calorie (used to measure heat). Other heat related words sharing the same root include scald, cauldron, chowder (named for the pot it was cooked in), and my favorite: nonchalant - literally someone who doesn't get heated up.

Marks dismisses the folk etymology of cholent deriving from "shul ende", reflecting the time of day when the dish was eaten, because the name emerged in France before the development of Old Yiddish.

The Wikipedia article for cholent offers a few more folk etymologies:

One widely quoted folk etymology, relying on the French pronunciation of cholent or the Central and Western European variants shalent or shalet, derives the word from French chaud ("hot") and lent ("slow"). Another folk etymology derives cholent (or sholen) from the Hebrew she’lan, which means "that rested [overnight]". This refers to the old time cooking process of Jewish families placing their individual pots of cholent into the town baker's ovens that always stayed hot and slow-cooked the food overnight. Yet another etymology is Old French chaudes lentes hot lentils.

A similar dish to Ashkenazi cholent is shkanah - which Marks defines as "a dish of baked beans cooked overnight for Sabbath lunch." He writes that it originated in Spain, and the Jews expelled from there brought it with them to the Netherlands. In an interesting twist, he points out that the Pilgrims spent time in the Netherlands after they left England but before going to America. These Puritans tried to take the bible much more literally than other Christians at the time, and so they were eager to adopt this Sephardic dish, allowing them also to eat hot food on the Sabbath. This dish, when they came to America, became known as Boston baked beans (the British had no previous tradition of baking beans). And from there came Boston's nickname - Beantown.

I imagine many of my readers today would like an nice warm dish, and where I am the forecast for Shabbat is particularly cold. So enjoy your cholent!

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lion

The English word "lion" may have Semitic origins. Klein, in his Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, writes that lion comes from the Latin leo and Greek "leon" which

is of uncertain, possibly Semitic, origin; cp. Heb. labhi, Akkad. labbu 'lion'

And in his Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, under lavi לביא (a term for an older lion), he says that it is also related to the Ugaritic lbu and Arabic labu'ah - all meaning "lion".

However, Hebrew has more than one word for lion. Let's look at them.

Perhaps the most familiar term (in Modern Hebrew at least) is ari ארי or aryeh אריה. Klein writes that ari is related to Ethiopian 'arwe (=wild beast), Akkadian aru (= eagle) and Arabic 'arwa ( = ibexes). A post on the forum here quotes the HALOT entry for ari, mentions some additional Semitic language with other cognates and animal terms, and writes that the word originally meant "wild animal."

Klein also writes that the word ariel אריאל, which he defines as "hero" and appears only once in the Bible (Shmuel II 23:20), literally means "lion of God" (as does אראל erel - a term for an angel).

Aryeh, Ari and Ariel are all common Hebrew names. The phenomenon of naming people after lions is very widespread as we'll continue to see. The German word for lion, löwe, is cognate with the English, and led to the Yiddish loeb or leib. In Yaakov's blessing to his son Yehuda, he compares him to a lion (Bereshit 49:9). So the names Yehuda, Aryeh and Leib became somewhat interchangeable. In fact, I've seen my great-great-grandfather on gravestones (of his children) mentioned as Yosef Yehuda, Yosef Aryeh and Yosef Leib.

Other biblical names for lions are kfir כפיר and shachal שחל, which along with lavi, are popular Israeli first and last names. Perhaps they gained popularity because aryeh was viewed as old fashioned. Klein writes that kfir - a young lion - might derive from the root כפר, to cover (see this post), and is "properly denoting a lion already covered with a mane".

Two other Hebrew terms for lion are layish ליש and shachatz שחץ, but I have not seen them used for names. (For more discussion of lions in the Bible and in Judaism, see this Encyclopedia Judaica article).

Arabic uses lion terms for names as frequently as Hebrew does. This article discusses the practice, and we'll look at a few examples that have Hebrew cognates.

assad - The Assad family from Syria get their names from the Arabic word for lion, and Hafez al-Assad was known as the "Lion of Syria". (His first name, hafez means "guard or protect" - cognate with the Hebrew חפץ. I recall that in about 1999 a clever Israeli columnist pointed out that the then Director General of the President's Residence, Arie Shumer אריה שומר had a Hebrew name that matched up exactly with the then president of Syria). The Arabic assad is cognate with the Hebrew אשד - a root meaning "to pour" and the source of the words eshed אשד - waterfall and asheda אשדה - slope and waterfall. Klein says the connection to the Arabic word for lion is due to the original meaning of the root being "he rushed, plunged" which became "he pursued" - reflecting the actions of lions

osama - The article gives the following explanation as to the origin of osama:

Meanwhile, the root of Osama/Usama is wasama, which is to brand or stamp (eg, cattle). By extension, wisaam is a mark of distinction or honor and wasaama is grace or beauty—both things that lions have, even if the late Mr bin Laden was sorely lacking in either.

We looked at the same root in our discussion of the etymology of the word monsoon, where we saw that wasama is cognate with the Hebrew shem שם - "name".

abbas - this name for a lion comes from an Arabic root meaning "strict or stern". The Arabic word abasa means "he frowned" (see more discussion here). In A Comparative Lexical Study of Qurʼānic Arabic, Martin Zammit provides us a Hebrew cognate:

Arab 'abasa - 74:22 "Then he frowned and he scowled!": Heb. 'abas: The primary sense is connected with 'contracting' and 'shriveling', with Arab. restricting the usage to the human face and Heb. applying the root to grains.

He is referring to the Hebrew root עבש - to shrivel, to grow moldy. This is used in Modern Hebrew in the word עובש ovesh - "mold".

So admiring lions seems to be one thing Arabs and Jews can agree on. Sadly, the Asiatic lion, formerly found in this region, went extinct at the time of the Crusades.

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al panav and al hapanim

Here are two Hebrew expressions that sound very similar, but have very different meanings.

"Al Panav" על פניו  - literally means "on it's face", and can be translated as "apparently".

"Al Hapanim" על הפנים -  literally means "on the face" and is a slang term meaning "the [situation/thing] is terrible."

The origin of al panav is easier to determine. It comes from the English "on the face of it", which likely originates in the Latin prima facie (at first face). It's not an ideal Hebrew phrase, as there is an existing word in Hebrew with the same meaning - לכאורה lichora. However, as this site points out, if you really want a similar sounding phrase, then al pnei hadevarim על פני הדברים is closer to being correct.

Al hapanim is a harder one to crack. According to the same article I quoted above, it doesn't appear in the older slang dictionaries. All I've seen so far are speculations, but they all seem reasonable.

In Rosenthal's Dictionary of Hebrew Slang, he suggests it comes from the English "to fall flat on your face" (an expression which fully translated into Hebrew made it into Yehudit Ravitz's 2000 song געגוע - which contains the lyrics איך לא ידעתי לא ליפול על הפנים).

Nissan Netzer in his Hebrew in Jeans - the Image of Hebrew Slang, says the origin might be from Yiddish, which also have expressions meaning "to fall on the face".

This article (not sure who the author is) has a few more suggestions. They quote another Yiddish phrase meaning "his face fell", which is similar to the biblical נפלו פניו naflu panav (see Bereshit 4:6). They also mention that Yiddish, Russian and English all have phrases meaning "a slap in the face" - so perhaps one of them influenced the Hebrew.

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kasha, kishke and kutach

In my last post on Balashon a few years ago, I noted that I was more or less suspending my writing here due to another project I've been working on. Well, the project is still going on, but I think I'd like to return to updating this site as well.

When I originally started Balashon, I would write short pieces, almost daily. But as time went on, my library - both physical and virtual - got much bigger, and I often felt that if I didn't come up with some original insight in my research, it wasn't worth posting anything. While that might have led to some posts I'm rather proud of, it became fairly intimidating to start anything new, particularly if I didn't have the time required to work on something so big.


So now, I think I'd like to return to my original format. I'll try to write frequently, and often I'll just quote one or two sources. I'll be much more willing to return to a topic later if I don't have everything in front of me when I'm writing. So Balashon will be less comprehensive, but hopefully still accurate and interesting. We'll see how it goes.


For today's post, I'd like to quote from a fascinating book -the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food by Gil Marks. Gil was a brilliant food writer, who sadly passed away last month. His book is full of interesting information about the history of food - as well as great recipes - and I hope to refer to it frequently in the future. May his memory be a blessing.


In an earlier post, I wrote extensively about the etymologies of both the English word "buckwheat" and the Hebrew kusemet. Many of us know the term for cooked buckwheat by the Slavic or Yiddish form of "kasha". Here's a part of the entry for "kasha" in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food:

Cooked cereals subsumed under the term kasha were once served at all Slavic feasts and important occasions ... By the second century CE, a standard Persian dish was kashk (kutach in the Talmud and later kishk in Arabic), originally denoting a porridge made from cracked grains fermented with whey, then dried. Later, some Middle Easterners began using keshek or kishk to denote any type of cooked cereal. The Persian name eventually travelled to eastern Europe, becoming the Slavic kasha and encompassing all grain porridges - fine and coarse, thick and thin, sweet and savory. Incidentally, when leftover kashk was stuffed into animal intestines, the dish became kishke (stuffed derma). .... The Slavic word for buckwheat became grechka or grecha ... Consequently, buckwheat porridge is grechnevaya kasha.... Among eastern Ashkenazim, who were not prone to making hot cooked cereals, kashe or kasha in Yiddish took on the meaning of "husked and toasted buckwheat groats."

For those who can't imagine kasha without noodles - kasha varniskhes - Marks provides a brief origin of that term as well. He begins by describing a Russian and Ukrainian dish from the 16th century of meat or cheese filled pasta. 

Ukrainians took to calling these filled pasta vareniki (little boiled things), from the Slavic var meaning "to boil" ... Pasta stuffed with this [buckwheat] filling was known as kasha vareniki. Eventually, cooks figured out that it was easier to simply mix the kasha with some cooked noodles than to go through the tedious process of filling the pasta; the resulting dish was called kasha varnishkes.

As I've written frequently in the past, food etymologies are among my favorites. Culinary terms are easily borrowed between cultures and lead to stories that are both fascinating and relatively easy to trace. I had read the word kutach כותח many times in the Talmud but would never have guessed it was related to kasha or kishke.


In his entry for kashk/kutach (now that is a comprehensive dictionary!), Marks defines it as "dried balls of fermented cracked wheat or barley and yogurt whey that are usually simmered with water into a thick soup", and points out that "Kutach ha'Bavli is among the most commonly mentioned foods in the Talmud", and the fact that the "citation of kutach in the Mishnah, at least four centuries before the earliest record of kashk in a non-Jewish source, reveals that it was well established by 200 CE."

While kutach was loved by the Jews in Central Asia, Marks writes that it "merited extreme scorn among the residents of Israel." I've personally never tried it - but it does sound interesting. Kasha, on the other hand, is one of my family's favorite comfort foods.

 

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kasha, kishke and kutach

In my last post on Balashon a few years ago, I noted that I was more or less suspending my writing here due to another project I've been working on. Well, the project is still going on, but I think I'd like to return to updating this site as well.

When I originally started Balashon, I would write short pieces, almost daily. But as time went on, my library - both physical and virtual - got much bigger, and I often felt that if I didn't come up with some original insight in my research, it wasn't worth posting anything. While that might have led to some posts I'm rather proud of, it became fairly intimidating to start anything new, particularly if I didn't have the time required to work on something so big.


So now, I think I'd like to return to my original format. I'll try to write frequently, and often I'll just quote one or two sources. I'll be much more willing to return to a topic later if I don't have everything in front of me when I'm writing. So Balashon will be less comprehensive, but hopefully still accurate and interesting. We'll see how it goes.


For today's post, I'd like to quote from a fascinating book -the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food by Gil Marks. Gil was a brilliant food writer, who sadly passed away last month. His book is full of interesting information about the history of food - as well as great recipes - and I hope to refer to it frequently in the future. May his memory be a blessing.


In an earlier post, I wrote extensively about the etymologies of both the English word "buckwheat" and the Hebrew kusemet. Many of us know the term for cooked buckwheat by the Slavic or Yiddish form of "kasha". Here's a part of the entry for "kasha" in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food:

Cooked cereals subsumed under the term kasha were once served at all Slavic feasts and important occasions ... By the second century CE, a standard Persian dish was kashk (kutach in the Talmud and later kishk in Arabic), originally denoting a porridge made from cracked grains fermented with whey, then dried. Later, some Middle Easterners began using keshek or kishk to denote any type of cooked cereal. The Persian name eventually travelled to eastern Europe, becoming the Slavic kasha and encompassing all grain porridges - fine and coarse, thick and thin, sweet and savory. Incidentally, when leftover kashk was stuffed into animal intestines, the dish became kishke (stuffed derma). .... The Slavic word for buckwheat became grechka or grecha ... Consequently, buckwheat porridge is grechnevaya kasha.... Among eastern Ashkenazim, who were not prone to making hot cooked cereals, kashe or kasha in Yiddish took on the meaning of "husked and toasted buckwheat groats."

For those who can't imagine kasha without noodles - kasha varniskhes - Marks provides a brief origin of that term as well. He begins by describing a Russian and Ukrainian dish from the 16th century of meat or cheese filled pasta. 

Ukrainians took to calling these filled pasta vareniki (little boiled things), from the Slavic var meaning "to boil" ... Pasta stuffed with this [buckwheat] filling was known as kasha vareniki. Eventually, cooks figured out that it was easier to simply mix the kasha with some cooked noodles than to go through the tedious process of filling the pasta; the resulting dish was called kasha varnishkes.

As I've written frequently in the past, food etymologies are among my favorites. Culinary terms are easily borrowed between cultures and lead to stories that are both fascinating and relatively easy to trace. I had read the word kutach כותח many times in the Talmud but would never have guessed it was related to kasha or kishke.


In his entry for kashk/kutach (now that is a comprehensive dictionary!), Marks defines it as "dried balls of fermented cracked wheat or barley and yogurt whey that are usually simmered with water into a thick soup", and points out that "Kutach ha'Bavli is among the most commonly mentioned foods in the Talmud", and the fact that the "citation of kutach in the Mishnah, at least four centuries before the earliest record of kashk in a non-Jewish source, reveals that it was well established by 200 CE."

While kutach was loved by the Jews in Central Asia, Marks writes that it "merited extreme scorn among the residents of Israel." I've personally never tried it - but it does sound interesting. Kasha, on the other hand, is one of my family's favorite comfort foods.

 

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my absence

I realize that I haven't posted on Balashon in several months, and I think I should post an explanation. Here's the story:

When I started the blog, I was writing and posting almost every day. That was partly because my hours at work made it easier to do so, but also because the resources I used in researching my posts were limited - a few books and a small number of web sites. In fact in the first few months, I could publish while traveling by simply taking everything with me!

As time went on, I discovered more and more books, more web sites, and more people to consult with about any topic I was researching (many of them readers of this site - thanks!) And eventually, I discovered how to use the National Library at Hebrew University (which now is pretty close to where I work). And as a perfectionist (if not a particularly effective one), I'm rarely satisfied posting anything unless I've researched it as much as I feel I can. So naturally, that makes more work in writing a post.

Additionally, I've become less satisfied with my earlier posts, where I simply shared a few interesting etymologies. I still do that sometimes, but I prefer to write about a topic where I've discovered something new. I think I've done that with some of my more recent posts, and it's a lot more fun. But again - a lot more work.

Add that to more pressure for time at work and home, and you can see why my posting has become more erratic, to say the least. But I haven't given up on Balashon, nor do I plan to. Actually, since my last post in January, I started working on one of the most interesting and complicated posts I had ever done - the origin and meaning of the phrases "mazal tov" and "b'shaa tova". Dozens of sources, and some really interesting revelations. But I need some serious free time to start putting it all together. And then the new project came.

What new project? Last December I noticed something that I had never paid attention to before: why does the Torah not explain the reason that Avraham (Abraham) was chosen by God? I started looking in to the question just as a curiosity in the beginning, with no idea what this would lead me to. As it happens, this question affects almost every aspect of Jewish philosophy.

Now this has turned into a huge project, which I hope will end up published at the end - perhaps even as a book. Interestingly, this quest has connections to Balashon as well: both to my yet unwritten "mazal tov" post, and about the significance of the Hebrew language in general (something I'm often asked by readers).

I do hope to go back to writing posts on Balashon before I'm done with the Avraham question, but I can't promise when that will be. I do still have all of your emails and comments, and still have my index file with almost 2000 words and the sources that discuss them. But please be patient.

One more note - my old comment system is closing down in October, and you all have written great comments over the years. After trying to import the comments in bulk to the new system (which you currently see on the site), I've determined that to keep them I'll need to copy them manually. This is a tedious process, and is using any of my "Balashon" time that I had at all.

Again, thank you all for continuing to follow the blog - and I hope to be writing again soon!

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gafrur

In our discussion of dalak דלק - "burn", I didn't mention one derivative - madlek מדלק. That's because you've probably never heard of it. It was Ben Yehuda's attempt to come up with a Hebrew term for "match" - as in a match used to start a fire. In his dictionary Ben Yehuda writes that the word is "used in Hebrew speech in the Land of Israel, and has already been used in newspapers and books."

I first found the word mentioned in this article in his newspaper, HaZvi, in 1897, as well as in this article in the newspaper HaMeliz by Dr. HaEtzioni¹. Neither article explains what the word means, so it must have been in use for some time beforehand. In the same article, before using "madlek", HaEtzioni also writes "tzita" ציתה. This was the term suggested for "match" by Rabbi Zeev Yaabetz (1847-1924), based on the root צתת - "to kindle" (a related root is יצת). Another form found is tzitit צתית. (Klausner claims that this is based on Shabbat 119a - רבי זירא מצתת צתותי - Rabbi Zeira would "metzatat tzitutei" - light small sticks of wood.")

And these aren't the only suggested Hebrew translations for match following the development of the modern match in the 19th century (see the Wikipedia article for an interesting history of the match). The earliest ones were two word phrases, mentioning both the wood and the sulfur coating, such as etz-gofrit עץ-גפרית ("sulfur wood") or kesam megupar קיסם מגופר ("sulfur stick") - both used by Mendele Mocher Sforim in his early works -the latter in 1872. (Gofrit  גופרית - "sulfur" is found in Bereshit 19:24, and is cognate with the Akkadian kubritu, and Klein says that it is "probably a loan word from some non-semitic language." It is not related to gofer גופר - the wood used to make Noah's Ark in Bereshit 6:14, although Yaakov Etzion discusses a midrashic connection in his comprehensive article here.)

However, one of the changes from Hebrew of the Haskala to modern Hebrew was the replacement of two word phrases with single word ones (Reuven Sivan lists 57 of them in his essay "חליפות ותמורות בלשון ימינו" in Leshonenu L'Am 31:9-10, 1980). Other one word suggestions (besides madlek and tzita) included madlik מדליק, mav'er מבער, and alit אלית (by Eliahu Sapir, based on the Talmudic phrase in Tamid 29a - מציתים את האליתא).

But the word that stuck was gafrur גפרור,  gofrit. Sivan claims the word was coined by Mendele, and used in his revised 1909 edition of his book HaEmek HaBacha. I found gafrur used (again, without explanation) in this 1905 article in the newspaper HaZman. It is not clear to me if Mendele used, and perhaps popularized a word coined by someone else, or if the article in HaZman was using a word Mendele had coined, but Sivan only noted the later revision of the earlier book as an example.

Klein suggests that gafrur was coined "under the semantic influence of Yiddish שוועבעלע (=match), derived from שוועבל (=sulphur), or of German Schwefelholzchen (= lucifer match) from Schwefel (=sulphur)." This similarity might have helped its popularity.

But it wasn't a smooth road to its adoption. In a 1925 essay (האנארכיה הלשונות - "Linguistic Anarchy"), Klausner writes that different families in Jerusalem use different words for "match".  Agnon made fun of the number of options in his 1941 story לבית אבא (L'Beit Abba - "To Father's House"), where he had a character intentionally use the term gafrir גפריר, even though that was not one of the terms suggested. But in the end, gafrur was - how shall we say? - a perfect match...

~~~~~~~~~`
1. It appears that this is Dr. Yehuda Holzman HaEtzioni (mentioned here). He was likely related to Shmuel Holzman, who purchased the land for Kibbutz Kfar Etzion in the 1930s, and named it after himself as well ("holz" in German and "etz" עץ in Hebrew both mean "wood".)

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dalak

On Chanukah we light the candles - מדליקים את הנרות madlikim et ha nerot. The root of madlik מדליק - is dalak דלק - "burn, kindle", and is familiar from many related words such as delek דלק - "fuel", the verb tadlek תדלק - "to refuel" (the tiphel - like hiphil and shaphel, also a causative form of the verb), and daleket דלקת - which likely meant fever in Biblical Hebrew (Devarim 28:22) and today means "inflammation".

The verb dalak appears nine times in Biblical Hebrew as well, and in about half the appearances it also means "to burn". However in the other half it has a different meaning - "to pursue, chase," such as in Bereshit 31:36 - מַה חַטָּאתִי, כִּי דָלַקְתָּ אַחֲרָי  - "What is my sin that you should pursue me". (In some of the verses there is some disagreement as to which meaning applies, such as Yeshaya 5:11. Rashi and Radak say it means "burning" while Ibn Ezra says "chasing". Kutscher (p. 88) writes that perhaps this is a play on words and both senses are alluded to.)

What is the connection, if any, between "burning" and "chasing"?

Not surprisingly, there are a few opinions on this issue. One opinion is that the original meaning was to burn, and the concept of "chasing" came later - in the sense of "hot pursuit", as we say in English. Kaddari finds a similar development in Akkadian, where hamatu means both to burn and to hasten.

A second opinion is that the first meaning was "to chase", and later came the idea of burning, because of the way the fire chases the wick. This idea can be found in Rashi on Tehilim 7:14, who says that "every delika דליקה is chasing". Shadal on Bereshit 31:36 writes that dalak is related to dalag דלג - "leap" and both mean to ascend, which is why kindling the lamps in Shemot 25:37 is called וְהֶעֱלָה אֶת-נֵרֹתֶיהָ - literally, "raise up the lamps", because the fire ascends (also discussed in his Igrot Shadal, p.14).

The last opinion is that of Ben Yehuda, who feels that the two meanings are unrelated, as they each have separate Arabic cognates (and begin with different letters). Klein follows this approach as well, and says that the meaning "to burn" is cognate to the Arabic dhaliqa (=was sharp), but the sense "to chase" is cognate with the Arabic dalaqa (=he advanced, proceeded).

Whatever the connection - Chanukah is almost over. So make haste, get in hot pursuit, go up - and light those candles!

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tag

The word tag תג has some new popular usages: tag mechir תג מחיר - the "price tag" reprisal attacks carried out by extremists in Israel, and "tagging" photographs in Facebook - known in Hebrew as tiyug תיוג. A reader asked - is there a connection between the English word "tag" and the Hebrew one?

The answer is "well, maybe, maybe not".

Let's look first at the Hebrew word tag. Meaning "crown", it is first found in Talmudic Hebrew (also used for the "crowns" on tops of Hebrew letters) - and is borrowed from the Aramaic תגא taga. Taga is related to the Arabic taj, and both were borrowed from the Persian word taj of the same meaning (as appears in the famous Indian building Taj Mahal - the "crown of palaces"). Klein writes that the Persian word comes from the Indo-European base *steg meaning "to encircle, crown". In Greek this root gives us the word stephein (to surround, encircle, wreath), which is the origin of the name Stephen (meaning crown).

The English word "tag" has an entirely different origin. The Online Etymology Dictionary has the following entry:

"small hanging piece," c.1400, perhaps from a Scandinavian source (cf. Norw. tagg "point, prong," Swed. tagg "prickle, thorn") cognate with tack. Meaning "label" is first recorded 1835; sense of "automobile license plate" is recorded from 1935, originally underworld slang. Meaning "an epithet, popular designation" is recorded from 1961, hence slang verb meaning "to write graffiti in public places" (1990). The verb meaning "to furnish with a tag" is from mid-15c. To tag along is first recorded 1900.

So no connection between the two terms. So why was I hesitant earlier?

Because today in addition to the meaning crown, the Hebrew tag also has the same meaning in the word in English - "badge, label". (There is also the related word mutag מותג meaning "trademark, brand"). To me it seems crystal clear that this sense of the word is borrowed from the English. However both Klein and Even Shoshan, while providing the definition "badge" only mention the "taga" etymology. Stahl (in his Arabic/Hebrew etymological dictionary) goes so far as to say that the Hebrew tag used for labels on merchandise and army uniforms comes from the meaning "little crowns". (Mordechai Rosen his new book Sipurei Milim also has a full entry on tag and mutag with no mention of the English word "tag").

So if all these experts are correct, then there is no connection between any of the meanings of tag in Hebrew and "tag" in English. But I'm rather doubtful. Do any you have more information? Tag - you're it!

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tris

In our discussion of the word shelet שלט, we said that Targum Yonatan on Divrei Hayamim translated שלטים as "shields". The word used in his translation is תריסין - terisin, or in the singular, tris תריס.

Klein writes that tris as shield comes from the Greek thyreos, meaning shield, which in turn derives from the Greek thyra - "door". (Going back to the Indo-European root, Klein shows that thyra is cognate with the English word "door" as well.) However, the connection between thyreos and thyra is strange to me. He writes that thyreos is a "stone put against the door". I don't see how that means shield.

I have an easier time understanding the entry in the Online Etymology Dictionary for "thyroid", which also derives from thyreos:

1690s (in ref. to both the cartilage and the gland), from Gk. thyreoiedes "shield-shaped" (in khondros thyreoiedes "shield-shaped cartilage," used by Galen to describe the "Adam's apple" in the throat), from thyreos "oblong, door-shaped shield" (from thyra "door") + -eides "form, shape." The noun, short for thyroid gland, is recorded from 1849.

The Hebrew word for thyroid reflects this origin as well - בלוטת התריס balutat hatris.

Another meaning of tris - and unlike shield, this one is still used in modern Hebrew - is "shutter, blind". Here Klein points out that it comes from the Greek thyris - "window", which in turn also derive from thyra - "door".

We also have a verb that derives from tris - התריס - "to contradict, oppose". Klein is not clear about which sense - shield or shutter - led to this verb. First he has an entry for התריס meaning "he shielded, protected", and then figuratively meaning "he protested against, contradicted, debated." His second entry for התריס is defined as "to contradict, oppose", but the etymology is given as "denominated from תריס (=shutter)".

In his dictionary, Even Shoshan agrees with the former, and says it derives from shield, but doesn't explain why. He does, however, say that the great debaters known as baalei terisin בעלי תריסין (mentioned in Berachot 27b), knew how to argue in the "wars of Torah". (According to Rashi; the Aruch says they were literally soldiers). So perhaps this military imagery - Jastrow calls them the "shield bearers" - led to the connection between tris as shield and hitris התריס as "to contradict, oppose".

Yaakov Etsion in this article suggests that perhaps the development went like this: these were people who were willing to shield and defend themselves, and not give in to others. From here the concept progressed to those who took the offensive, and contradicted others when necessary.

Perhaps therefore this is an early version of the adage "The best defense is a good offense". But as comedian Norm Macdonald noted, "The second best defense is a good defense"...

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shalit and shelet

Both before and after Gilad Shalit's release, we've seen many signs related to the campaign.

His surname Shalit שליט means "ruler, leader" in Hebrew. Is there any connection to the word shelet שלט - meaning "sign"?

Let's first look at the word shalit. It derives from the root שלט, meaning "to rule". Klein provides the following etymology:

borrowed from Biblical Aramaic שלט (= he ruled, was master of, had dominion), which is related to Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Syriac שלט (of same meaning), Ugaritic shlt (=ruler), Arabic saluta (he overcame, prevailed), Akkadian shalatu (=to rule), shaltu, shitlutu (= powerful, mighty), Ethiopian shallata (=he gave power.)

From this root we get the words shilton שלטון - "authority, government", sholtan שָׁלְטָן - "dominion" (note the kamatz katan, as this word that appears in the Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur prayers - שהשלטן לפניך - is often mispronounced), and shlita שליטה - "control" (the honorific for living rabbis שליט"א is not related, but is an acronym of שיחיה לאורך ימים טובים אמן - "may he live many long and good days, Amen".)

Another related word is the Arabic sultan. The Online Etymology Dictionary has this entry:

1550s, from M.Fr. sultan "ruler of Turkey" (16c.), from Arabic sultan "ruler, king, queen, power, dominion," from Aramaic shultana "power," from shelet "have power." His wife, mother, daughter, concubine, or sister is a sultana.

What about shelet - "sign"?  The word appears in the Bible six times, always in the plural, and always relating to military matters. The exact meaning, however, is not clear. Some (Rashi on Shir Hashirim 4:4, based on the usage in Yirmiyahu 51:11) say it means the quiver that holds the arrows, and others say it means "shield", perhaps specifically of leather (Ibn Ezra; Targum Yonatan on Divrei Hayamim I 18:7 and Divrei Hayamim II 23:9). Ben Yehuda writes that as a military term, shelet is related to שלט in the sense of power and might.

The German word for shield is "schild", and this apparently led to the word shelet taking on the meaning sign. Klein writes:

Borrowed from שלט shelet = (shield), on analogy of the homophonic German Schild, which has both meanings 'shield', and 'signboard' (however, there the two meanings are artificially differentiated inasmuch as Schild in the sense 'shield' is masculine, in the sense 'signboard' it is neuter).

Philologos, in this interesting article discussing why the Magen David מגן דוד is translated as "Star of David" instead of "Shield of David" notes:

Why did medieval Jews change David’s star to a shield? The obvious answer is that whereas stars have no great resonance in Jewish religious tradition, shields do. In numerous passages in the Bible, God is referred to as the shield of those who trust in Him, including more than a dozen times in the book of Psalms, of which the supposed author was David himself. And in the Songs of Songs we have the verse, referring to the mail-like plates in the necklace of the poem’s beloved, “Thy neck is like the tower of David built for an armory, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers [magen], all shields of [shiltei, the plural possessive of shelet] mighty men.”

It is undoubtedly a pure coincidence that shelet, which is a biblical synonym for magen, sounds very much like the English “shield” and the German and Yiddish Schild, which means both “shield” and “coat of arms” or “sign.” (It was under the influence of Schild, in fact, that shelet came to mean a store or street sign in contemporary Hebrew.) But can it be that the double-triangled hexagon, which was adopted by Yiddish-speaking Prague Jews as the emblem of their flag, was first called by these Jews of Prague a Schild, in the sense of a coat of arms, and then translated into Hebrew as magen and re-interpreted as the warrior’s shield that protected David? I wouldn’t rule out this possibility

So yes, the words shalit and shelet are connected. However, I think it's a good thing that we no longer need to associate Gilad Shalit with the signs requesting his release, but rather with the shielding and protection he finally received. May he live many long and good days, Amen!

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koshiklach

One of the strange sounding words from Sukkot is koshiklach קוישיקלך (or sometimes spelled koishelach קוישלך). It refers to the woven holders used to bind the lulav to the hadasim and aravot. But what is the etymology?

Let's start by taking off the suffixes and then we'll see what's left. The Yiddish suffix -ach indicates a plural, as in rogelach or kinderlach. So removing the -ach leaves us with koishekil (or koshikel)- and "-il" is a diminutive suffix. So koishiklach is the plural of "little koishik". But what's a koishik?

While much of Yiddish comes from German and Hebrew, there's a significant amount that comes from the Slavic languages, and this is where we find the meaning of koishik - "basket". For example, basket in Polish is "koszyk" and in Czech and Slovak - "košík" or "koš". In fact, the Yiddish translation for basketball is koyshbol.


Are there any cognates to these words in English? I think so. The Online Etymology Dictionary provides the following etymology for "chest":

O.E. cest "box, coffer," from P.Gmc. *kista (cf. O.N., O.H.G. kista, O.Fris., M.Du., Ger. kiste, Du. kist), an early borrowing from L. cista "chest, box," from Gk. kiste "a box, basket," from PIE *kista "woven container."

This seems to me likely to be the origin of kos(ik) as being a basket in the Slavic languages as well.

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azazel

On Yom Kippur we read about the service in the Temple that was performed on that holy day. Part of the service involved sending away a goat, marked "to Azazel"  לעזאזל (Vayikra 16:8). The meaning and origin of the word Azazel עזאזל is subject to much debate. Levine, in the JPS commentary to Vayikra, writes the following (I've added Hebrew text to his transliteration):

The precise meaning of Hebrew 'aza'zel עזאזל, found nowhere else in the Bible, has been disputed since antiquity and remains uncertain even to the present time. Over the centuries, exegesis of this name has followed three lines of interpretation.

According to the first, Azazel is the name of the place in the wilderness to which the scapegoat was dispatched; the term is taken as synonymous with 'erets gezerah ארץ גזרה, "inaccessible region," in verse 22. Verse 10 may also suggest this interpretation. When translated literally it reads: "and send it [the he-goat] off to Azazel, to the wilderness." Yoma 67b understands 'aza'zel as "a fierce, difficult land," taking the first part of the word to mean 'azz עז, "strong, fierce".

According to the second line of interpretation, Azazel describes the goat. The word 'aza'zel is a contraction (notarikon) comprised of 'ez עז, "goat" and 'azal אזל, "to go away," hence "the goat that goes away." This interpretation occurs both in the Septuagint and the the Vulgate, and underlies the rabbinic characterization sa'ir ha-mishtalleah שעיר המשתלח, "the goat that is dispatched," in Mishna Yoma 6:2. This is, in fact, the interpretation that led to the English rendering "scapegoat" (from "escape-goat"), which first appeared in Tyndale's English translation of the Bible in 1530. [See this Philologos column for more about the considerations in the creation of the phrase "scapegoat."]

Both of the above interpretations are contrived. The third line of interpretation is preferable. Azazel in later myth was the name given to the demonic ruler of the wilderness. The derivation of the word is uncertain, but the thematic relationship of Azazel to the se'irim שעירים, "goat-demons," of 17:7  suggests that the word 'ez, "goat," is represented in it. The form 'aza'zel may have developed through reduplication of the letter zayin: 'ez'el, "mighty goat," was pronounced 'ezez'el and, finally, 'aza'zel.

Bula, in the Daat Mikra, quotes the "fierce, difficult land" interpretation mentioned in Yoma (and by Rashi on the verse). In a footnote, however, he offers some additional options. First of all, he points out that the letter lamed might be added to the root עזז, as we find in a number of other nouns like barzel ברזל and karmel כרמל, and the alef was also added in, like in the word tzavar צואר. This would make azazel related to the Arabic azaz, meaning "hard, unworkable land".

He then goes on to say that he doesn't think the theory that Azazel refers to a place of idol worship is likely, but even if it is true, it doesn't mean that the service was still associated with idol worship. He points out that there are many phrases in Hebrew that originally had idolatrous connotations, but received new meaning according to the monotheistic Hebrew approach. For example, he says that the phrase ריח ניחוח - "pleasing odor to God" (Vayikra 1:9) also was adopted by the Torah from the language of idolators, even though Judaism doesn't believe that God actually takes pleasure from smells.

His last theory, based on the BDB Lexicon, is that perhaps it is related to the Arabic root עזל 'azzala, meaning "he removed", so this would refer to the removal of the sins, by means of the goat.

In Modern Hebrew the phrase "lech l'azazel" לך לעזאזל means "go to hell". I don't think that this is due to an association with demons. The Even Shoshan dictionary quotes the responsa of the 17th century Chavat Yair as saying לך לעזאזל המדברה! - "go to Azazel in the desert!" So I think the idea here is just to send to an uninhabitable place, in a similar way that the Dead Sea is referred to in Talmudic Hebrew.

So for those of you who don't have access to water to do Tashlich, perhaps casting off your sins to the uninhabitable desert could have the same effect...

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