spiel

I do a lot of walking, and over the past few years, I've really begun to enjoy listening to podcasts while I walk. There aren't any podcasts dealing with Hebrew linguistics as far as I know (although you download Avshalom Kor's radio bits here). I do listen to a few podcasts about language in English: Lexicon Valley, The Allusionist, The History of English, Grammar Girl, and The World in Words. But perhaps my favorite language podcast isn't officially about language at all.

I first heard about Mike Pesca's The Gist in August 2014 on an episode of  This American Life. The host Ira Glass introduced him as follows:

This new podcast isn't about sports. It's about everything. 20 minutes a day, often about the news, though just as often not. What makes it special is, I think, the sheer joy, the gleeful, articulate energy that Mike Pesca marshals in thinking about and dissecting the world around him.
The theme today on our radio show is magic words. And I thought of Pesca today, because when he is not explaining what poker can tell us about missile defense systems or filling us in the country in Africa that is doing really, really well, Mike Pesca is somebody who seems to take great pleasure in noticing words, how people use words, and especially the misuse of words.

That's really a great description. While Pesca doesn't usually deal with etymology or linguistics per se, the way he talks about words really makes the listener (at least me) appreciate the significance of language.

The Gist always ends with a segment called "The Spiel". So in appreciation of Pesca's love of words, I thought I'd look at the word "spiel". The most obvious question regards pronunciation. It's spelled "spiel", but Pesca pronounces it "shpiel". Why?

The answer goes back to the etymology. There are two proposed origins:

noun
1. a usually high-flown talk or speech, especially for the purpose of luring people to a movie, a sale, etc.; pitch.
verb (used without object)
2. to speak extravagantly. 

Origin
1890-95; (noun) < German Spiel or Yiddish shpil play, game; (v.) < German spielen or Yiddish shpiln to play, gamble 

Both the German and Yiddish derive from an older German word spil.

Which is more likely the origin of our English word spiel? David L. Gold in his book Studies in Etymology and Etiology discusses the issue (pgs 563-570). On page 567 he points out that of the different meanings of the word spiel, they either date to pre-1859 American English, such as the sense "to gamble" (in which case a Yiddish influence is not possible since there were insignificant numbers of Yiddish speaking Jews in America at the time) or they are a usage of the word not found in Yiddish (such as the sense "to talk"). So Gold is convinced that the origin is German, not Yiddish.

So why does Pesca pronounce the word in the Yiddish form and not the German one? He does have Jewish background, so that could be an influence. But it's not just Pesca - the pronunciation shpiel appears much more prevalent in general.

I think what is happening here is a case of Yiddish (or Jewish) influence on American culture overall. In Yiddish, we find the word meaning "play, skit" and is perhaps most familiar in the Purim-shpiel that entertained Jews on the holiday. Jewish immigrants from Europe would have used that pronunciation, And since they had significant influence in the entertainment industry (Vaudeville, radio, etc), that is the way many people began to hear the word spoken (even if they continued to write it the traditional German way.)

A similar phenomenon can be found with the word "smear". Smear is a perfectly respectable and understandable English word, and when pronounced as such can either mean "to spread or rub something on something else" or "defame, slander". But the Yiddish "schmear" has a more specific meaning - to spread something on bread, or as a noun, something spread on food- like cream cheese on a bagel. As discussed in this Philologos column, this has become the more "authentic" way of pronouncing the word when talking about food, even if the spelling hasn't always been changed.

The Yiddish shpil also entered modern Hebrew slang as שפיל meaning "breathing space, latitude", Rosenthal writes that it can either refer to a more general sense of flexibility or freedom (as in a politician's wiggle room as to what choices he makes, or the forecast of a meteorologist), or it can be more physical and refer to loose parts of a car moving around undesirably. I suppose the connection here to shpil is a sense of "room to play". While I've found that usage by politicians such as Yair Lapid here, he felt the need to define the term after using it, and of Israelis I asked, the younger ones aren't familiar with the term at all. So it seems that shpil in Hebrew is on its way out.

That said, I would love for there to be an Israeli version of The Gist (HaIkar העיקר? BeEtzem בעצם?), and maybe that would return shpil to its rightful place in our language.

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UPDATE:
Due to comments from my readers about the fact that spiel is pronounced shpiel in German as well, I've written the following post.

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kahal and kehila

What is the difference between the similar words kahal קהל and kehila קהילה? Both can be defined as "assembly", "congregation" or "community" - but do they have different connotations?

Well, one difference is the frequency they are found in the Tanach. Kehila only appears twice (Devarim 33:4, Nechemia 5:7), whereas kahal appears 122 times. Both derive from the root קהל meaning "to assemble, gather", a verb that also appears frequently in biblical Hebrew. That root in turn derives from the word kol קול - "voice", and according to Klein originally meant "to call together" or "call to to an assembly". (The English word call does not appear to be related.) The two roots are occasionally interchangeable. In Yirmiyahu 51:55, we find the phrase kol gadol קול גדול meaning "large assembly", and there are those that explain the word kehila in Nechemiah as meaning "voice".

A similar case of a connection between "noise" and "group" is found in the word hamon המון. It originally meant "crowd" (and later took on the meaning "abundance"), and derives from the root המה, meaning "growl, roar".

One might think that the word makhela מקהלה  - "choir" is connected to kol, voice, but in its singular appearance in the Tanach (Tehilim 68:27) it also meant originally "assembly".

Let's go back to kahal and kehila. Rosenthal here (discussing the modern usage) says that kehila is a group of people with a common interest or goal ("community"), whereas kahal is only a group of people assembled together, and in modern Hebrew is usually limited to the sense of "audience", or the public in general, such as in the phrase daat hakahal דעת הקהל - "public opinion".

A much newer word is kehiliya קהיליה. Introduced by Ben Yehuda, who intended for it to be the Hebrew word for "republic", it has become a synonym for kehila. It is most commonly used when discussing a community of nations - so a good translation would be commonwealth or federation.

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netzach and nitzachon

Let's see if there's a connection between the words netzach נצח - eternity, minatzeach מנצח - a musical conductor, and nitzachon נצחון - victory.

The root נצח appears frequently in the Tanach. According to the Even-Shoshan concordance, as a verb it either means "to oversee, to command", or the related "to lead (in music), to conduct", and as a noun it means either "strength, endurance" or "eternity" (there are also two verses where it means "blood" - others translate "juice".). Klein takes a different approach. He says that the original meaning of the verb is "to make brilliant" (related to an Aramaic root, "to shine") and the noun means "glory". The sense of "to shine, to be bright" is also found in Gesenius and BDB, based on cognates with other Semitic languages.

The meaning of the verb "to conquer" (as found in the noun nitzachon) appears originally in Aramaic, and entered Hebrew in the post-biblical period. This article by the Hebrew Language Academy points out that "victory" could be either associated with "endurance in time" (eternity) or "power and strength". In this way, all three meanings are related to a concept of endurance, stability and strength.

But what about those that say the root originally meant "to shine"? The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament proposes the following path of development: from a) the basic meaning "to gleam", to b) "distinguish oneself" (found in Biblical Aramaic), to c) "to conquer", to d) "to be permanent", and then finally e) "to supervise, lead". (The entry discusses many additional theories as well).

In the commentary of Keil and Delitzsh, we find another reasonable suggestion:

The primary notion of נצח is that of shining, and in fact of the purest and most dazzling brightness; this then passes over to the notion of shining over to outshining, and in fact both of uninterrupted continuance and of excellence and superiority (vid., Ithpa. Dan 6:4, and cf. Ch1 23:4 with Psa 9:13; Co1 15:54 with Isa 25:8). Thus, therefore, מנצּח is one who shows eminent ability in any department, and then it gains the general signification of master, director, chief overseer. At the head of the Psalms it is commonly understood of the direct of the Temple-music.

It is therefore interesting to note that unlike the synonym olam עולם, which also means "forever", but as we showed here derives from עלם - "hidden", netzach actually comes from a root emphasizing visibility.

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arak and orek

Reader David asked me if there is any connection between arak ערק - "deserted", orek עורק - "artery" (also in botany "vein") and the anise flavored alcoholic drink arak.

The first word he asked about is a little more complicated, so let's skip it for now. Actually, let's start with the last. The source of the name of the drink is from the Arabic araq - meaning "to sweat" or "to water" (as in to water down a drink). This also may be the origin of the name of the Mesopotamian country Iraq:

often said to be from Arabic `araqa, covering notions such as "perspiring, deeply rooted, well-watered," which may reflect the impression the lush river-land made on desert Arabs.

It also may be the source of the herb "borage":

flowering plant used in salads, mid-13c., from Anglo-French, Old French borage (13c., Modern French bourrache), from Medieval Latin borrago. Klein says this is ultimately from Arabic abu arak, literally "the father of sweat," so called by Arab physicians for its effect on humans.

(There are alternate etymologies to both words - see the links to the Online Etymology Dictionary).

Stahl (in his etymological dictionary of Arabic) says that this root also gives us the Arabic word 'irq, meaning vein or artery, since they transfer fluids in the body. The Arabic is cognate with the Hebrew orek,  of which Klein says also originally meant "sinew".

The difficult word is the one meaning "to flee" (in Modern Hebrew it came to mean "to desert", particularly from the army. I assume this is because there already was a word - barach ברח, meaning  "to flee"). Arak clearly had that meaning in Aramaic, where it was used to translate Hebrew words, as in Onkelos on Shmot 21:13). What's less clear is what it means in the two occasions it appears in the Tanach, both in chapter 30 of Iyov.

Verse three reads:

בְּחֶסֶר וּבְכָפָן גַּלְמוּד    הַעֹרְקִים צִיָּה אֶמֶשׁ שׁוֹאָה וּמְשֹׁאָה

And the JPS translates it as "Wasted from want and starvation, they flee to a parched land, to the gloom of a desolate wasteland."

And in verse 17 we find the same root:

לַיְלָה עֲצָמַי נִקַּר מֵעָלָי    וְעֹרְקַי לֹא יִשְׁכָּבוּן

Here the translation isn't as simple. The JPS has "by night my bones feel gnawed; my sinews never rest". This reading has orek in the sense of sinew that we saw above. Gesenius says that some, based on the Arabic, interpret the verse as talking about arteries instead of sinews - "my arteries (the pulsations of the arteries) are not quiet". An alternate translation (going at least back to the Vulgate) says that the word actually means "to gnaw", with the verse meaning "those that gnaw me (i.e. my pains) are not quiet). Kaddari extends this to verse 3 as well, saying it means "they were forced to live on eager means" (a borrowed sense, literally meaning "they bit into me, my flesh is consumed") Amos Chacham in the Daat Mikra commentary says that (unlike Stahl), this sense of "eating away" or "dissolving through" the flesh is how the word came to mean artery or vein.

The JPS translation is based on Rashi, who quotes Dunash as saying that based on the Arabic, the phrase should be understood as "my sinews never rest". However, Rashi also quotes Dunash's adversary and rival linguist, Menachem, who says that here too the root means "to flee", and says that the word has the meaning here:"my pursuers, who caused me to flee".

So is there a connection between arak - "to flee" and orek - "artery" (either from the root meaning "to transfer liquid" or "to gnaw")? I haven't seen anything to convince me there is. But while they might not have a common origin, all of these meanings meet up as possible explanations for two obscure phrases in the book of Iyov. While instances like this are much more confusing, if it wasn't for them, I'd have a lot less to write about.

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abuv

In my previous post, I mentioned how the word for gate - בבא bava - derives from the root נבב meaning "hole" or "hollow". Another word from the same root is abuv אבוב. Ben Yehuda points out that this is the Ashkenazi pronunciation, the Sephardic version is avuv. He says that the manuscripts of the Mishna support "avuv", but the Aruch HaShalem says it should be abuv to make up for the dropped nun from the root. The word appears in the Mishna (Arachin 2:3) and meant a "flute, pipe, reed". The Arabic form is inbub (we can see the original root here), and the cognates in Aramaic and Akkadian are abuva אבובא and imbubu, respectively.

Abuva is how Onkelos translates the Biblical word for flute עוגב ugav (Bereshit 4:21), and Luncz writes here that with the growing influence of Aramaic in the Second Temple period, abuv came to replace ugav as the term used in Hebrew.

Luncz also points out that Bartenura in his commentary on that mishna translates the word chalil as "צלמילי'ש", which in Italian is cennamelle (Bartenura says that the chalil is the musical instrument, and the abuv is the thin reed at the head of the chalil). The singular form, cennamella, in English is known as "shawm", and was the older precursor to the oboe. Luncz goes on to argue, based on a number of sources, that the chalil of the mishna should be viewed as a type of oboe, not a type of flute (flutes do not have reeds, whereas oboes, and other similar woodwind instruments do).

In Modern Hebrew abuv has come to mean "oboe". It is not clear to me what influence Luncz had on that usage. In any case, it's likely that the similarity in sound between abuv and oboe also played a role. Ghil'ad Zuckermann, in this article, describes the phenomenon as "phono-semantic matching", which he defines as

multi-sourced neologism that preserves both the meaning and the approximate sound of the parallel expression in the source-language, using pre-existent target-language words or roots

In addition to abuv/oboe, he finds similar cases with the Hebrew words semel and yovel. Throughout the article, Zuckermann tries to show that many words whose meanings changed in Modern Hebrew were changed for ideological reasons - to secularize previously religious concepts. I'm not fully convinced - and I think we can see from this case that there often are reasons justified in the Jewish tradition for these newer usages. (I'll probably be discussing some of his examples in future posts). But what these examples do show is that we don't need to rush to judgement and assume that two similar sounding words have a common origin - it's just as likely that one influenced the other.

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bubbe

The Yiddish word for grandmother is "bubbe". (There are many alternate spellings - in my family, for example, we spell it "bobe" and my wife's family spells it "bubby". So both for shalom bayit, and because it seems to be the most popular spelling, I'll stick with "bubbe").

Where does the word come from? I found this William Safire column from 1990 (inspired by a question about the word bubba, which is unrelated.) He discusses the word bubbe, and offers two possible origins:

Buba is a Hebrew word for "little doll" and may have been the source of an affectionate term for a small grandmother; however, the similar baba is also used for "grandma" in Russian and other Slavic languages, which makes the origin uncertain.

Let's look at the first suggestion - that it derives from buba בובה - "doll". Mr. Safire was mistaken on this one (and I imagine heard about it from his readers). The word buba was coined by Ben Yehuda, together with a co-founder of the Vaad Halashon, Haim Kalmi, in a children's books published in 1904.  This certainly postdates the Yiddish bubbe. Klein writes in his entry:

Coined by Eliezer ben Yehudah as a Hebraization of Arabic bu'bu, bubbu' (=little child, doll). Compare German Puppe, French poupee.

Klein also connects the same Arabic root with the word bavuah בבואה - "reflection, image". He gives this etymology:

Related to JAram בוביא and perhaps also to Arabic babbat (=little child), understood as a reflection of a man.

This book provides another related Hebrew word: bava בבה - "pupil of the eye", used almost exclusively in the phrase בבת עין - bavat ayin, found in Zecharya 2:12 (babat also appears on its own in later Hebrew literature, like in the song Dror Yikra). It literally means "pupil of the eye", but like the English phrase "apple of the eye", has the sense of "something very dear and important". The authors say it is also related to the Arabic root we've seen earlier, and both derive from an Akkadian word "babu". meaning "child, baby". They point out it has a similar sense to the word for pupil in many languages, including English, which is related to the homonym meaning "student" and has the following etymology:

"center of the eye," early 15c. (in English in Latin form from late 14c.), from Old French pupille (14c.), from Latin pupilla, originally "little girl-doll," diminutive of pupa "girl; doll", so called from the tiny image one sees of himself reflected in the eye of another.

A Hebrew synonym that the authors don't mention is ishon אישון, also meaning pupil, and similarly is a diminutive of ish איש, and so literally means "little man".

Ben Yehuda quotes scholars that agree with this etymology of bava, He also quotes those who suggest that the word might be related to the Aramaic word for gate or entrance- baba בבא (which we see in the name of the Talmudic tractates Bava Kama, Bava Metzia and Bava Kama - the three "gates" of the order Nezikin) and the Arabic word for gate - bab. In the entry for the root נבב - "to make hollow", Klein writes that baba derives from the Akkadian babu (=door, gate) which is shortened from nebaba (literally: 'hole,aperture'), which is also from the base נבב.

We've jumped from buba and bavuah to bavat and baba. Let's get back to bubbe.

Safire's second suggestion - a Slavic origin - makes much more sense. We see it in the Russian word for grandmother, babushka, which is a hypocorism (a suffix added for endearment) of the word baba, meaning "old woman".

Ultimately, however, there might be a connection between the Semitic roots we saw earlier meaning a child, and the Slavic ones meaning an old woman. As the Online Etymology Dictionary writes in the entry for the English word "babe", the origin of the word is from baby talk, and so in some languages that comes out as a word for children, and in some as a word for older people (adults).

You might be familiar with the phrase bobe mayse - or the Hebrew derivative sipurei savta סיפורי סבתא- meaning a fanciful story, an old wives tale. What might surprise you, though, is that the phrase actually doesn't come from the word bubbe, but rather from the story of Bevis of Hampton. As Philologos writes:

As improbable as it may seem, the bobbe of bobbe mayseh comes from the name of the hero of the 15th-century medieval Italian romance “Buovo d’Antona,” a Tuscan adaptation of the Norman “Beuve de Haumpton” — known in its 14th-century English version as “Sir Bevis of Hampton.”

Read the Philologos article for more detail about the story (as well as this one by Ari Zivotofsky), but to sum up, the 15th century Hebrew linguist and grammarian Eliahu Bachur translated the stories from Italian in to Yiddish as Bovo-Bukh. (He chose the name Bova apparently as a play on the word bava we saw above, ending the poem with the words “This is the end of the tractate of Bova of Antona.”) The adventures of Bova were so fanciful that even after the stories themselves were forgotten, the name was forever saved in the phrase bobe mayse.

Don't believe me? Ask your bubbe!

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chatul

In the book Lashon Hakodesh, the author includes the word chatul חתול - "cat" in a list of Hebrew words that appear in rabbinic literature but do not appear in the Tanach. This observation leads to two questions: a) Why are there no mentions of cats in the Tanach, and b) where did the word chatul come from?

Regarding cats in the bible, it depends on what kind of cat. Despite the claim of Yehuda Feliks, I don't think that this is identical to the case of the word charuv חרוב - "carob", which doesn't appear in the Tanach, yet certainly was present in the Land of Israel in biblical times. Domesticated house cats were not found in biblical Israel - and they weren't found in Babylon or Greece either at the same time. They were domesticated in Egypt, where they were revered as divine beings (perhaps another reason the Tanach did not discuss them). Only later was the house cat introduced to other parts of Europe and Asia, and the cat does feature in Talmudic literature.

Wild cats, however, were present - they just weren't called chatulim. Two types of wild animals found in Yeshaya 13:21-22 are the tziyim ציים  and the iyim איים. Klein writes that according to some scholars tzi צי is related to the Arabic dayuwan, meaning "wild cat". And while most modern commentaries and translations identify the iyim as "jackals", the Aramaic Targum to the verse translates them as חתולין chatulin - in the context, clearly referring to a wild cat as well.

Where does the word chatul originate? A folk etymology connects the word to the root חתל (only found in Yechezkel 16:4) meaning "to wrap up"and is the root of the word diaper - chitul חיתול. They base this on the gemara (Eruvin 100b), which praises the cat for its modesty, because of the way it covers up its waste. However, there doesn't seem to be any linguistic evidence to this theory.

Others see the similarity between the word chatul and the English word "cat" (as well as many other European languages - Spanish gato, French chat, German katz, etc) and say that all those words come from a common source (or even go so far as to say they all came from Hebrew). While there are some examples of words that go back to roots shared by Semitic and Indo-European languages, the evidence is usually very scarce, and so I don't want to take that route without caution.

Normally, I would turn to Klein's dictionary, but all he says is that chatul is related to the Aramaic chatula חתולא. And since the word never appears in the Tanach, my biblical dictionaries and commentaries couldn't help. Luckily, I found this fascinating article by John Huehnergard of Harvard University, entitled Qitta: Arabic cats. In it he discusses a surprisingly large number of words in Arabic for "cat" including a few that have Hebrew cognates.

Most relevant to our discussion is the Arabic word haytal, which he says may have originally meant both "cat" and "dog", He writes that

It seems reasonable to associate the word with the verb hatila 'to prattle, talk nonsense' and its adjective hatil 'garrulous, foolish'.

If this is the case, the word is cognate with the name Hattil חטיל (which appears in Ezra 2:57) and to which the Encyclopedia Mikrait associates the meaning "to prattle". There is of course a difference in that Hattil has a "tet" and chatul has a "tav", but despite that, he writes:

One also wonders whether the word is connected with Mishnaic (and later) Hebrew hatul and Jewish Aramaic htula

His most interesting comment though, is the following:

All of these may have been influenced by medieval Latin cat(t)ulus 'kitten,' i.e., small cat(t)us.

So instead of deriving from some ancient common word meaning "cat", the Arabic and Hebrew may have been influenced by one in common use. (The Latin and Greek, as well as another Arabic term for cat - kitta - all may ultimately derive from an Egyptian word). This is a much more plausible, or at least more provable, explanation.

Another word that Huehnergard mentions is the Arabic sinnawr, which is cognate with the Aramaic shunra שונרא. Many of us are familiar with this term from the song Chad Gadya. I had always assumed that chatul was Hebrew and shunra was Aramaic, but now I see that chatula also appears in Aramaic and the two terms seem interchangeable (see both used in the same section of Bava Batra 80b). The article says that the word likely has Akkadian roots, but Steinsaltz suggests that the word might derive from the Greek sainouros, meaning "something that wags its tail" or "a flatterer" (oura means "tail" in Greek, and makes up part of the word "squirrel").

So overall, we see an interesting parallel here. Originally we find only rare words for "cat" in Hebrew, and today it's one of the first words learned by children in Israel. And if millennia ago domesticated cats were not found in this land, today you can't go anywhere without running into them...

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BOOK REVIEW: Lashon Hakodesh

I recently received the book Lashon Hakodesh: History, Holiness & Hebrew by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein. I honestly wasn't sure what to think of the book at first. The author and I come from very different worlds - or at least very different world views (we actually both come from California and now live in Israel). Klein has a strong yeshiva background, whereas while I learned in a yeshiva (and in fact learned much more there about Hebrew than I did in university), my approach is much more "academic" (a term he uses frequently throughout the book). But Klein does show respect and openness to the academic approach, even when he doesn't agree with it (and that's a path I try to follow as well).  Another difference between us is that he prefers to reconcile different approaches, whereas I like to accentuate them. But there’s certainly a tradition in that going back to the Talmud (see for example Steinsaltz's Reference Guide to the Talmud, where he writes (page 6) that "in seeking to understand the words of the Mishnah or of the Amoraim one should always seek elements that reconcile the parties to the dispute and not those that divide them. Many of the most searching and significant questions and discussions in the Talmud derive from the desire to resolve differences.)  Klein also did a tremendous amount of research, with extensive footnotes to allow the reader to continue investigating on their own. So in general, I found the book a pleasant and interesting read.

The first four chapters deal with the Jewish (Rabbinic) view of the history of the Hebrew language (Klein consistently refers to the language described in the book as Lashon Hakodesh, partially as a polemic device to distinguish it from Modern Hebrew / Ivrit. While I understand his choice, I still prefer to use "Hebrew".)  He discusses the language spoken by Adam after Creation, how the languages were split up at Migdal Bavel, what language Avraham spoke both before and after his migration to Canaan, and what the Jews spoke in Egypt. I found those chapters interesting on a personal level (particularly for my ongoing Avraham project), even though they’re not as relevant to what I write about on this site.

Chapter five deals with the change of speech from Biblical Hebrew to Mishnaic Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Page 115 deals with borrowing words from other languages, which is much more relevant to Balashon. The second half of the chapter deals with Jewish languages in exile – lots of interesting material that I didn't know previously.

I suppose the most controversial chapter is chapter six - The Language Wars. Here Klein's own views come out more – and while I disagree with them personally, I still think it was helpful to read a detailed summary of what “the other side” thinks.  He does bring some rabbinic sources that support speaking modern Hebrew, but not many (and clearly there are many Religious Zionist ones that did.)

On page 136 of that chapter, he claims that the meanings of some older words were changed in Modern Hebrew with the intent to make them more secular and remove the historic religious sense. This is strange to me, for I have not heard that claim before. I'll need to investigate the examples word for word, and I will try to address them on future posts here. A few I've already discussed – tarbut, bilui, achuz, and reviewing what I wrote there, I don't find evidence of the "ideological secularization of Hebrew terms" that Klein describes.

He continues in chapter six, and quotes the Satmar Rebbe (page 142) as saying that Ben Yehuda died on Shabbat night with a pen in his hand. Klein says that whether or not it’s literally true is irrelevant, Ben Yehuda died an unrepentant sinner. But if he’s already talking about legends, there are other stories as well that emphasize that in response to Rav Kook's prodding, Ben Yehuda repented before his death. I don't find either set of stories particularly moving or significant (and in fact, I believe that Ben Yehuda's legacy should be viewed as secure from a religious standpoint as well, considering how much easier he made it for all Jews in Israel to study traditional texts), but I think more balance would have been appropriate here.

Chapter seven – like chapter five – also deals with foreign influences on Hebrew. I've written about two of the terms he mentions: gematria and afikoman (the ones I haven't written about might serve as future posts here).The actual etymologies are less relevant – even folk etymologies are interesting, for they show how people viewed languages. (We see the same biases with non-rabbinic scholars such as Jastrow, Kohut, etc). He brings examples of rabbis who claim that there are not really foreign words in the Bible, or all words derive from Hebrew, Again, you don't need to accept the approach to find something interesting in seeing how the issue was viewed over time.

The book ends with sections dealing with the religious status of Aramaic and the rabbinic views of the Ktav Ashuri and Ktav Ivri scripts (I personally enjoyed his quote on page 192 of the Rambam's commentary on Mishna Yadayim 4:5, who says that it was called Ashuri (fortunate) because each letter is distinct from each other, unlike the cursive languages where each letter runs into each other, causing confusion. Klein doesn't mention it, but I assume the Rambam was referring to Arabic, and I definitely find myself confused with aspect of the Arabic script).

Judging a book by its cover, I can say that I found the cover design very attractive, and the book's overall layout and typesetting rather pleasing. While the book include a detailed biographical index, I would have appreciated a more traditional index of topics with page numbers.

A book of this nature, in English, is long overdue for the traditional Orthodox reader. I hope it inspires more interest in the history of the Hebrew language.

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modern Hebrew or Modern Hebrew

If you haven't noticed I tend to jump between capitalizing the "m" in the phrase "M/modern Hebrew". In some ways I think that Modern Hebrew should be considered a separate language - certainly compared with Biblical Hebrew. On the other hand, some times I just want to emphasize a word's more recent appearance in the continuum of the language, so I don't capitalize modern.

The regular Google search isn't case sensitive, so I couldn't find results there, but in their Ngram viewer which searches books, you can do that kind of search:

The results are not conclusive. So what do you readers think? Is there some style guide that can help me?

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puzmak, anpila and dardas

After discussing the modern word for sock - גרב gerev, let's take a look at some of the more archaic ones.

In the previous post, we mentioned magafayim מגפיים - leg armor, as found in the Mishna (Shabbat 6:2). The gemara on that mishna (Shabbat 62a) identifies magafayim as puzmekei פזמקי. In this context they also mean leg armor, but in other locations (Shabbat 10a, Shevuot 31a), puzmak פוזמק means fine shoes.

Klein gives the following etymology:

Of Turanian origin. Russian bashmaku  (=shoe), Med. Greek pasmazes and Arabic bashmaqji (=shoemaker) are of the same origin.

Stahl says the word has a Persian origin (Jastrow spells it pageng, but I couldn't find any sources online confirming that) made up of two parts - pa meaning "leg" (and is part of the word pajama) and jang - "to hold", so it was something that holds the leg.

How did it come to mean sock? Stahl says he's not sure, but I'm guessing that it might be due to Rashi's commentary on the gemara, where he identifies puzmak as "anpilaot אנפילאות of iron". What is an anpila אנפילה? It meant a felt shoe or slipper, and comes from the Greek empilion. Klein says that word is

formed from en ( = in) and pilos ( = felt), which is prob. cogn. with L. pilleus ( = felt cap), pilus (=hair).

That's certainly closer to a sock than a metal shoe.

There's one more old fashioned term for a sock - dardas דרדס. Klein said it also originally meant slipper, with Aramaic origins and probably deriving from the root דרס, meaning "to tread". They appear in Talmudic literature  (Yerushalmi Kilayim 9, Bereshit Rabba 100) However, you might be more familiar with dardasim דרדסים as the Hebrew word for The Smurfs. What's the connection between socks and smurfs?

In the book Higiya Zman Lashon, Avshalom Kor interviews Yechiam Padan, who gave the Smurfs their name in Hebrew. Padan says that the name was based on the sock that they wear on their heads. He might have also been influenced by the fact that the original name for the Smurfs in French was "Schtroumpf", which is very similar to the German word "Strumpf" meaning "sock" (although the French creator says that's not where the name came from). But when Kor asked him why he didn't call them the "Puzmakim", he said there was another advantage of the name Dardasim - it recalls two words: dardak דרדק - "young child" and kundas קונדס - "mischief". Perhaps the best proof that it was a good choice for a name is that today no kids in Israel associate the word with its less fun origin.

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magafayim and garbayim

Gita asked if the word for boots - מגפיים magafayim is related to the word for plague - מגפה magefa. Well, Gita, they aren't related. As you noted, magefa comes from the root נגף, meaning "to strike, smite." Magaf מגף (the singular of magafayim) originally meant an armored legging worn by soldiers, and in Modern Hebrew came to mean "boot". Klein says that he's unsure of the origin of the word - it perhaps came from either the root גוף (=to close, shut), or the related root גפף (= to enclose, cling, embrace). These roots do not appear to be related to the word guf גוף - "body" or gaf גף - "back" (the rear part of the human torso). They come from the word gav גב - also meaning back.

That was almost the end of the story, and this would have been a nice quick post. But I was curious as to the earlier meaning of the word magaf, so I found it used in the Mishna (Shabbat 6:2). The mishna is discussing various items that are forbidden to be worn on shabbat, and it mentions magafayim. Kehati (in the English version) defines them as "the high metal boots worn in war", but translates the term as "greaves". I had never heard that word before (and in fact my spell checker right now also doesn't seem to be familiar with it). Well, it does mean "leg armor", and it has its own Wikipedia page, with nice pictures. But what caught my eye, was the etymology. Here's what the Online Etymology Dictionary has to say:

c.1300, from Old French greve "shin, armor for the leg" (12c.), of unknown origin. [Klein suggests it ultimately is from Egyptian Arabic gaurab "stocking, apparel for the leg."]

The Arabic word here looked familiar, and in fact, it is also the origin of the Hebrew word for "sock" - גרב gerev. In his entry for gerev, Klein writes that it is borrowed from the Arabic jawrab (=socks, stocking).

Now who did the borrowing? None other than Eliezer Ben Yehuda, who first used the term in an advertisement in his newspaper HaZvi in 1885. Ben Yehuda commonly used Arabic terms when no Hebrew one was available (although in his dictionary he also quotes the Aramaic word gorba גורבא - a garment for the leg, mentioned in the Halachot Gedolot and Aruch). The origin of the Arabic term is debatable. Some, like Stahl, say that it comes from Persian jorab. Others say that Persian actually borrowed from Arabic as well. In the book Rega Shel Ivrit, Anat Shpitzan writes that we find in the Mishna (Terumot 10:8) the word garav meaning "bottle" or "jar" to hold wine or oil, but also referred to a leather sack used to hold clothes or other items (see Ibn Janach here). From here, apparently, the Arabic word for sock developed, for in Literary Arabic the word also means sack or bag.

The mishna in Terumot vocalized the word as garav (which is how Ben Yehuda also vocalizes it), but since the plural was garbayim, and socks are frequently found in pairs (but not always!) it was easy to assume that the singular was gerev, based on similar singular/plural matches as ערב/ערביים - erev/ arbayim.

The last question remaining about garbayim is - are they masculine or feminine? While today's dictionaries say that it is masculine, there was some debate a few decades ago. Avineri in Yad Halashon (page 99) has an interesting entry, based on articles he wrote from 1946-1950.  He disagrees with Ben Yehuda's spelling of garav and garbayim, for if the singular is garav, the plural should be gerabayim (like כנף/כנפיים). According to Avineri, Ben Yehuda knew that people said garbayim in the plural. He therefore says we should recognize gerev as a new word (not based on the garav) of the mishna, and since it comes from the Aramaic, we can use the pattern of berez ברז coming from birza ברזא and selek סלק coming from silka סלקא.

Once he established that the singular should be gerev, Avineri (after some discussion) concludes that the word should actually be considered feminine, in the same way similar vocalized words are: even אבן, eretz ארץ, beten בטן, etc. Two other reasons he gives for this conclusion are that the word for shoe - naal נעל is feminine (and it would be easier to have both words of the same gender) and that almost everyone both writes and says gerev in the feminine. "Since the usage has both a grammatical and a psychological reason - it should not be forbidden," he writes.

And it seems Avineri knew what he was talking about, since despite the dictionary's decision that gerev is male, there's still a lot of confusion among Hebrew speakers. A great example is this funny story told by my friend Rachel a number of years ago:

For Chanukah, all the parents in my son's gan were asked to send "garbayim lebanot".
My husband and I read the note he brought home and quickly realized that we didn't need to do anything - only the girls needed to bring a pair of socks.
The next day at the gan I was reprimanded for not sending socks with my son to gan - Oh, I quickly realized, all the kids needed to bring in a pair of girl's socks.
So I sent my son to gan with a pair of pretty pink socks with lace around the top.
When I picked him up the next day, I was again reprimanded - "the socks have to be white so they glow in the dark - why did you send pink?"
"Oh garbayim LEVANOT" How was I supposed to know?
I told the story to a friend of mine who is an ulpan teacher, whose son is in the same gan and she said that it was a natural mistake - socks are masculine so they should have asked me to send "garbayim levanim". I'm not sure that this would necessarily have helped me - I would probably have sent a pair of blue tube socks the first day.

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sechvi

Recently, I've been asked by a few people about the Hebrew words for rooster. There are three such words: tarnegol תרנגול, gever גבר and sekhvi שכוי. I've discussed tarnegol here, and Klein writes that a rooster is called a gever because it is a male chicken. But sechvi is a much more complicated word.

Many of us are familiar with the word sechvi from the morning blessings, where we thank God אשר נתן לשכוי בינה להבחין בין יום ובין לילה - "who gave the sechvi understanding to distinguish day from night". In the Koren siddur, Sacks translates sechvi here as "heart", and in the footnotes writes that "this is the translation according to Rabbeinu Asher (Rosh); Rashi and Abudraham read it, 'the cockerel." How did sechvi come to mean either heart or rooster?

The blessing (first mentioned in the Talmud in Berachot 60b) was inspired by a verse in Iyov (38:36), the only time the word sechvi appears in the bible, making it difficult to clarify the meaning. The verse reads:

מִי-שָׁת בַּטֻּחוֹת חָכְמָה    אוֹ מִי-נָתַן לַשֶּׂכְוִי בִינָה

The JPS translates it as "Who put wisdom in the hidden parts? Who gave understanding to the mind [sechvi]?", but in a footnote writes that sechvi could also be translated as "rooster", and concedes that the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.

Klein has an explanation that can answer why these very different terms were the two options for translating the word. He writes:

Of uncertain etymology and meaning. Usually rendered by 'cock', but also by 'mind' or 'understanding'. In the Talmud and the Midrash שכוי [sechvi] is also rendered mostly by תרנגול [tarnegol] (=cock), but in some passages by בינה or בינתא (=understanding). The word שכוי [sechvi] probably derives from the base שכה (=to look, see), from which both meanings can be derived.

The idea that both meanings can come from a root meaning "to see" is found in many sources, both older (such as Radak's Sefer Hashorashim) as well as more modern ones. Kaddari, in his dictionary writes that if the root is Hebrew (שכה), then the meaning is "likeness, vision in the heart" (based on a similar phrase in Tehilim 73:7), but if it comes from the Aramaic root שכא, "to see", then the options of mind, or possibly rooster come to play.

After all this, I think two primary questions remain. The first is, why is the heart associated with vision? I would think that the mind would be better (we think there, and it is adjacent to our eyes), and in fact we've seen that some translations offer "the mind". But why do others say "the heart"? For this, I highly recommend reading this set of articles about the word lev לב by Ethan Dor-Shav (a four part series, appearing in reverse chronological order). He points out that:

Though the Ancient Hebrew word lev is normally translated as “heart” (like its modern use), not once - in over 850 biblical appearances - does it mean the physical blood-pump muscle. While other body parts are dissected, for instance, in sacrificial animals ("Take the fat of the ram, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the fatty lobe attached to the liver, the two kidneys and the fat on them, and the right thigh..." Exodus 29:22), an anatomical organ called "heart" is nowhere to be found. Likewise, contrary to what we would expect from the anatomical heart, lev is never associated with blood! At most it is used to depict the chest (where the high priest's breastplate was placed, Absalom was stabbed, and Jehoram got shot through. See entry in Encyclopaedia Biblica, The Bialic Institute). Hosea, too, talks about the whole ribcage as a "heart-cage," or - read much more aptly - the "breastcage" (13:8). That is as close as it gets.

I did a very simplistic search of Talmudic literature, using Jastrow's dictionary, and while the results are clearly not comprehensive, he also does not give any examples where the Talmud or Midrashim use lev or levav לבב as referring to the physical organ. Dor-Shav instead proves that the lev is viewed as the seat of wisdom and understanding - what we would call "the mind". Again, please read his posts, and I think you will also be convinced that at least biblically, lev has all the functions of the mind, and so vision and understanding can easily be associated with it. Clearly, that isn't as much the case in English, so translating sechvi as "heart" can be a little confusing, but it is faithful to the original Hebrew.

My other question is, of all birds, why is the rooster associated with wisdom? And if we follow the expansion of the idea in the morning blessing - how hard is it really to see the difference between day and night?

Ben Yehuda in his dictionary (although since it is in the footnotes, probably Tur-Sinai) discusses this question. He suggests that if sechvi does refer to a bird, perhaps the original meaning was not a rooster, but rather a bird of prey. Hawks are associated with wisdom (Iyov 39:26) as well as eagles/vultures in Mishlei 23:4-5. Certainly if sechvi referred to them, the connection to vision would make sense, as they can see great distances when searching for food.

Daat Mikra on Iyov 38:36 quotes Feliks as writing (based on Gittin 68b) that the wild chicken was likely the duchifat דוכיפת - the hoopoe (now the national bird of Israel), and was known for its wisdom. Wisdom was also associated with the ability to fly - something certainly lacking from today's chickens.

The rabbis mention in a number of locations (Vayikra Rabba 19:24, Yerushalmi Berachot 9:2) that people called the rooster a sechvi. Ben Yehuda suggests that perhaps this was simply a linguistic observation, maybe underlying the fact that a sechvi isn't technically a rooster. However, as we often see, in language, common usage wins out.

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hachlata

Bernard asked me about the etymology of the Hebrew word for decision - החלטה hachlata. This is actually kind of tricky.

The word itself is from Modern Hebrew, but the root חלט is biblical. The difficulty, however, is that the root only appears once in the Tanach - in Melachim I 20:33 - and the meaning there is not clear. The verse is describing a conversation between the king of Israel and the servants of the king of Aram. In response to a question from the king of Israel, it is written about the servants

   וְהָאֲנָשִׁים יְנַחֲשׁוּ וַיְמַהֲרוּ וַיַּחְלְטוּ הֲמִמֶּנּוּ 

The JPS translates this as: "The men divined his meaning and quickly caught the word from him [ויחלטו]". They translate the root חלט here (in the kal form - vayachletu, unlike the hifil form we use in modern Hebrew) as "caught". This fits the Aramaic translations of the verse, who use the verb חטף - "to seize". Kaddari suggest that perhaps the verb means "to accept as certain". Daat Mikra on the verse quotes Rashi, who says that they wanted to make what the king said permanent, so they "cut off his words", so he could not change his mind. Rashi's word for permanent is tzmitut צמיתות, which he derives from Vayikra 25:23. There Onkelos translates לצמיתות latzmitut as לחלוטין lachalutin. and Ibn Ezra says the that the root צמת also means "to cut off" (as also found in Tehilim 94:23). So if we accept this meaning of the root, then there is a similar development to the English words "decide" and "decision", which also come from a root meaning "to cut off" (found also in such words as excise, circumcise, and incision).

In post-biblical Hebrew we see the root חלט used more frequently, meaning "to decide", but also "determined", or "absolute", as in the expression lechalutin or the synonymous phrase from the same root - muchlat מוחלט. In Modern Hebrew we also have the expression be'hechlet בהחלט - "certainly, without doubt".

An unrelated root also spelled חלט means "to mix, knead with hot water." In the Talmud we find this verb used to describe mixing boiling water with flour to make dough, or mixing food with vinegar to preserve it. Today it the word is primarily used to describe making tea - chalita חליטה is a tea infusion. 

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am and amum

Sarah asked if there's a connection between the word am עם - nation, and the root עמם, as found in the word amum עמום, meaning "dim" or "dark".

While they look similar, they're not related. As I quoted from Horowitz in the discussion about the letter ayin:

Ancient Hebrew had two different ayin sounds. These sounds were represented in our alphabet by the letter ayin. One was a harsh, heavy ayin. This is now lost, and no longer used in Hebrew. The other was a soft, mild ayin. When the Greek Jews translated the Bible into Greek, they had to transliterate Hebrew names having the harsh ayin in it. They used the Greek letter gamma for it - so you can imagine how hard a sound it must have been.

So we can see from Klein's etymology of the two words that they each come from a different "ayin".

Regarding the root עמם meaning dark or dim, Klein writes that it is cognate with the Arabic ghamma, meaning "he covered, veiled, concealed."

As far as am, Klein says it comes from a distinct root עמם, meaning "to join, connect", and is cognate with the Arabic verb 'amma. Am meant "those united" or "those related". A related word is im עם - meaning "together with".

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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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