mesubin

I had thought of writing a post on mesubin over two years ago - when I started this site. We are all familiar with the fourth question at the Seder:

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין בֵּין יוֹשְבִין וּבֵין מְסוּבִּין, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כּוּלָנוּ מְסוּבִּין.

This is generally translated as "On all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night, we all recline." However, I recalled hearing or reading an explanation that said that mesubin in this case might mean "gathered around" and not "reclining".

So for two years this sat in my queue, until this year. And in the spirit of of the Haggadah, I decided to ask a question of my own: What was the original meaning of mesubin and when did it come to mean reclining? I asked this question of many experts - some regular readers of this site, others well known researchers. While I can't thank them all individually here - I would like to express my appreciation for all of their help.

So let's start explaining the term mesubin - מסובין (I'll discuss the vowelization of the word, with couple of alternatives at the end of the post.) I will review in parallel both the meaning of the word, and the practice of reclining.

Biblical Period: The root of the word mesubin is סבב, which appears frequently in Biblical Hebrew. However, it almost always means "surround, encircle, turn around." There are only two verses where it might be related to dining. One is Shir HaShirim 1:12 - עַד-שֶׁהַמֶּלֶךְ, בִּמְסִבּוֹ. While most translations have "while the king was at his table", Kaddari says it means "at his circle."

The other verse is from Shmuel I, and might be able to teach us more about the origin of the word. In chapter 16, the prophet Shmuel is visiting the family of Yishai, looking for the future king. The family is reluctant to bring the youngest brother, David, but Shmuel insists that they bring him. In verse 11, he says to bring David - כִּי לֹא-נָסֹב עַד-בֹּאוֹ פֹה. There are commentaries that explain this verse as "we will not continue (i.e. turn away) until he comes." But most translations offer "we will not sit down to eat until he comes". On the assumption that they were not going to be reclining on beds (as we will see shortly), the literal meaning would have been "sit around the table to eat". The association with reclining developed later.

Did they recline at meals in Biblical times? First of all, it is important to understand that the reclining we are discussing is not the leaning that we do today at the Seder. To eat while reclining meant reclining on a bed, with a small table below the bed for each diner. (Some pictures of this can be seen here.) However, as Meir Ish-Shalom points out in his commentary on the Haggadah Meir Ayin, the ideal images of dining in the Tanach involved all the participants in the meal sitting around one table:

בָּנֶיךָ, כִּשְׁתִלֵי זֵיתִים-- סָבִיב, לְשֻׁלְחָנֶךָ. - "Your sons, like olive saplings around your table" (Tehillim 128:3)

טָבְחָה טִבְחָהּ, מָסְכָה יֵינָהּ; אַף, עָרְכָה שֻׁלְחָנָהּ. - "She has prepared the feast, mixed the wine, and also set the table" (Mishlei 9:2)

The earliest examples of reclining at a meal are from the book of Amos. However, the practice is viewed as decadent and is highly criticized by the prophet:

וְעַל-בְּגָדִים חֲבֻלִים יַטּוּ, אֵצֶל כָּל-מִזְבֵּחַ; וְיֵין עֲנוּשִׁים יִשְׁתּוּ, בֵּית אֱלֹהֵיהֶם - "They recline by every altar on garments taken in pledge, and drink wine bought with fines they imposed, in the house of their god " (2:8)

הַשֹּׁכְבִים עַל-מִטּוֹת שֵׁן, וּסְרֻחִים עַל-עַרְשׂוֹתָם; וְאֹכְלִים כָּרִים מִצֹּאן, וַעֲגָלִים מִתּוֹךְ מַרְבֵּק - "They lie on ivory beds, lolling on their couches, feasting on lambs from the flock and on calves from the stalls".

The prophet Yechezkel also criticizes the practice: וְיָשַׁבְתְּ עַל-מִטָּה כְבוּדָּה, וְשֻׁלְחָן עָרוּךְ לְפָנֶיהָ - "you sat on a grand couch with a set table in front of it" (23:41).

By the time we get to the book of Esther, the practice was viewed more neutrally, and we find Esther reclining on a bed: וְהָמָן נֹפֵל עַל-הַמִּטָּה אֲשֶׁר אֶסְתֵּר עָלֶיהָ - "Haman fell on the bed where Esther reclined" (7:8). In fact, Ish-Shalom claims that the common practice of reclining at meals began during the Persian period, and from Persia spread to Greece and Rome.

Post Biblical Period: In the Book of Ben-Sira (9:11) we first find the certain association of סבב and reclining. (Segal says that perhaps here it is already in the hif'il form, which is the form we are familiar with - mesubin and haseiba.) Guggenheimer quotes 41:19 - "With a married woman do not lie on the elbow, and do not lie on a couch- אל תסב עמה- with her mixing drinks." Based on the verse from Shmuel above, we can say that perhaps the meaning changed from "sit around and eat" to "recline and eat" - because that was the common way of eating. Another possibility is that the root סבב developed from "revolve", to "rotate", to "recline".

Period of the Mishna: By Greek and Roman times, reclining was the only proper way for free people to eat (primarily men for the Greeks, with the Romans we also find women reclining more). The Targumim (Onkelos and Yonatan) translated nearly every verse which included sitting and eating with the Aramaic root סחר - by which they meant "reclining", which was the practice when the Targumim were composed. (The exception that Ish-Shalom brings is Yechezkel 44:3, since it refers to sitting and eating before God, where reclining would not have been respectful). This root is identical with סבב - both mean "to turn, surround". However, it is not clear to me that the root סחר independently means "to recline" in Aramaic. I have only found its use in translations, and it seems to me they were perhaps trying to use a word that was similar to סבב. Rav Hai Gaon on Brachot 42b (mentioned also in the Arukh, as well as a number of Rishonim) uses the translations of Onkelos on Bereshit 37:25 and 43:33 as proof that the Hebrew word mesubin originally meant "to sit around the bread". He doesn't mention reclining at all.

There was a rather elaborate method of proper dining that involved reclining. From here we get the word mesiba מסיבה - a festive meal which naturally included reclining. This type of meal is referred to in the Mishna in Pirkei Avot (4:21):

רבי יעקוב אומר, העולם הזה דומה לפרוזדוד בפני העולם הבא; התקן עצמך בפרוזדוד, כדי שתיכנס לטרקלין.

"Rabbi Yaakov said: This world is like a vestibule before the world to come; prepare yourself in the vestibule that you may enter the banquet hall [traklin]". The word traklin, which in some manuscripts is spelled טריקלין - triklin, comes from the Latin triclinium and Greek triklinion - "a dining room with three couches". The Tosefta (Brachot 4:8) explains more about what happened before entering the triclinium:

כיצד סדר הסעודה אורחין נכנסין ויושבין על גבי ספסלים וע"ג קתדראות עד שיכנסו כולן נכנסו כולן ונתנו להם לידים כל אחד ואחד נוטל ידו אחת מזגו להם את הכוס אחד ואחד מברך לעצמו הביאו להם פרפריות כל אחד ואחד מברך לעצמו עלו והסיבו נתנו להם לידים אע"פ שנוטל ידו אחת נותן לשתי ידיו מזגו להם את הכוס אע"פ שבירך על הראשונה מברך על השניה הביאו לפניהם פרפריות אע"פ שבירך על הראשונה מברך על השניה ואחד מברך לכולן [הביאו לאחד] שלש פרפריות אין [לו] רשות ליכנס

What is the order of the meal? The guests enter [the house] and sit on benches, and on chairs until all have entered. They all enter and they [servants] give them water for their hands. Each one washes one hand. They [servants] pour for them the cup; each one says the blessing for himself. They [servants] bring them the appetizers; each one says the blessing for himself. They [guests] go up [to the dining room] and they recline, for they [servants] give them [water] for their hands; although they have washed one hand, they now wash both hands. They [servants] pour for them the cup; although they have said the blessing over the first cup, they say a blessing also over the second. They [servants] bring them the dessert; although they said a blessing over the first one, they now say the blessing over the second, and one says the blessing for all of them. He who comes after the third course has no right to enter.

This Tosefta can help us understand the first Mishna of the tenth chapter of Pesachim. It says there:

ערב פסחים סמוך למנחה, לא יאכל אדם עד שתחשך. אפילו עני שבישראל, לא יאכל עד שיסב

"Pesach eve close to mincha, one may not eat until it becomes dark. And even a poor person in Israel may not eat unless he reclines."

The above translation is from the English Kehati, and it reflects the common understanding of the Mishna. But Tabori in his book Pesach Dorot, has a different understanding, in light of the above Tosefta. Since reclining was practiced at every meal, there didn't need to be a specific instruction to do so at the Seder. Rather the Mishna was telling the participants that they could not eat until (not unless) they recline. There could be no appetizers before the Seder meal as there were in other meals throughout the year.

Talmudic Period: In the times of the Amoraim, particularly in Bavel, reclining at meals was no longer the norm, but only an elite few practiced it. Haseiba had previously represented an established meal (unlike "casual" sitting). That status had been replaced by the significance of a number of diners sitting around one table (which indicated a communal meal). So the Amoraim interpreted the mishna in Pesachim to mean that reclining was an obligation in and of itself, because it represented a sign of freedom and high status. From here we get the halachic discussion about which parts of the seder require haseiva.

Geonim: By now reclining was so uncommon in ordinary meals, that it was regulated to the Seder. This was the time when the fourth question was formulated: "On all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night, we all recline." (Ironically, they didn't really recline any other nights, but then again, they didn't probably eat much matza other nights of the year as well.) As the Vilna Gaon pointed out - that question was not included in the Mishna, since reclining was the common way of eating at that time. (Rav Kasher in the Haggadah Shleimah p. 115-6 has an entirely different approach, which Goldschmidt challenges in his Haggadah - p. 13, note 18).

Rishonim: By this point, reclining was viewed as so foreign that a number of Rishonim suggested dropping it from the Seder altogether, as it no longer even represented freedom or high status. However, due to the fact that the "strange" behavior could encourage children to ask questions, haseiva is still widely practiced today.

Modern Hebrew: We seem to have returned to our Biblical roots. Today mesubim מסובים means "diners, participants in a meal", and a mesiba means "party" with no reclining necessary. Perhaps even a better use of mesiba would be mesibat itonaim מסיבת עתונאים - "press conference", which describes a gathering where people are surrounding the speaker.

A note about the pronunciation: The early acharon R' Shabtai Sofer, quoting R' Yosef Kimchi (the father of the Radak) writes that the word מסבין should be pronounced musabin - like the מוּסַבֹּת that appears in Bamidbar 32:38. He claims that the common vowelization mesubin is likely a scribal error.

However, the Teimanim spell the word meisabin, as described here:

In the "Mah Nishtanah" in some Yemenite Haggadah texts the two forms messubin (מְסוּבִּין) and meissabin (מֵיסַבִּין) both appear in the following sequence: "bein yoshvim uvein m'ssubin" בין יושבין ובין מסובין (whether sitting or reclining), "wahalaylah hazeh kulanu meissabin" והלילה הזה כלנו מיסבין (but this night we all recline). In other texts the form m'ssubin appears twice as it does in the versions of Rav Sa'adiah Gaon and Maimonides. One Yemenite scholar - Rabbi Yechiya Bashiri who lived in the 16th century - saw this differentiation in form as a definite semantic difference, as well. He noted: "m'ssubin" (מסובין) – "they assembled, and "meisabin" (מיסבין) - in the sense of "reclining," since it was the custom of the sons of the kings to recline on their left sides. This Yemenite scholar interpreted "m'ssubin" (מְסוּבִּין) to mean "coming together," and "meisabin" מֵיסַבִּין as "reclining" (from the Hebrew "hasibah"הַסִּיבָּה ), or sitting at the table in a slightly reclined position, in the manner of a free man.

Both of the forms in question come from the root samoch - bet - bet סבב in the "hiphil" construction. The form m'ssubin מסובין should have been m'ssibin מסיבין (as in the root qof - lamed – lamedקלל : meikelמיקל / m'kilimמקילים ) How then did the form m'ssubin actually come into being? What we have here is a distinctive linguistic - phonetic phenomenon called assimilation, accordingly the chirak (ִ) in the letter samoch (ס) becomes a "u" sound in order to assimilate to the labial consonant which follows it immediately [ב=bet]: missibin > m'ssubin.

The form meisabin (מֵיסַבִּין) which is found in the Yemenite Haggadah may possibly be explained as another example of the preservation of a basic vowel form, specifically, the vowelized singular from meisav מֵיסַב (as it appears in the Yemenite tradition, as opposed to meiseiv מֵיסֵב as it is pronounced by other communities ) was left in its place in the plural form, as well (and not replaced by a shva) thus producing the form meisabin.

Despite the convincing arguments of R' Shabtai Sofer on the one hand, and the Yemenite scholars on the other, Kohut in the Aruch Hashalem justifies the common pronunciation mesubin. He writes that from the term mesiba was derived the single participant mesuba מסובה. The plural of that should be מסוביין mesubayin, but this became assimilated to mesubin.

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karkom and crocus

The last of the Hebrew spices I'll be discussing (for now) is karkom כרכום. It too appears in Shir HaShirim (only once 4:14), and entered Greek (it's mentioned in Homer's Illiad), and then later Latin and English as "crocus":

1398, from L. crocus, from Gk. krokos "saffron, crocus," probably of Sem. origin (cf. Arab kurkum), ult. from Skt. kunkumam. The autumnal crocus (Crocus sativa) was a common source of yellow dye in Roman times, and was perhaps grown in England, where the word existed as O.E. croh, but this form of the word was forgotten by the time the plant was re-introduced in Western Europe by the Crusaders.

However, unlike some of the other spices we've seen, there are those that claim that the word entered Sanskrit from a Semitic language instead of the other way around. For example, Klein writes in his dictionary in his entry on karkom:

Related to Aramaic כרכמא, Syriac כורכמא, Arabic kurkum, Akkadian kurkanu ( = saffron). Old Indian kunku-man (= saffron) is probably a Semitic loan word.

However, not everyone agrees that the karkom should be identified as saffron, i.e. Crocus sativus. Both Steinberg and Kaddari quote Immanuel Low as saying that karkom was Curcuma longa - better known to us as turmeric.

Saffron and turmeric are not closely related botanically (turmeric is actually a kind of ginger), but they are both used to create a yellow color (both for food and as a dye). Saffron is actually the most expensive spice in the world, but turmeric is used as a cheaper substitute. So it is possible that karkom in whatever original language simply meant "yellow". From there it became "crocus" and "curcuma".

We see this in Talmudic Hebrew, where the verb כרכם meant "to be come yellow", and when one's face was נתכרכם - he was embarrassed or angry.

Interestingly, in Modern Hebrew we find both saffron and turmeric with almost the same spelling. Karkom is crocus, and also saffron, although ze'afran זעפרן is more commonly used. Ze'afran is borrowed from the Arabic (as is the English word "saffron"), where it apparently is related to the word asfar - "yellow" (the plant safflower - another saffron substitute - also got its name from this Arabic root). Turmeric in Arabic is kurkum, which now has the same meaning in Hebrew.

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100,000 - thanks!

Just moments ago, Balashon got its 100,000th visitor. Someone (running Firefox on Linux) from Washington University in St. Louis searched for "dugri" on Google, and ended up on Balashon.

When I started this thing, I never quite expected I'd get this far. While it's a pleasure for me to research and write, I know that without the readership here, Balashon would be a very quiet place.
So thanks to all of you! A word-related post should be coming in the next day or so...

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nard

We've discussed some of the other spices in the incense - today we'll discuss נרד - nerd (no, not the cousin of geek). As with kinamon - it also appears in Shir HaShirim, originates in India and gave its name to the same spice in English - in this case "nard" or "spikenard". Klein's entry:

Together with Aramaic נרדא and Akkadian lardu (of same meaning), Hebrew נרד probably derives from Indo-Iranian narda, in Old Latin nadah, nalah ( = reed). Old Latin naladam (= nard), is possibly Sanskritization of Greek nardos. However, according to Manfred Mayrhofer the above Semitic words probably derive from Old Indian naladam.

He writes that the word nartik נרתיק - "sheath" is related:

From narthex, genitive narthekos, which is of uncertain origin. It derives perhaps from Old Indian narda (= reed).

A narthex is also the lobby of a church.

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ohel and ahalan

In the post on aloe, we quoted the theory that the Hebrew ahal אהל derives from the Sanskrit aguruh. This theory seems to be fairly widely accepted. Even Steinberg, who generally strives to find Hebrew origins for Biblical words recognizes it. But he does have some difficulty doing so. This is from his entry in Milon HaTanach (written in the 1890s):

The name in the bible refers to Aquilaria agalacha, a tree from the Thymelaeaceae family that grows in India... Linguists claim that the origin of the name ahal comes from Eastern India, where tree originated, and is called there aghil.

But it is possible that the ancient (Phoenician) traders from Tzur and Tzidon gave the name, because the tree appears to shine like glass, which fits the meaning of the root אהל.

In his entry on the root אהל, he says it means "to shine", and is related to the roots הל and הלל, which have the same meaning. He quotes Iyov 25:5, where יאהיל means "is bright".

From here he connects the root to ohel אוהל meaning "tent". How? Because the white sheets of the tent shine as well.

Reading this now, Steinberg's theory looks rather fanciful, particularly considering no one else seems to agree with any of it. But when the origin of a word is still up for debate, it's not as easy to draw that conclusion. Let's look at another word that is claimed to be related to ohel.

Joel Hoffman, in his Jerusalem Post language column, writes:

[W]hen Israelis greet one another on the streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, it is not shalom or a longer variation of it, but rather the colloquial ahalan that is most often heard.

Ahalan, borrowed directly from Arabic, comes from ahal, one of many words for "family." (The cognate Hebrew word, ohel, means "tent," that is a place where a family lived.) What better greeting could be offered to a weary desert traveler than to be welcomed into the protective shade of a tent or the warm company of family. Indeed, Abraham is known for his generosity in welcoming strangers into his family tent. And though tents are now rare in Israel, the cordial greeting pays homage to a form of ancient hospitality. Some speakers add wasahlan, "and to the plain," perhaps contrasting with, say, rocky mountains, and therefore alluding to a place of comfort. A loose translation of the pair might be, "make yourself at home" and "make yourself comfortable."

Stahl and Even Shoshan both say that Hebrew ohel (tent) and Arabic ahl (family, tribe) are related. Even Shoshan connects it as well to Akkadian alu - city or village. This article notes:

Oppenheim and Reiner indicate that alu had four basic meanings:
"1. city; 2. city as a social organization; 3. village, manor, estate; 4. fort, military strong point" (Assyrian Dictionary, volume 1, part I, 379). In each case, alu refers in some respect to either a sedentary dwelling or sedentary dweller (ibid., 379-390). This may indicate a sedentarized origin for the nonsedentary Hebrew 'ohel.

However, Klein writes that ohel is "usually connected with but probably not related to Arabic 'ahl (= relatives, kin, kinsfolk, adherents, inhabitants, people)." He goes on to write, "compare Egyptian '(a)har(a)" - but I'm not sure what that's supposed to show us.

Kaddari also dismisses a connection. Ben-Yehuda at first says that the Arabic verb ahal means to marry or to welcome someone - i.e. to take them into the tent, and from here 'ahl means "family". But then he goes on to say that the scholar Theodor Nöldeke rejects "any relationship or similarity between the Hebrew ohel and the Arabic 'ahl".

What's interesting here is that Ben Yehuda, Klein and Kaddari don't explain why ohel and ahl aren't related. It could be that if I understood Klein's Egyptian reference or read Noldeke I'd see their proofs. But it could just be that simply because the two words look similar, and one could make a connection - doesn't mean that one should. And that's probably the advice they would have given Steinberg as well...

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tzabar

The Akkadian word for aloe was sibaru, and the related Syriac word was צברא. From these more ancient language the word entered Arabic as sabr. The Arabic word entered Hebrew in the Middle Ages. For example, we find that Ibn Tibbon, in his translation of the Rambam's Shmonah Perakim (Chapter 4) writes that tzabar צבר, in la'az (foreign language) is "aloe".

When the Spanish found the prickly pear cactus in Mexico, they brought it back to the "Old World", and the plant particularly succeeded in spreading in the Mediterranean area. Both this cactus and the aloe are spiky and succulent - and so the Arabs called the new plant sabr as well.

This imported plant interestingly became the nickname for the those Jews born in the Land of Israel. Oz Almog writes in his book, The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew (on page 4):

Ironically, the tzabar, or prickly pear cactus, is not native to Israel. It was introduced from Central America some two hundred years ago, but quickly acclimatized. In fact, it took hold so well in Palestine that it became one of our country's best-known features. Even before it became a symbol for the country's Jewish natives, the tzabar, or "sabra," cactus appeared in paintings, stories and songs of local artists and was cited by visitors as one of the outstanding visual elements of the Palestinian landscape.

The widespread use of the word "Sabra" as a generic term for the generation of native-born Israelis began in the 1930s, but the first glimmerings of a generational term can be seen forty years earlier in the use of the Biblical term "Hebrew".

...

In time - during the 1930s, and even more clearly in the 1940s - "Sabra" changed from a derogatory term to one of endearment. The emphasis was no longer on the cactus's sharp spines but rather on the contrasting sweet pulp of its fruit. This was taken as a metaphor for the native Israeli, whose rough, masculine manner was said to hide a delicate and sensitive soul. The appellation contained another symbolic comparison - just as the prickly pear grew wild on the land, so were the native-born Israelis growing, so it was said, naturally, "without complexes", in their true homeland.

Credit for the transformation of the term "Sabra," now with a modern Hebrew pronunciation, into a generic term for the native-born Israelis was claimed (rightfully, as far as I have been able to discover) by the Journalist Uri Kesari. On 18 April 1931, the newspaper Do'ar HaYom published an essay by Kesari titled "We Are the Leaves of the Sabra!"

In addition to aloe / cactus, in Arabic the root sabr means "patience" Stahl quotes Yitzchak Yehuda as saying that both terms come from the same root, and are cognate to the Biblical Hebrew שבר and Aramaic / later Hebrew סבר - "to see". One who has patience is watching to see what will happen. Another theory that Stahl mentions is that sabar means in Arabic "to bind" and from here "to restrain, to be patient". This would connect sabr to the Hebrew צבר - "to heap up, accumulate". This is the root of the word tzibbur - originally heap, later collection, congregation. Related to the meaning "to bind", is a meaning in Literary Arabic of "to embalm". Embalming was often done with aloe - the English word "embalm" literally means "preserve with spices." This seems like a bit of a stretch to me - the binding was done with bandages, not with aloe, so I don't see how that verb would have given the name to the plant.

In any case, it is certainly ironic that a synonym for "patience" became identified with Israelis. That is not one of the traits they are generally said to be blessed with!

The plant in Modern Hebrew is known both in the singular and plural as "sabres". According to this article by Yoram Meltzer, this suffix comes from Ladino - and we see it in the word burekas as well. In Ladino, the suffix "-es" means plural, but that significance has been lost over the years, and so we hear in Hebrew "burekasim" and "sabresim".

I think I first became familiar with the term "sabra" via the Israeli liqueur. According to this article, in 1963, Edgar Bronfman, the head of Seagrams, felt it was important to have an identifiably Israeli liqueur. Originally, the drink was made from the tzabar fruit. However, this was not successful, so it was changed to the now familiar chocolate-orange.

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almog and coral

[This post is dedicated to the memory of Isaac Meyers, a regular commenter on this site. יהי זכרו ברוך.]

In the previous post, we discussed ahal / aloe. The Yerushalmi (Ketubot end of chapter 7) and Midrash (Bereshit Rabba 15a) identify the aloe tree (agarwood) אלוים - with almugim אלמוגים. This tree appears in Melachim I (10:11) and Divrei HaYamim II (2:7, 9:10) where it is called algom אלגום. It is also variously identified as red sandalwood by Gesenius and others or brazilwood (from where the country Brazil gets its name) by Radak. All of those trees are common to India.

However, in the Babylonian Talmud (Rosh HaShana 23a) it is identified with red coral - the skeleton of a sea animal. This also seems to be the meaning in the Mishna - Kelim 13:8. That is the common usage today.

How did this word come to mean two different things? Which was the first meaning? There are a number of different opinions, many of which use the etymology of the word to help find an answer.

First of all, as Kil points out in the Daat Mikra on Melachim, the Biblical usage cannot be referring to coral, since the almog is described as being used for harps, lyres and ramps - appropriate for wood, not for coral. On the other hand, in Kelim (the Mishna and Tosefta), it mentions that they made beads and rings from almog - which does make sense for coral.

Low identifies the almog with the Akkadian elammakku - a tree mentioned in the Gilgamesh epic. He writes that as building material it was called almog, and when used for incense was called ahal. Kaddari adds that in Ugaritic we find a tree called almg. Greenfield, however, here says that this etymology proves that this was not an Indian tree like the sandalwood, but rather a tree from Lebanon - like the cedar. This works well for the verse in Divrei Hayamim, which has the wood coming from Lebanon, but not for the one from Melachim, where it comes from Ophir, generally identified as India.

A possible solution to this is suggested by the Jewish Encyclopedia:

the simplest solution seems to be that Algum and Almug were originally two different trees—as already suggested by Celsius—which have been confused with one another.

However, most sources say that the letters gimel and mem were simply transposed due to metathesis.

To return to our original question - how due we have one word (or two similar words) for both a kind of tree, and coral?

Stahl writes in Motza HaMilim that a common theory is that both the sandalwood tree and corals share a common reddish color. That, and the tree like shape of the coral (Rashi on Rosh Hashana even calls the coral a "tree"), would seem to indicate that the almog first referred to a tree, and later became identified with coral.

Ben-Yehuda, on the other hand, reverses this theory. He connects the word almog to Latin margarita, Greek margarites and Aramaic marganita מרגניתא meaning "pearl". He suggests the following development:
אלגם, ארגם, ארגן, מרגן

He claims that the tree got its name from having a similar color to the coral. While Ben-Yehuda is in the minority in regards to almog, that does seem to be the case in English: one of the synonyms for the red sandalwood tree is coralwood. In this case certainly coral gave its name to the tree, and not the opposite.

If we're already discussing coral - what is the origin of the English word? The Online Etymology Dictionary provides this etymology:

c.1305, from L. corallium, from Gk. korallion, probably of Sem. origin (cf. Heb. goral "small pebble," Ar. garal "small stone"), originally just the red variety found in the Mediterranean, hence use of the word as a symbol of "red."

Klein writes that the Hebrew goral גורל originally meant "a small stone for casting lots". We find the word used in the Bible in a number of occasions used to determine the outcome of an unclear choice or future - a goral was placed on each of the goats in the Yom Kippur ceremony (Vayikra 16:8) and the Land of Israel was divided among the tribes according to lots (Bamidbar 26:55). (The English word "lot" meaning "plot of land" has the same origin. The word lottery also originally meant "to draw lots". ) From here the word developed into the more general concepts of fate or fortune.

But in perhaps the most famous use of the goral in the Bible, another word was substituted in most of the text. When describing the lot that Haman cast (literally threw the stone), it tells us that pur פור means goral גורל. Pur is an Akkadian word synonymous to goral (not Persian as I mistakenly wrote here. Akkadian was the lingua franca of the Middle East at the time). And of course this is where we get the name of the holiday of Purim.

Happy Purim everyone!

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aloe

My previous post discussed cinnamon / kinamon - a word dating back to biblical times. In Mishlei 7:17, we find kinamon listed with two other spices:

מֹר אֲהָלִים, וְקִנָּמוֹן

The JPS translates this as "myrrh, aloes and cinnamon". We've already discussed mor / myrrh. Let's take a look now at ahal / aloe.

Just as with myrrh and cinnamon, aloe is said to derive from the Hebrew ahal אהל:

O.E. aluwan (pl.) "fragrant resin of an E. Indian tree," a Biblical usage, from L. aloe, from Gk. aloe, translating Heb. ahalim (pl., perhaps ult. from a Dravidian language). The Gk. word probably was chosen for resemblance of sound to the Heb., since the Gk. and L. words originally referred to a genus of plants with bitter juice, used as a purgative drug, a sense which appeared in Eng. 1398. The word was then mis-applied to the American agave plant in 1682.

However, what exactly were the ahalim (and ahalot)? This seems to be a matter of dispute.

In addition to the verse in Mishlei, we find the word ahal three other times. In Tehilim 45:9, we have מֹר-וַאֲהָלוֹת קְצִיעוֹת - "myrrh and aloes and cassia", and in Shir HaShirim 4:14 there is מֹר, וַאֲהָלוֹת, עִם, כָּל-רָאשֵׁי בְשָׂמִים - "myrrh and aloes - all the choice perfumes." The fact that ahal is grouped together here with mor each time, and that all are talking about fragrant trees, leads to a general consensus that these verses are referring to a certain type of tree.

Klein, in his CEDEL, explains that this is the agarwood tree - also known as lignum aloes (thanks Mike G for the lookup):

aloe, n. -- L. aloe [there is long sign over the "e"], fr. Gk. [unaspirated alpha, lambda, omicron with an acute accent, eta], 'aloe', prob. borrowed fr. Heb. ahalim, ahaloth (pl.), wihc are perhaps borrowed fr. OI. agaruh, aguruh [the "h" has a dot under it in both words], 'aloewood', these latter being prob. of Dravidian origin. Cp. agalloch.

agalloch, n. aloewood. -- ModL., agallochum, fr. Gk. agallochon, agalochon [I'm transliterating the Greek here], 'aloe, aloewood', which is prob. a loan word from OI. aguruh [again, a dot under the "h"], 'aloewood'. Cp. eaglewood. Cp. also aloe.

eaglewood, n., agalloch. -- Loan translation of F. bois d'aigle, fr. Port. aguilla, 'aloewood', fr. Gk. agallochon, 'aloe, aloewood'; see agalloch. French bois d'aigle arose from a confusion of Port. aguila, 'aloewood', with Port. aguia, 'eagle'. See eagle.

In Plant Resins: Chemistry, Evolution, Ecology, and Ethnobotany Jean H. Langenheim writes that the related Indian name "gharu wood" derives from "the Sanskrit word connoting the wood's heaviness". An opposite, but related, opinion is mentioned in this article by Wilfred H. Schoff. However, it discusses the resin instead of the wood:

Why now the name agar or agur by which this Eastern resin is generally known in India? The Sanskrit lexicographers give a+guru, 'not heavy'

The root - whether it gave the name meaning "heavy" or "not heavy" - is also the source of the word "guru":

from Hindi guru "teacher, priest," from Skt. guru-s "one to be honored, teacher," lit. "heavy, weighty," from PIE base *gru- (see grave (adj.))

It's not clear to me if the gelatin like material "agar agar" is related to agar. On the one hand, the origin of the word(s) is Malay, but Malay borrowed many words from Sanskrit, so there could be a connection.

The remaining verse - Bamidbar 24:6 - isn't as clear. Here we have Bilaam blessing Israel:

כַּאֲהָלִים נָטַע ה', כַּאֲרָזִים עֲלֵי-מָיִם

"Like aloes planted by the Lord / Like cedars beside the water".

"Aloe" is a fair translation for ahal here as well. And indeed some point out that the parallel to cedars in the second half of the verse should be a tree as well, and therefore the agarwood tree is appropriate (Feliks here). Others (Immanuel Low, as quoted in Feliks and here) point out that unlike the imported spices mentioned in the other three verses, Bilaam was not likely to find agarwood trees in the steppes of Moav. (Of course those who claim that this verse is also talking about agarwood would point out that cedars were not in that exact area as well. They also don't grow "beside the water", so there is clearly poetic imagery here.)

So if ahal isn't referring to agarwood trees - what other aloes could we be talking about?

We find two other plants (not trees) called ahal. One is what most of us think of as aloe - "aloe vera". It is now spelled in Hebrew אלוי - alvay - and it appears in that spelling in Yerushalmi Shviit 35b. According to Klein, this seems to have been borrowed from Greek or Latin back into Hebrew.

The other is the iceplant - which is what Low (and Kaddari) claim Bilaam is referring to. It is mentioned in the Talmud (Shabbat 50b and 90a, although Rashi and Jastrow on 110b say in that case it means aloe vera), where Steinsaltz points out that it contains a significant amount of soda (the Targum on Iyov 9:30 translates lye - בור bor as אהלא ahala) , and was used for soap. They come up in large numbers after the rains, covering the Arava. So according to this theory, Bilaam was comparing the tents (ohalim אוהלים) of Israel to the ahalim covering the plain.

So how did two (or three) such different plants come to share the same name? In 1922, Schoff (linked above) offered a possible explanation. He rejects the Sanskrit etymology of the word ahal. I have some doubts about that, considering how universal that understanding is today. However, he does mention that:

The word 'aloe' seems to be derived from an Arabic root, lawaya, to bend or twist, and could refer to any product obtained by bending or doubling back a growing branch, or otherwise injuring it whereby an excrescence would be produced charged with accumulated and hardened sap.

This makes sense in regards to the medicinal aloe. So perhaps there were two similar words - one Semitic, one from Sanskrit. Both ended up as ahal (in Hebrew) or aloe (in English - eventually). While I have no concrete proof of this, it would certainly help explain some of the confusion found in both biblical and post-biblical sources - let alone the confusion about "aloe" on the internet today...

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cinnamon

A reader asked what the connection is between the English word "cinnamon" and the Hebrew kinamon (or qinamon) קינמון.

Well, the English word comes from the Greek kinnamomon, which in turn was borrowed from the Hebrew / Phoenician. This etymology is rather old - the famous Greek historian Herodotus mentions it here, in discussing spices from Arabia:

Still more wonderful is the mode in which they collect the cinnamon. Where the wood grows, and what country produces it, they cannot tell- only some, following probability, relate that it comes from the country in which Bacchus was brought up. Great birds, they say, bring the sticks which we Greeks, taking the word from the Phoenicians, call cinnamon, and carry them up into the air to make their nests.

I had assumed that Hebrew and Phoenician were similar enough to simply share the word kinamon. However, Philologos writes that the Phoenicians probably borrowed the word from Hebrew:

The Greeks indeed had no clear idea of what the source of cinnamon was. Herodotus, according to whom the Greek word kinnamomon was borrowed from Phoenician traders, knew only that the latter purchased it from “the Arabians,” who “do not know where it comes from and what country produces it.” In the same breath, however, he then fancifully related that these same “Arabians,” by whom he presumably meant the Nabateans living in what is today Israel’s Negev and southern Jordan, collected the spice from the nests of large carrion-eating birds built of cinnamon bark and mud on “mountain precipices… which no man can climb.”
...


Phoenician, the West Semitic language of the seafaring peoples living along the Mediterranean coast north of Palestine, was closely related to Hebrew, and since Hebrew kinnamon occurs in the Bible while no parallel Phoenician text has survived, Hebrew is commonly given as the word’s source. Indeed, since cinnamon probably reached the Phoenicians from the Nabateans via a land route crossing Palestine, it is just as likely that the word entered Phoenician from Hebrew as the other way around.

So now the question needs to be asked: Where did the Hebrew word kinamon come from? Klein curtly notes that it is a "word of foreign origin".

One etymology mentioned here, suggests that:

English cinnamon, German Zimt, Lithuanian cinamonas, Belarusian cynamon [цынамон], Serbocroatian cimet [цимет], Yiddish tsimering [צימערינג] and Armenian ginamon [կինամոն] all derive from Latin cinnamomum, which was in turn a loan from Greek kinnamomon [κιννάμωμον]. The Greek had borrowed the word from a Semitic tongue, cf. Old Hebrew kinamom [קנמון] and Aramaic qunimun [ܩܘܢܝܡܘܢ]. However, these words can hardly be native Semitic, and their further origin is not known; it has been suggested that they ultimately stem from early Malaysian language and are thus related to modern Indonesian kayu manis “sweet wood” (although this is a problematic assumption).

The Malaysian origin is supposedly mentioned in the BDB - unfortunately, I no longer have access to that book. Can anyone confirm?

In the article I quoted above, Philologos rejects this theory:

For one thing, cinnamon, which is prepared from the bark of the young branches of an Asiatic tree, seems to have reached the Mediterranean world in ancient times not from Malaysia or Malay-speaking Indonesia but rather from China, in which it was known as kwei, and Sri Lanka, in whose native Singhalese language it is called kurundu. And for another thing, no other Eastern or Central Asian language listed by Katzer has a word resembling either kayu manis or “cinnamon” — which is qurfa in Arabic, darchin in Persian, durusita in Sanskrit, tuj in Gujarati, ilavangam in Tamil, op cheuy in Thai, chek tum phka loeng in Khmer, yuhk gwai in Cantonese, rou gui in Mandarin and so on. Even if the ancient Greeks had gotten their cinnamon from Malay speakers, it would have had to pass through many other hands on its way to them; how, then, would a Malay word for “cinnamon” have reached them without leaving its imprint anywhere else?

That makes sense to me, and in fact, most sources that quote the Malaysian theory go on to reject it.

In the end of the article, Philologos (can I call you Phil?) sticks with his theory that "our English word 'cinnamon' can be etymologically traced back no further than Hebrew kinamon."

However, I think that one of the points he made could actually help us find an earlier source. He mentioned that cinnamon originated in China. Kaddari writes that Loew (Die Flora der Juden II:107) rejects the suggestion that kinamon derived from the root קנה (reed) or קנמ as suggested by Delitzsch (as well as Jastrow and Gesenius.) Instead, he feels that the word refers to China - "Kina" in Hungarian (Wikipedia points out that it is so spelled in many Northern and Eastern European languages - Swedish, Norwegian, Hungarian, Danish, Bosnian, Serbian etc.)

I don't have access to Loew's works and couldn't read them in their original German even if I did. (If anyone out there can do both - please tell me!). But I'm guessing that he was influenced by this article by W. Desborough Cooley from 1849.

Cooley discusses the Chinese origin of the spice:

But we cannot suppose the Chinese to have been equally heedless of the riches scattered by nature over their hills, or remiss in turning such advantages to account; and indeed there is good reason for presuming that they were the earliest dealers in this spice. The Persian name for cinnamon is Darchini, which signifies Chinese wood; and as this name has been adopted in the languages of India with little or no change, it is evident that the article so called arrived in the latter country by the overland route, or through Persia.

He then goes on to take apart suggested etymologies (some of which we've seen before):

The Hebrew word kinamon is said by some to be derived from the Arabic verb kanima, to have a strong or foul smell - a derivation the flagrant absurdity of which is inconsistent with the fundamental laws of language.


...


But again, we are told that cinnamomum is derived from the Malayan kashiomanis, which signifies sweet wood. Now, to say nothing of the torture and mutilation necessary to change the latter word into the former, what can be more ridiculous than to seek the derivation of a word used on the shores of the Mediterranean 3000 years ago, in the Malayan, which we know only as a modern language ? Or how did this solitary Malayan term find its may into Phoenicia, without leaving a trace of its passage through India, Persia, or Arabia?


...


Cinnamomum. cardamomum and costamomum are apparently compound words, denoting so many species of amomum ... With respect to the first syllable of this name, Dr. Vincent supposed it to he derived from keneh (קנה), a cane, pipe, or tube, as if kinamomum signified pipe-amomum. But to this it may be objected, that the name in question, to whatever language it belongs, ought to serve the ends of language, by marking distinctly the object so named, but cinnamon appears to have been brought to market in early times in unpeeled twigs; and if, on the other hand, it were peeled off, then it had the rolled and tubular form in common with
cassia, so that in neither case could it have been appropriately called pipe-amomum.


...


An ingenious, and by no means unlikely, explanation of the fables in which the origin of cinnamon was involved by the early Greek writers, who relate that it was taken from the nests of birds, which had collected it in unknown regions, is suggested by Bochart. He supposes that the Greeks were deceived by some popular Phoenician etymology playing on the word קנן (kinnen), to build a nest. The fable, in short, originated in a quasi derivation, and proves at once the antiquity of the word, and the foreign origin of its first and disputed element.

And then he offers what he believes to be the most convincing etymology:

The only explanation then of the word cinnamon which does not savour of arbitrary etymological fancies, and which accords strictly with the principles regulating the formation of words, is that which considers it as meaning simply Chinese amomum or spice, and thus differing only by a slight and natural modification from the Persian name darchini, under which the spice in question was probably received by the Hebrews and Phoenicians.

While it might seem far to get from China to the Land of Israel, it should be noted that the word kinamon appears only three times in the Bible. Once (Shmot 30:23), is referring one of the spices in the incense, that was used in the Temple. The other two quotes - Shir HaShirim 4:14 and Mishlei 7:17 - are both from books attributed to Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon), who was certainly known for trading with distant lands...

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heichal, adrichal and tarnegol

I recently found a post on a Hebrew blog that connected a few words that I had thought of writing about separately.

The blogger Ilan here writes about heichal היכל, adrichal אדריכל and tarnegol תרנגול. What do these words have in common? They all derive from the ancient language Sumerian and share a common root.

Let's take a look at each of the words.

Heichal appears numerous times in the Bible, where it refers to either a palace or the Temple. Klein gives the following etymology:

Probably a loan word from Akkadian ekallu ( = palace), whence also Phoenician הכל, Biblical Aramaic and Aramaic היכלא, Syriac היכלא, Mandaic היכלא, Ugaritic hkl ( = palace, temple). Arabic haykal ( = church) is probably an Aramaic loan word. Akkadian ekallu is probably a loan word from Sumerian e-gal ( = great house).

Adrichal in Modern Hebrew means "architect", and first appears in the Talmudic literature. However, it also appears there as ardichal ארדיכל, and most sources say that is the original form. The etymology of this form, according to Even-Shoshan is from the Akkadian erad-ekaly. This means "worker of the heichal" - and as we just noted, heichal is originally Sumerian. Ilan points out that originally the adrichal was the builder, not the architect. Erad here is related to the Akkadian word aradu - "to serve" and ardu - "slave". This appears to be cognate with the Hebrew root ירד - "to descend", and relates to the lower, subjugated status of the slave.

And lastly we have tarnegol - "rooster". Klein writes that the word is "borrowed from Akkadian tar lugallu" which is in turn borrowed from "Sumerian tar lugal (=bird of the king)." Lugal meant king in Sumerian, and it was made up of two parts - lu (man) and gal (great, as we saw in heichal).

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koh-i-noor

In my post about pinkas, I showed an example of an Israeli notepad. If you noticed, the picture said "Kohinor". When I first came to Israel, those notepads were so common, that the name brand became almost generic, like Xerox or Kleenex (the term for this is apparently synecdoche).

I realize now that Kohinor is the product of Machberet Millenium of Holon. But they got the name from the famous Koh-I-Noor diamond of India. I was curious about the origin of the name, so I emailed my friend Mike Gerver, who is lucky to possess Ernest Klein's other dictionary, the CEDEL - Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Mike sent me the following entry:

Pers. koh-i-nur [with a long mark over the o and the u], lit. 'mountain of light', prop. a hybrid coined fr. Pers. koh, 'mountain', which is rel. to Pers. kohe, 'hump', OPers. kaofa-, 'mountain, hump', and fr. Arab. nur, 'light'.

It was clear to me that Arabic nur was related to the Hebrew נר ner - "candle". But I was curious - could the kaofa have a cognate in some Hebrew word. Over time Hebrew has borrowed words from Persian, so who knows?

Well, I didn't find any Persian related words in Hebrew, but Persian is one of the Indo-European languages, so I dug a little further. In Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Eric Partridge, he connects the English word "heap" to Sanskrit "kaofa", meaning "mountain (a great heap)". Partridge also says that "heap" is related to "hive", for which he gives the following etymology:

Hive comes, through ME hive, earlier hyve and huive, from OE hyf, akin to ON hufr, a ship's hull, Lith kuopa, a heap, L cupa, a tub or cask, Greek kupe, cavity, kupellon, a beaker, Skt kupas, cavity, pit, hollow, and kupika, a small jug; IE r, prob *keu-, extn *keup-, with basic sense 'a curving or an arching'

He then goes on to mention many words related to this root: coop, hip, cubit, incubate, concubine, succumb, cubicle, cube. The American Heritage Dictionary entry for this root adds church, excavate, cumulus.

There are some very interesting words there, but aside from some cases where Hebrew clearly borrowed from an Indo-European language, there wasn't much to write about.

Now before I go on, let me tell you something else about Mike. Besides our common interest in etymology, we both are very involved in genealogy. The two fields aren't all that different - they both deal with exploring roots, with a hope to get a better understanding of our past, and our present.

Long before I started my blog, Mike wrote an essay called "Distant Cousins", where he discusses "Hebrew and English Words with Common Origins". This is not Edenics (or its predecessor Adamics). Mike shows how some Hebrew words have IE origins (and are therefore related to English), some English words have Semitic origins (and therefore have Hebrew cognates), and some words aren't related at all (even when we might think they are).

The comparison to genealogy is obvious, if only from the title. And just as in genealogy you try to go back as far as possible, so does this essay. One of the theories he discusses there is that of the Nostratic Languages. This is something I haven't discussed on my blog until now, mostly because it doesn't have the level of certainty that I, as an amateur linguist, am comfortable with. The basic idea is that the Semitic languages and Indo-European languages may have a common ancestor for some roots.

One particular case where this seems to be the case may be our root *keu / *keup. Here's the entry in "Distant Cousins":

Cove and גבא
Nostratic root #87, gop‘a “hollow” or “empty,” has cognates in Indo-European geup, “hollow,” or “hole,” and in Afroasiatic gwb or gwp, “hollow,” or “empty.” An Altaic cognate is Mongolian gobi, “desert,” source of the place name Gobi Desert. Hebrew cognates to Afroasiatic gwb and gwp include גבא, “cistern,” גבה, “collect,” גוב, “dig,” גופה, “body,” גויה, “body,” and possibly קוה, “collect,” although that might belong instead with Nostratic root #190, see below. The Hebrew root גבה is the source of גובה, “collector of funds,” hence my family name Gerver (originally Goiva), as well as גבי, “gabbai,” גוב, “swarm of locusts,” and הגב, “locust,” since locusts come in large collections. גוב meaning “dig” is the root of גב, “cistern” or “trench,” as in the place name Ein Gev. גויה is possibly the source of גוי, “nation,” according to Klein, hence, via Yiddish, goy, “non-Jew.” קוה, “collect,” is the root of מקוה, “mikvah,” a collection of water.
Indo-European geup is the source of cove, via Anglo-Saxon, cubby via Dutch, and cobalt (from kobold, “house ruler,” then “household god,” then “underground goblin,” then an undesired metal found in iron ore and believed to have been put there by an underground goblin), via Middle High German. Watkins links this root with other Germanic roots beginning with ku (equivalent to geu in Indo-European), with meanings related to “hollow space or place, surrounding object, round object, or lump,” with numerous English derivatives.
If, as Watkins suggests, the “concave” words from this Indo-European root are related to other words with “convex” meanings, then perhaps the Nostratic root is related to Nostratic root #92, gupA (there are two dots above the u), meaning “bent” or “curved.” Although this root does not have any English derivatives from its Indo-European cognate gheub, “bent,” “curved,” or “crooked,” it has several Hebrew words which derive from its Afroasiatic cognate g(w)b, meaning “bent,” “curved,” or “bulging.” These include גבב, “heap up,” and its derivative גב, “back” (of the body), גבוה, “high,” גבן, “hunchback,” which is the root of גבינה, “cheese,” made by coagulating and contracting milk, גבעה, “hill,” גביע, “cup,” maybe גבול, “boundary,” because a boundary is curved, and maybe גבר, “strong,” if it originally meant “bulging.”
It is also tempting to connect these Nostratic roots with Nostratic root #243, the source of Indo-European keub or keup, meaning “bend,” “curved,” “round,” “arching,” or “hollow,” with many English derivatives, although that Nostratic root has no Afroasiatic cognate listed. The English derivatives listed by Watkins for Indo-European keub include cube, from Greek kybos, although Klein and Partridge both consider kybos to be a probable Semitic loan word.

I've written earlier about the connection between כף and גב - and just as there I see a strong case to connect the roots meaning "bent", I'm inclined to see a connection between the IE and Semitic roots having the same meaning.

About "cube", Mike writes:

Cube and כעבה
English cube comes, via French and Latin, from Greek kybos, which, according to Klein, is a Semitic loan word, cognate to Arabic ka‘aba, “square house,” which refers as a proper noun to the black stone which Muslims visit as part of their pilgrimage to Mecca, and Arabic ka‘ab, “cube.” Hebrew כעבה, referring to the stone in Mecca, is a loan word from Arabic, not a cognate to the Arabic word from proto-Semitic.

Let's return to the genealogy parallel. Often people will tell me "How can you not say that Hebrew word X and English word Y aren't related - they look so similar!" Well, in genealogy, I can't simply say I'm related to someone even if they look exactly like me. I need to go back to the roots, and even there, I need evidence. For example, in my research of my Paglin branch of the family from the town of Skaudville, Lithuania, I've found two families. Both have the same last name, come from the same town, and both are Levites. But even then I can't say they're related. Maybe for some external reason they took the same last name?

Same case here. Let's look at three words that many would guess are related: cave, cove and alcove. They look similar, and have similar meanings:

cave - A hollow or natural passage under or into the earth
cove - A recess or small valley in the side of a mountain.
alcove - A recess or partly enclosed extension connected to or forming part of a room

(the above definitions from www.answers.com)

Now let's look at the etymologies:

cave - c.1220, from O.Fr. cave "a cave," from L. cavea "hollow" (place), neut. plural of adj. cavus "hollow," from PIE base *keu- "a swelling, arch, cavity."

cove - O.E. cofa "small chamber, cell," from P.Gmc. *kubon.
As we saw above, Mike traces it back to *geup (as in Websters, quoted here), which may or may not be related to *keu.

alcove - this one actually has a Semitic origin. From "Distant Cousins":

Alcove and קבב
Alcove comes, via French, from Arabic al qubba, “the dome.” Arabic qubba is from the same Semitic root as Hebrew קבב, “to be bent, to be crooked, to hollow out, to vault.”

So they all might be related - but then again maybe not. And if they are - it's not nearly as close as it appears.

Let's give one more example. Another word associated with *keub is "hop":

Etymology:
ME hoppen < OE hoppian, akin to Ger hüpfen < IE *keub- < base *keu-, to bend, curve > hip, L cumbere, to lie: basic sense prob. “to bend forward”

And interestingly, "hop" may be the source of "hope":

O.E. hopian "wish, expect, look forward (to something)," of unknown origin, a general Low Ger. word (cf. O.Fris. hopia, M.L.G., M.Du. hopen; M.H.G. hoffen "to hope" was borrowed from Low Ger. Some suggest a connection with hop (v.) on the notion of "leaping in expectation.")

Take Our Word For It writes that "there has been a suggestion that it is related to hop and that it originally denoted `jumping to safety.' Reaching a place of safety gives one hope, the theory goes on to say."

And if we look above, we see that Mike mentioned that a connected Semitic root may be קוה - as in תקוה tikva - "hope"! Even the most devoted Edenics or Adamics wouldn't think to connect "hope" and "tikva". Which is why the real search for roots - in genealogy or etymology - can often be more rewarding and fascinating than playing a linguistic version of "Separated at Birth".

Except for one thing. Tikva and מקוה mikveh - the word Mike actually referred to above - aren't actually connected. And they're both plain old Biblical Hebrew. Mikveh (or mikva) meaning "a collection of water", derives from the root קוה meaning "to collect (water)." Klein writes that it may be connected to Syrian קבא - "was collected", and the volume unit kav קב, which in turn comes from קבב (= to hollow out). This root would certainly be connected to the sense of "bent" that we've seen so far.

On the other hand, tikva comes from a second, unrelated קוה meaning - "to wait for". It is related to קו kav - meaning "thread, string, line", and Klein says that the original meaning of the verb was "to twist, stretch", and from there to "be stretched, be strained" and finally to "await tensely".

Now of course there are famous midrashim that play on the two homonymous roots. But that doesn't mean they are related. So in etymology, just like genealogy, sometimes we suffer disappointment when we think we've made a connection. But in neither case does it pay to despair - "Hope springs eternal..."

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pinkas

In my previous post I discussed daftar דפתר, which means "notebook" in Modern Hebrew. A more common word is pinkas פנקס. Both words appear in Midrash Bereshit Rabba 1:

והאומן אינו בונה אותה מדעת עצמו אלא דפתראות ופנקסאות יש לו לדעת היאך הוא עושה חדרים

"the master builder does not follow his own opinion, but has difteraot and pinkasaot - plans and descriptions [Jastrow's translation] to know how to arrange the chambers"

While both terms mean notebooks of paper now, they had different meanings in the times of the Talmud. As we noted, a diftera was a leather hide used for writing. A pinkas, on the other hand, was a board or tablet, usually coated in wax, upon which the words were engraved.

The word pinkas derives from the Greek pinax - also meaning "writing tablet".

Kutscher, in this online article, explains the connection between pinkas and פינג'ן finjan - "coffee-pot":

But while these Arabic words – and there are scores of others in this category – took the main road into Hebrew, through the agency of its revivers as a spoken vernacular in Israel, others came in other ways – with Arabic speaking Jews, or during the War of Independence. Keif (“fun,” “a good time”) seems to be an example of the first, findjan (“cup”) of the second. In the days before the State this word, which in Arabic means “coffee-pot,” apparently entered the language through contacts between soldiers serving in the Palmach and Arabs. However, some people insist that findjan, too belongs to the former category. Incidentally, this word has a most interesting history. It derives from the Greek pinax meaning “notebook” and also dish. It passed into Mishnaic Hebrew in the form of pinkas (“notebook”) and into Aramaic as pinkha (“plate”). Southern Iraq, where Aramaic was spoken, mostly under Persian rule, for over a thousand years, from before the time of Alexander the Great until after its conquest by the Arabs in the middle of the seventh century CE. Not surprisingly, many Aramaic words were absorbed by Persian. In modern Persia (Iran) an original k in certain circumstances becomes g, hence the forms ping and also pingan. From Persian it passed over, together with other words, into Arabic in which there is no p but only f. in literary Arabic g became dj, and hence the form findjan, which, by this circuitous route, came back to Israeli Hebrew. The original Greek pinax, accordingly, has three offsprings in Hebrew – pinkas, pinkha (which is rare), and findjan reflecting vicissitudes in the Near East over the past two thousand years. We may add that thanks to the Turks, who borrowed innumerable words from Arabic before they embarked upon their campaigns of conquest into Europe, the word is common in European, and especially Slavonic, languages. I knew it as a child in Hungary, the country of my birth. I did not dream that it existed in ancient Jewish literature, or that I should find it , in a different guise, when I settled in Israel.

In his book Milim V'Toldoteihen, Kutscher writes that the Hungarian word was findzsa.

So while you might never have thought there was a connection between a pinax:


and a finjan:

and a pinkas:

now you know there is!

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daftar

In my last post I wrote about the Hebrew word daf דף - meaning "page". A manufacturer of school notebooks in Israel is called daftar דפתר - could there be a connection?


There doesn't seem to be. While in Modern Hebrew daftar (or diftar) means notebook, this is a borrowing from Arabic, where it also means now "book of accounts" (see here how that sense entered Hindi.) Arabic in turn borrowed the word from the Greek dipthera, meaning "leather, hide" - particularly for writing.

Talmudic Hebrew also borrowed from the Greek, and we find there the word diftera דפתרא - with the same meaning as the Greek. For example in Megillah 19a, we find: דיפתרא דמליח וקמיח ולא עפיץ "diftera is a skin prepared with salt and flour, but not with gallnut".

From the same Greek word we get the disease diptheria, as the Online Etymology Dictionary explains:

coined 1857 in Fr. by physician Pierre Bretonneau from Gk. diphthera "hide, leather," of unknown origin; the disease so called for the tough membrane that forms in the throat.

An unexpected derivative of dipthera is the English word "letter". Also from the OED:

c.1150, "graphic symbol, written character," from O.Fr. lettre, from L. littera (also litera) "letter of the alphabet," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Gk. diphthera "tablet," with change of d- to l- as in lachrymose

This strange jump from Greek to Latin seems to have been aided by the mysterious Etruscans. This site explains:

Four words dealing with writing came into Latin by way of the Etruscan language, confirming the Etruscan transmission of the Greek alphabet to the Romans: elementum, whose earlier meaning was 'letter of the alphabet', litterae, 'writing' (originally derived from Greek diphthera, 'skin', a material on which people wrote); stylus, 'writing implement', and cera, 'wax' (for wax tablets on which to take notes).

I started by saying that the word was probably not related to daf. Klein says that the etymology is unknown, but is "possibly related to Greek dephein, despein ( = to soften)." YourDictionary.com and Partridge's Etymological Dictionary agree.

On the other hand, Steinsaltz writes that the word may have been borrowed earlier from the Persain dipir, "scribe", which has the same Sumerian origin as daf.

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dahween and divan

My wife and I were listening to the song Yachad by Gaya, which contains the line:

ורק אם נאמין / ובלי שום דאווין

This site offers the following transliteration and translation:

Verak im na'amin,
uvli shum da'awin

If we only believe,
no mucking around

I think a better translation for the second half would be "with no showing off". I knew dahween meant "showing off" or "fuss", but I never knew why. Our best guess? Maybe it was a mispronunciation of (Charles) Darwin - was he a show-off? Or are those animals who choose to evolve considered pretentious?

But no. Dahween is actually a back-formation, in the singular,from the Arabic dawaween, which is really the plural of diwan. According to Rosenthal, the word diwan means "a fanciful story" (from here our slang term), but also a "book of poems" (such as the Diwan of Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi) and a "salon". That's quite a collection of definitions - what's the connection?

Well, if you haven't noticed yet, the word "divan" in English can also mean:

1. A long backless sofa, especially one set with pillows against a wall.
2. A counting room, tribunal, or public audience room in Muslim countries.
3. The seat used by an administrator when holding audience.
4. A government bureau or council chamber.
5. A coffeehouse or smoking room.
6. A book of poems, especially one written in Arabic or Persian by a single author.

(Languagehat has a cute story here about a confused effort to translate divan in Tbilisi, Georgia.)

The Online Etymology Dictionary tries to explain the development:

1586, "Oriental council of state," from Turk. divan, from Arabic diwan, from Pers. devan "bundle of written sheets, small book, collection of poems" (as in the "Divan i-Hafiz"), related to debir "writer." Sense evolved through "book of accounts," to "office of accounts," "custom house," "council chamber," then to "long, cushioned seat," such as are found along the walls in Middle Eastern council chambers. (See couch.) The sofa/couch sense was taken into Eng. 1702; the "book of poems" sense in 1823.

The American Heritage Dictionary goes back a little further:

French, from Turkish, from Persian divan, place of assembly, roster, probably from Old Iranian *dipivahanam, document house : Old Persian dipi-, writing, document (from Akkadian tuppu, tablet, letter, from Sumerian dub) + Old Persian vahanam, house

This would connect it to the Hebrew word daf דף - now meaning "page". Klein gives the following definition and etymology for daf:

1. (Post-Biblical Hebrew) board, plank. 2. (Post-Biblical Hebrew) column (in a scroll). 3. (New Hebrew) leaf, page. [Together with JAram-Syr. דפא (=board, plank), Arabic daff (=side), borrowed from Akkadian (a)dappu, duppu, wich is a loan word from Sumerian dub. Arabic daffah (=cover of a book), is possibly derived from Aramaic.]

He also writes that the Hebrew word dofen דופן - "wall, side" may be connected, as well as the Biblical word tafsar טפסר - "scribe":

A loan word from Akkadian dupsharru, from Sumerian dub-sar, literally meaning "tablet-writer", from dub (=table, tablet) and sar (=to write).

Returning to more recent times, the dish "Chicken Divan" is related as well. This site gives the history:

Chicken Divan was the signature dish of a 1950s New York restaurant, the Divan Parisienne. It is the word "divan" itself that is of interest. In English, divan came to mean sofa, from the council chamber's benches, while in France it meant a meeting place or great hall. It was this meaning that attracted the notice of the owners of the New York restaurant as they searched for a name that would simply continental elegance.

But we can continue past the 1950s, into something even more recent. The linguist Yoram Meltzer writes here that Arabic bloggers have started adopting the word maduna for blog, and maduni for blogger. Both of those words derive from the divan meaning "record of accounts". Certainly an appropriate word for a blog, and there is no shortage of dahween in most blogs as well...

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rechov

After realizing that I was mistaken in my assumption that kvish כביש - "road" -was an ancient Hebrew word, I decided to write a post about rechov רחוב - "street". Surely that was a biblical word . I knew Haman paraded Mordechai וַיַּרְכִּיבֵהוּ, בִּרְחוֹב הָעִיר - "b'rchov ha'ir" (Ester 6:11) and Zecharia prophesied that old men and women would sit "b'rechovot yerushalayim" עֹד יֵשְׁבוּ זְקֵנִים וּזְקֵנוֹת, בִּרְחֹבוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם (Zecharia 8:4).

But as you regular readers of this blog are not surprised to find out, I was mistaken again. While in Modern Hebrew rechov means street, in Biblical and Talmudic Hebrew it meant "a broad open place (in a city), square" (Klein). Only in Medieval Hebrew did it take on the meaning of "street". Today rechava רחבה continues the older meaning of rechov.

While I'm not sure why the term changed its meaning, I can perhaps guess that the teaming of drachim דרכים - "roads" with rechovot רחובות in the Mishna (Shekalim 1:1, Moed Katan 1:2), might have had some influence.

Rechov of course derives from רחב rachav - meaning - "wide". Ben Yehuda writes that this root is the source of a number of proper names of people and places: Rechavam רחבעם, Rechovot רחובות and Rechavia רחביה.

He goes on to say that in Aramaic, the root רוח (revach) was preferred, which has a similar sound and meaning to רחב - and perhaps are related etymologically as well.

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kvish

Well, we have a winner for Kri and Ktiv Game 6! Congratulations to Isaac M on his solution: כביש.

However, I have to admit a mistake I made in the comments. I wrote that:

neither word is particularly "modern" Hebrew...

I just figured that kvish, "road", was so familiar and common that it couldn't be of modern coinage. But once again, my initial assumption was wrong.

Klein provides the following etymology:

paved road [Coined by the author and historian Zeev Jawitz 1848-1924, from כבש]

I don't know if there was any debate about the adoption of this word; Ben-Yehuda doesn't include it in his dictionary.**

From the root כבש - "to tread down, subdue, press" we get a number of words:

• כיבוש - kibush: conquest, capture
• כבוש - kavush: pickled
• כבש - kevesh: ramp (in Divrei HaYamim II 9:18 it is more of a footstool)
• כבשן - kivshan: furnace - Klein says it means "literally 'that which subdues' (metals)"

There is also an opinion that the slang phrase "put the kibosh on" comes from this root, via Yiddish; however others disagree.

A closely related root to כבש is כבס - "to wash clothes", since laundry was done by beating and wringing the clothes. Klein also points out that the roots כפש (to press down) and גבש (to consolidate) may be related.

Almagor-Ramon in Rega Shel Ivrit writes that it's important to pronounce the word for ramp as kevesh, and not keves - which means "lamb". And in fact, Ben-Yehuda, Klein and Kaddari make no connection between the two homographs.

However, Steinberg writes that sheep are known for their trampling, as in Yeshayahu 7:25 - וּלְמִרְמַס שֶׂה - "...and sheep shall tramp about". He goes on to write that "the authors of the dictionaries have strayed from the straight path in their explanation of this word" - i.e. they don't connect kevesh and keves.

I'm not sure exactly which dictionary that preceded him is the object of his criticism. Gesenius connects the two terms by saying that the lamb at that age is "fit for coupling" (i.e. to be subdued). The BDB hints to a connection by mentioning "battering-ram". And Jastrow connects them by saying that the lamb was "thick, strong" (which I guess is often a result of pressure.)

In any case, perhaps Steinberg would have some comfort from an entry in a more recent dictionary. Botterweck and Ringgren discuss this term in their Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (page 43):

Hebrew kebes is related to the common Semitic verb kbs, "overthrow", and kbs, "roll", derived from Akkadian kabasu, "tread (down)". The semantics of kabsu may be explained by the early use of sheep to tread seed into the ground or to tread out grain on the threshing floor; this etymology is supported by the Egyptian parallels sh and sht.

So while כבש might be a good solution for a game of Kri and Ktiv, I wouldn't be able to say with certainty that they aren't related...

------------------------------

** Update: I now found that Ben Yehuda does mention כביש in his dictionary. He punctuates it as kavish (with a kamatz) and says that it is used in the press and in popular speech meaning "a paved road, made from gravel and earth pressed together." He says that an earlier source for this word is kvisha כבישה - as found in the Aruch's version of Mikvaot 8:1 - where it means a "side path" (according to Jastrow.)

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taarich

Aside from some other distractions, I've been holding off on a post until I was ready to write about remez (remember PaRDeS?). But while it makes sense for me to finish researching that word before I write about it, there's no need for me to stop writing completely. So we'll get back to that series soon, I hope.

A neighbor asked me recently about the Hebrew word for date (as in a statement of time) - taarich תאריך. Was it connected to the root ארך - as in a "length" of time? That seemed logical to me, but I figured I should look it up. Turns out it was an incorrect assumption.

Klein gives the following etymology:

Transliteration of Arabic ta'rih ( = dating, date, time, era; chronicle, annals), infinitive of 'arraha (= he dated a letter, etc. fixed a certain time, wrote the history of something.)

However, since Klein's dictionary is in English, and he doesn't go back further about the origin or Hebrew cognates of arraha - it's too early to say if it is related to ארך.

So I looked in the Hebrew dictionaries. Here the pictures becomes more clear. Ben Yehuda, Even Shoshan and Stahl all say that the Hebrew spelling of the Arabic word ta'rih is תאריח (the chet has an apostrophe at the end - for some reason Blogger isn't letting me place it there.) This is the Arabic letter Ha - which is (sometimes) cognate with the Hebrew chet. (Kaph is a different letter in Arabic and Hebrew.)

So taarich would appear to be related to the root ארח. Note what the Arabic Etymological Dictionary writes:

arracha : fix a date [Sem y-r-ch, Akk warchu (moon), Heb yareach, tarich (date), JNA yarkha (month), Sab warch, Amh war (month), tarik (history), Tig werehh (moon), Uga yrch, Phoen yrch]

Here it is connected to the Hebrew word yareach ירח - "month". But as Horowitz writes, the words ארח and ירח are related:

The root ארח-ירח means "to wander".

The following easily relatable words come from it:

אורח (oreach)- a guest, one who wanders
אורחה (orcha)- caravan, the caravan wandered
אורח (orach)- a path or road that wanders along
ירח (yareach) - the moon - preeminently the wanderer of the sky. The moon is constantly moving about th heavens and hence its name.
ירח (yerach) - is a month. A month is simply the period of time it takes the moon to grow from a crescent, to attain fullness and then to wane. This takes approximately twenty-nine and a half days.
ירחון (yarchon)- monthy magazine

Klein also adds the word for meal - ארוחה arucha. He writes that it probably originally meant "food for the journey".

This root also appears in the Arabic phrase "ruh min hon" - "Go away". Stahl connects these words to ruach רוח - "wind" and rea'ch ריח - "odor" - that wafts, travels in the air.

The only question remaining - and I don't have an answer - is why isn't the Hebrew word for date spelled תאריח? Ben-Yehuda and others quote the mathematician and philosopher Abraham bar Hiyya (1070-1136) as the earliest source for the word (in חשבון מהלכות הכוכבים -"Calculation of the Courses of the Stars"). He lived in Arabic Spain, but unlike his contemporaries, he wrote in Hebrew, not Arabic. He is credited with coining many scientific terms in Hebrew. It doesn't seem likely he would have mistaken a chet for a kaph - but who knows? Actually - maybe one of you?

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