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ENCYCLOPEDIA of HEBREW LANGUAGE and LINGUISTICS Volume 1 A–F

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ENCYCLOPEDIA of HEBREW LANGUAGE and LINGUISTICS Volume 1 A–F ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HEBREW LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS Volume 1 A–F General Editor Geoffrey Khan Associate Editors Shmuel Bolokzy Steven E. Fassberg Gary A. Rendsburg Aaron D. Rubin Ora R. Schwarzwald Tamar Zewi LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-17642-3 Table of Contents Volume One Introduction ........................................................................................................................ vii List of Contributors ............................................................................................................ ix Transcription Tables ........................................................................................................... xiii Articles A-F ......................................................................................................................... 1 Volume Two Transcription Tables ........................................................................................................... vii Articles G-O ........................................................................................................................ 1 Volume Three Transcription Tables ........................................................................................................... vii Articles P-Z ......................................................................................................................... 1 Volume Four Transcription Tables ........................................................................................................... vii Index ................................................................................................................................... 1 © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-17642-3 640 cultural words: biblical hebrew names, or sentences that form the core of References any esoteric formula employed for the fab- De Leeuw, Karl and Jan Bergstra (eds.). 2007. The rication of talismans show to this very day history of information security. A comprehensive handbook. Amsterdam: Elsevier. an easily detectable Hebrew patina, a very Glidden, Hope. 1987. “Polygraphia and the Renais- influential, and still reprinted manual for deci- sance sign: The case of Trithemius”. Neophilolo- phering cryptographies or slang in use among gus 71:183–195. Ofer, Yosef. 2008. “Methods of encoding in Sam- delinquents or members of marginal groups, uel de Archevolti’s Arugat ha-Bosem”. European illustrates this point. The author and Ger- Journal of Jewish Studies 2:45–63. man police officer Friedrich Christian Benedikt Schippers, Arie. 2000. “The work of Samuel Archi- Avé-Lallemant (1809–1892) published between volti (1515–1611) in the light of the classical traditions and cinquecento Italian literature”. Hel- 1858 and 1862 a groundbreaking book on mantica 51:121–138. the dialects of the underworld, under the title Das deutsche Gaunerthum in seiner social- Saverio Campanini politischen, literarischen und linguistischen (IRHT—CNRS, Paris) Ausbildung zu seinem heutigen Bestande ‘The German underworld in its social, political, lit- erary and linguistic formation to its contem- Cultural Words: Biblical Hebrew porary existence’. The definition of a specific language of the Gaunerthum ‘criminal under- The ancient Hebrew lexicon contains a con- world’, coinciding in large parts with Yiddish siderable number of Kulturwörter or Wan- (of which he provides a full-fledged grammati- derwörter, that is, lexical items whose origins cal description), is not a mere reflection of the cannot be identified with certainty, but which situation of impoverished Jews ensuring their are common to cultures throughout a particu- survival through illegal activities and of other lar region, as well as loanwords borrowed from delinquents finding it useful to communicate various languages used over a wide area (from by means of this ‘strange’ language to escape the Mediterranean to South Asia). No doubt the attention of the authorities (to no avail, so Israel’s geographical location—as the land it appears), it is far more a late manifestation bridge between the two great cultural centers of the perceived connection between Judaism of Egypt and Mesopotamia, along with access and ‘forbidden secrecy’, which celebrated its to the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the triumphs from the Renaissance onwards. Red Sea, and thence the Indian Ocean, to the The particular nature of Hebrew alphabetic south—was a major factor in the absorption of signs, always oscillating between normalcy numerous foreign words. and two extreme statuses—perfect language Among the most commonly recognized Kul- barzÆl ַבְּר ֶזל or perfect swindle—can be verified, even if, turwörter in Biblical Hebrew are tannùr ‘oven’, which rank among ַתּנּוּר a posteriori, from a completely different field ‘iron’ and of knowledge, absolutely extraneous, at least the most well-traveled words in recorded linguis- apparently, to esoterism and magic. In his tic history. The former word occurs seventy-six choice to name ±alef and to use the correspond- times in the Bible. The irregular correspondence to desig- of the phonemes in Akkadian parzillu (Mari (א) ing letter of the Hebrew alphabet nate the transfinite, to give expression to the dialect barzillu), Ugaritic br≈l, Hebrew barzÆl, fact that some infinities are larger than others, Aramaic-Syriac parzel, Sabaean frzn, Arabic to skim with the tools of quantity the unfath- firzil (specifically ‘iron fetter’) indicates that this omable realm of quality, mathematician Georg word is of non-Semitic origin (and underwent Cantor anticipated, as it were, avant la lettre, borrowing within Semitic from one language the further history of ±alef in literature, epito- to another). Forms without suffixed -l include mized by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story by the Ge≠ez bërat, Amharic-Tigrinya-Harari brät, with same title (published in 1947), which gave new the same or similar forms in other Ethiopian dimensions to the autonomous dynamics of languages, as well as forms in various Cushitic polysemy in language and to the unique blend languages, e.g., Saho-Afar birtà, Khamir birät. of secrecy and revelation that affects Hebrew, Further afield, other perhaps related words for language and script, especially from an exog- metal, without a dental or fricative conso- enous perspective. nant in third position, are Egyptian bi3 ‘metal’ © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-17642-3 cultural words: biblical hebrew 641 ’qò∫a≠ ‘helmet ַקוֹבע / ≠kò∫a ַכּוֹבע most likely ‘[meteoric] iron’ in the Pyramid (d) Hebrew) Texts), Ugaritic brr ‘tin’, and Sumerian BAR (note that the word occurs with two different (not attested as an independent lexeme, but see velars, evidence of a non-native lexeme): Hittite AN.BAR ‘iron’, ZABAR ‘bronze’, KUG.BABBAR ‘silver’, kupa•i ‘helmet’, Greek κύμβαχος kumbachos qwb≠, Syriac קובע etc.). Berber azzal ‘iron’ is probably a loanword ‘crest of helmet’; cf. Aramaic from Phoenician/Punic, in which the initial b- qubbë≠à, Arabic qubba≠a, Ge≠ez qob≠, Cushitic was misinterpreted as a preposition and -rz- was (e.g., Oromo) qobi, all denoting various types assimilated to -zz-. of head covering (e.g., the Ge≠ez term means Moving to Europe, we note that Latin *bher- ‘monk’s hood’). -kinnòr ‘lyre’: Akkadian kin ִכּנּוֹר som (or *fersom—either proto-form is possible) (e) Hebrew knr, Arabic כנר ferrum is also related. The ancient ironworks nàrum, Ugaritic knr, Aramaic < discovered at Fursill, in the Italian Dolomites, kannàrat, Sanskrit kinara, Hittite kinirri, Greek indicate that this toponym derives from our κιννύρα kinnura. pìlÆ:gÆš ‘concubine’: Greek ִפּ ֶיל ֶגשׁ word as well. Barsel ‘iron’ also appears in Rot- (f) Hebrew welsch (borrowed from Hebrew). In English, παλλακίς pallakis, Latin paelex; the Hebrew brazil denotes coal with an abnormally high word clearly is borrowed from an Indo-Euro- admixture of iron pyrites. Other connected pean language, though the source cannot be words include Anglo-Saxon braes (> Modern either the Greek or Latin forms cited. English ‘brass’), Old Friesian bress ‘copper’, The origins of some Kulturwörter are known, and Middle Dutch bras ‘metal’. but since they were borrowed into Hebrew tannùr ‘oven’ occurs fifteen already at the earliest stages of the language ַתּנּוּר The word times in the Bible, including in early texts such they also deserve to be noted here. These as Gen. 15.7 and Exod. 7.28. It is attested include three loanwords from Greek attested in .mëúèrå< (Gen ְמ ֵכָרה (in Late Egyptian as trr, later Coptic trir, and early biblical texts, viz., (a ַל ִפּיד (in the following Semitic languages: Akkadian 49.5) < μάχαιρα makhaira ‘sword’; (b tinùru (attested first at Alalakh in the Middle lappì≈ (Gen. 15.7; Exod. 20.18; five times in Babylonian period), Aramaic-Syriac tannùrà, Judges, etc.) < λαμπάς lampas ‘torch, lightning’; ,liškå< (1 Sam. 9.22; otherwise late ִל ְשׁ ָכּה (Arabic tannùr, and Mehri tënnawr. Despite and (c the similarity, this word has no connection to in 2 Kgs 23.11; Jeremiah; Ezekiel; Ezra-Nehe- the Semitic root n-w-r ‘light’, but is a regional miah; Chronicles) < λέσχη leschè ‘(wine-)hall’. Kulturwort. Beyond Egypto-Semitic, the word Names of spices, as one might expect, travel entered Middle Persian and hence Modern with the products themselves, and thus Hebrew mòr, Ugaritic ֹמר ,.Persian tanùr, Turkish tandır, Azeri tëndir, is awash with such terms, e.g Armenian t‘onir and, still further to the east, mr, Arabic murr, Greek μύρρα murra, Latin qëßì≠å< , Greek κασία ְק ִצ ָיﬠה ;’Urdu-Hindi tandùr (those familiar
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