where I've been writing lately

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here on Balashon. But I haven’t stopped writing about Hebrew and language. For some time now, I’ve been publishing a weekly column in HaMizrachi Weekly, where I explore language issues connected to the weekly Torah reading.

You can read the archives and subscribe here:
👉 HaMizrachi Weekly

In addition, I’m working on a new book - more details coming soon!

So while I do hope to continue posting here on Balashon, for regular language insights you can follow my weekly pieces in HaMizrachi.

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ghibli and kibel

The latest viral internet trend is creating AI-generated images in the style of Studio Ghibli. You've very likely seen them by now—or maybe even created some yourself. 

They look something like this:

But did you know there's a connection between Ghibli and a very common Hebrew root?

As noted, the images are inspired by the style of Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation (anime) studio. The Wikipedia entry gives this explanation for the origin of the studio’s name:

The name "Ghibli" was chosen by Miyazaki from the Italian noun ghibli (also used in English), the nickname of Italy's Saharan scouting plane Caproni Ca.309, in turn derived from the Italianization of the Libyan Arabic name for a hot desert wind (قبلي qibliyy). The name was chosen by Miyazaki due to his passion for aircraft and also for the idea that the studio would "blow a new wind through the anime industry.".Although the Italian word would be more accurately transliterated as "Giburi" (ギブリ), with a hard g sound, the studio's name is written in Japanese as Jiburi.

And where does the name of the wind come from? The Wiktionary entry for ghibli defines it as: "sirocco (a hot, dust-carrying desert wind in North Africa, somewhat similar to the foehn)." The sirocco is a similar type of wind to the hamsin familiar in Israel.

The same entry also provides this etymology:

From Italian ghibli, from the Libyan Arabic form of Standard Arabic قِبْلِيّ (qibliyy, “coming from the qibla”)

And what is the qibla? It is the direction Muslims face when praying toward Mecca, literally meaning "direction." For those in Libya, the qibla would be east, toward Saudi Arabia. The Wiktionary entry notes that the etymology comes from Arabic قِبْلَة (qibla, “that which is opposite”).

And this meaning, "opposite", brings us to the Hebrew root קבל kibel, which as I've written about here previously, also originally meant "opposite":

The root קבל in earlier biblical texts did not mean "receive", but rather "to be opposite", or "before, in front of". From the sense of "opposite" comes the meaning of makbil מקביל - "parallel" or "corresponding", as found in the description of the loops of the tabernacle (Shemot 26:5). As with the previous verb, קבל was also influenced by Aramaic, and so in the later books of the Tanach, came to mean "receive", since a person receiving stands opposite the person giving.

So while it's quite a journey from Japan to the Middle East, we've once again found a connection between a popular modern word and an ancient biblical cognate.

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leitzan and mukion

Let's look at two Hebrew words for clown - לֵיצָן leitzan and מוּקְיוֹן mukion. 

Leitzan is the more common of the two, so we'll start by examining it. It first appears in Rabbinic Hebrew, meaning "scorner, scoffer, mocker, jester." It is parallel to the biblical לֵץ letz, which is both a verb "to scorn, scoff" and also a substantive noun meaning "scorner, scoffer." 

The word letz appears in the opening verse of the book of Tehillim:

אַשְׁרֵי הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר  לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים וּבְדֶרֶךְ חַטָּאִים לֹא עָמָד וּבְמוֹשַׁב לֵצִים לֹא יָשָׁב׃

"Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked, or taken the path of sinners, or sat in the session of scoffers." (Tehillim 1:1)

In a Talmudic commentary on this verse, we can see the transformation from letz to leitzan:

ובמושב לצים לא ישב שלא ישב במושב אנשי פלשתים מפני שלצנים היו

"Nor sat in the seat of the scornful (Psalms 1:1) - this means that Abraham did not sit in the seat of the Philistines, because they were scorners who engaged in jest and buffoonery." (Avoda Zara 19a)

The word letz, in turn, derives from the root ליץ, which also provides the verb hitlotzetz הִתְלוֹצֵץ. That verb originally meant "to act as a scoffer" (as in Yeshaya 28:22), but today means "to joke, to jest."

There is another meaning of ליץ - "to translate, intercede." Klein lists this root as distinct from the one we mentioned earlier. However, the Academy of the Hebrew Language suggests that both roots (ליץ or perhaps לוץ) derive from an earlier meaning "to speak." One sense would have diverged to mocking speech, and the other to translating or interceding speech, like the melitz מֵּלִיץ (interpreter) mentioned in Bereshit 42:23. In the way an ambassador might serve as both a translator and an advocate, the sense of "intercessor" also developed (for example, Iyov 33:23). From here came the verb הִמְלִיץ himlitz - "to recommend".

Let's return to the sense of leitzan as "scoffer, scorner." This negative connotation is clear in another Talmudic passage in Avoda Zara. Again, the Talmud cites Tehillim 1:1, this time to criticize the Roman stadium culture:

ההולך לאיצטדינין ולכרקום וראה שם את הנחשים ואת החברין בוקיון ומוקיון ומוליון ולוליון בלורין סלגורין הרי זה מושב לצים ועליהם הכתוב אומר (תהלים א, א) אשרי האיש אשר לא הלך

With regard to one who goes to stadiums where people are killed in contests with gladiators or beasts, or to a camp of besiegers where different forms of entertainment are provided for the besieging army, and he sees there the acts of the diviners and those who cast spells, or the acts of the clowns known as bukiyon, or mukiyon, or muliyon, or luliyon, or belurin, or salgurin, this is categorized as “the seat of the scornful”; and with regard to such places the verse states: “Happy is the man that has not walked in the council of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful.” (Avoda Zara 18b)

The Talmud says that one who watches the acts of those various clowns is like one who sits in the seat of the scornful - the letzim. Rashi, in his commentary on the passage, refers to these clowns as leitzanim:

בוקיון מוקיון לוליון סלגריון - כולן מיני ליצנים הן:

Elon Gilad, in this article, notes that neither the Talmudic passage nor Rashi were attempting to present these clowns in a positive light. They were derided negatively, as scoffers. But he suggests that the linkage between leitzan and "clown" (as opposed to simply "scoffer") was due to the immense influence Rashi had. In later medieval culture clowns took on a more positive, entertaining role, and when 19th century writers of early modern Hebrew were looking for a word for clown, leitzan fit the bill.

The Talmudic passage mentioned six types of clowns, but only one of them still is in use today - albeit much smaller than leitzan - the mukion. (The clown term luliyan לוּלְיָן was later adopted for the word "acrobat.") The term mukion, like the previous term bukion, likely refer to the characters Maccus and Buccus, found in the Roman plays known as the Atellan Farce. Maccus and Buccus were both clowns, Maccus being the most popular of the stock characters in those plays. The etymology of Maccus isn't fully clear, but some suggest that it might be related distantly to the English word "mock."

Today mukion is rarely used, but when it is, it will refer to a professional or artistic role of an actual performing clown, while a leitzan can also refer to anyone who is joking around or acting foolishly. 

One more Hebrew word should be mentioned in this discussion. In Tehillim 73:8, we find the root מיק (or מוק) in its only appearance in the Tanakh:

יָמִיקוּ וִידַבְּרוּ בְרָע עֹשֶׁק מִמָּרוֹם יְדַבֵּרוּ׃

"They scoff and plan evil; from their eminence they plan wrongdoing."

As with any word that only appears once in Biblical Hebrew, it's not easy to pin down its meaning. But most translations say it means "to scoff" or "to deride." Linguists suggest that it comes from Aramaic influence, where the cognate root has a similar meaning. In fact, the Aramaic Targum to Tehillim 1:1 translates letzim as מְמִקְנֵי memiknei, from that same root. So too does the Targum translate the verb ליץ in Mishlei 9:12 as מֵמִיק memik.

While the Hebrew root לוץ certainly has a parallel in the Aramaic מוק, there doesn't seem to be strong evidence that מוק is the root of mukion (and certainly not Maccus). It's likely just a coincidence, but one that may have strengthened the impression at the time that the mukion clown was also a scoffer.

 

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inbal

A reader asked about an Israeli grape juice called Inbalim ענבלים. I presume this is the brand:

He asked why the juice had that name. 

I don't have an actual answer to that question. It's a label from the Arza Winery, and I don't see any official explanation online for that choice. But I can speculate, and I can certainly give more background to the word עִנְבָּל inbal.

The word inbal has two meanings. Either the clapper of a bell (the swinging metal piece that hits the bell and makes the sound) or the uvula (the little dangling ball in the back of the throat). As you can probably imagine, the two are related, since they both are small hanging spheres.

An early appearance of the word inbal is in the Mishna, Nazir 6:2. The mishna is discussing what kind of grape components are forbidden to the nazirite. The biblical verse (Bamidbar 6:4) uses two terms - חַרְצַנִּים chartzanim and זָג zag. By the time of the mishna, it was unclear what each of those words meant - the inner or outer parts of the grape?. One opinion is given by Rabbi Yosei:

כְּזוֹג שֶׁל בְּהֵמָה, הַחִיצוֹן זוֹג וְהַפְּנִימִי עִנְבָּל:

It is like a bell [zog] worn by an animal, in which the outer part, which corresponds to the skin of a grape, is called zog, and the inner portion of the bell, the clapper, which corresponds to the seeds in a grape, is called inbal.

Rabbi Yosei is stating the zag is like zog - a bell, and therefore the chartzanim, the seeds, are like the inner portion of the bell, the clapper.

So this association between grapes and inbal might have given inspiration to the brand of grape juice. 

More such connections can be found in the etymology of inbal. In Ben-Yehuda's dictionary, there are two suggestions.

In the first, he quotes Musaphia who says it derives from the Greek word ἒμβολον. Klein accepts this suggestion:

עִנְבָּל m.n. PBH clapper of a bell. [From Gk. embolon (= lit.: ‘something thrown in’), from emballein (= to throw in), from en (= in) and ballein (= to throw)

The Greek ballein is the origin of a number of English words, including ballistics and metabolism. Interestingly, it's related to the word "ball", as in "dancing party", but not the round object "ball", which derives from a different Indo-European root (the etymologies of both appear here).

However, Ben-Yehuda rejects this etymology, favoring one with a Hebrew origin. He says it's more likely to come from עֵנָב einav - "grape," with the letter ל lamed added at the end. Other such words with a similar suffix may include barzel ברזל and karmel כרמל.

Possible support for this approach could be found in the etymology of the word "uvula," which, as we've seen, is a meaning of inbal:

late 14c., from Late Latin uvula, from Latin uvola "small bunch of grapes," diminutive of uva "grape," from PIE root *og- "fruit, berry." So called from fancied resemblance of the organ to small grapes.

So perhaps the inbal was also seen to look like a small grape, and from there got its name in Hebrew as well.

However, this etymology is questioned by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, who note that in some Talmudic text, inbal is spelled with an alef instead of an ayin, which would make the Greek etymology more likely. They also note that Inbal has become a popular first name in Israel, perhaps because of the similarity to the European name Annabelle (and that it should not be confused with the similar sounding name Inbar.)

After all this, I think it's less likely that the Arza Winery was concerned about the etymology or even ancient use of inbal, and more interested in a nice sounding name that at least includes the Hebrew word for grapes. But if I ever find out, I'll be sure to let you all know.

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Elul

The Hebrew month of Elul אֱלוּל begins this week, so let's look at its etymology. As with the other names of the months in the current Hebrew calendar, it was adopted in Babylonia, and therefore has Akkadian origin. Klein writes that it derives from an Akkadian word reflecting its function as the beginning of the harvest period:

Akka. ulūlu, elūlu (= harvest, harvest time; lit.: ‘the time when the produce of the land is brought in’). Related to Aram. עֲלַל (= he brought in), Aram.-Syr. אֲלַלְתָּא (= that which is brought in, produce, harvest), Heb. עֹל (= yoke), Akka. allu, ullu (= yoke, chain), Arab. ahalla (= he put in, thrust in), ghall (= iron ring round a prisoner’s neck at which his hands are tied.

This etymology connects Elul to the root עלל, which is also the origin of ol עֹל - "yoke." However, עלל provides two roots, which Klein (and others) claim as unrelated.

We've been discussing the second meaning (according to Klein) of עלל, which he defines as "to insert, thrust in." This meaning is actually unused in Biblical Hebrew, but it does appear in the Aramaic sections of the book of Daniel. (Kaddari also suggests that the appearance in Iyov 16:15 has the same meaning, and was influenced by Aramaic.)

The other (first) meaning of עלל does appear in Biblical Hebrew. Klein defines it as "to act, do, work" and notes that it is related to the Arabic ‘alla, meaning "to do something a second time." While at times עלל can have the neutral meaning of "to act," in some instances it can mean to act severely or harmfully. 

Here are some of the words deriving from this meaning of עלל:

• עָלוּל alul - "liable, likely, capable (of doing an action)." In 1944, the linguist Yitzchak Avinery (Yad HaLashon, p. 450) lamented that people are using alul in a positive sense, and not just the negative sense it should have. He wrote that the positive equivalent is asui עָשׂוּי. According to Morfix, today alul still has a negative connotation, and is used when something bad is likely to happen. But perhaps it's used more broadly, even in positive scenarios, because asui has another meaning - "made of."
• עֲלִילָה alila - This word has two meanings, the more neutral "act, deed" (now also "plot, story") and the more negative "false accusation, libel."
• עִלָּה ila - "cause, reason." 
• הִתְעַלֵּל hitalel - "to act cruelly, to abuse."

Klein also adds olela עוֹלֵלָה - "gleaning (of grapes or olives)" but doesn't explain the connection. BDB, however, does provide an explanation, connecting it back to the Arabic root that Klein cited. They define gleaning as "going over a second time."

The similar word עוֹלָל olal, meaning "infant," does not derive from עלל, but rather from the root עול - "to suck, nurse."

I should note that Gesenius connects all of the terms we discussed. The nursing baby "drinks again", and the "thrusts" we saw in the second meaning of עלל (the one connected with Elul), are a "second blow." However, since the scholarship of Gesenius is older than the other sources I looked at, I don't know if it's still considered accurate.

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kartis

Rabbi David Bashevkin (of the enjoyable 18Forty podcast) recently posted on his Substack an essay entitled "The Revival of Hebrew." It's an interesting review of the history of the renewal of Hebrew and the religious response. I won't cover all of my thoughts about it here (you can read on Twitter/X some of my initial thoughts), but it mentioned a particular word that I'd like to explore here.

Bashevkin wrote:

Growing up in New York, high school students must take the Regents, a state-wide exam. Nearly all Jewish high school students take the Hebrew regents as their language requirement. I did not go to an elementary school that spoke Ivrit B’Ivrit (classes using instructional Hebrew), so I was pretty terrified for my 9th-grade Hebrew Regent. I still managed to get a 99 on the exam—hold your applause—I got stuck on one word during the oral conversational part of the exam. In conversation with our Hebrew teacher, Rabbi Dr. Joseph Ozarowski, I was supposed to ask him for a replacement train ticket. Except I forgot the Hebrew word for “ticket.” Hence a 99 instead of 100. I will never forget my כרטיס again.

Then later in the post, he found support in a quote from Theodore Herzl's Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State):

“We cannot converse with one another in Hebrew,” Herzl said, “Who amongst us has a sufficient acquaintance with Hebrew to ask for a railway ticket in that language?” As someone who personally got a point off on his Hebrew Regent for exactly that word—a train ticket—I find great comfort in Herzl’s skepticism. “Such a thing cannot be done,” Herzl concluded—instead he advocated for German to be the language of the Land of Israel.

So to help him (and any of you) not forget the Hebrew word for "train ticket", let's take a look at its history.

The word for train ticket is כַּרְטִיס kartis, and in Modern Hebrew it can mean "ticket" or "card" (as in credit card, greeting card, membership card, etc.) It first appears in Talmudic Aramaic meaning "document" and sometimes has the variant spelling קַרְטֵיס. In that last entry, Jastrow notes that it can also mean "paper." That meaning reflects its etymology, as Klein writes:

כַּרְטִיס m.n. PBH card, ticket. [Aram. כַּרְטִיסָא (= document), a loan word from Gk. chartes (= a leaf of the Egyptian papyrus, papyrus, paper), which is of foreign, possibly Egypt., origin.]

The word kartis remained obscure until the dawn of Modern Hebrew, when it was reintroduced for "ticket" (presumably due to the similarity to words in European languages like the German Karte and the Russian kartochka of similar meanings.)

Its Greek origin chartes is also the source of many words in English. For example, Here's the Online Etymology Dictionary's entry for card:

early 15c., "a playing card," from Old French carte (14c.), from Medieval Latin carta/charta "a card, paper; a writing, a charter," from Latin charta "leaf of paper, a writing, tablet," from Greek khartēs "layer of papyrus," which is probably from Egyptian.

Other words with the same origin include: chart, charter, cartel, cartography, carton, cartoon and cartridge.

The Egyptian origin mentioned by Klein and Etymonline is not universally accepted. Professor Gary A. Rendsburg, in his essay "The Etymology of χάρτης 'Papyrus Roll'" rejects the theory, since no convincing Egyptian etymon (the word from which the later word is derived) has been found. He then writes:

If, after generations in pursuit of an Egyptian etymon for the key Greek word χάρτης 'papyrus roll', none has been identified, perhaps it is time to set our eyes on a different horizon for the source of this lexeme [...] If Egyptian does not serve as a source [...] then our eyes should be set to the other great source of cultural influence on ancient Hellas, namely, the Semitic world in general and the Phoenician sphere in particular.

He then goes on to note mention of a Phoenician word, חרטית ḥrṭyt, which was generally assumed to mean "sculptures," but he suggests could mean "writings" or "scrolls." Based on this, and other evidence, Rendsburg proposes that khartēs could be therefore cognate with the Hebrew חרט, which as we've discussed here, meant "to chisel, engrave" and had associations with writing. He goes on to explore the further development of kartis in Aramaic and other languages. It's a really interesting investigation - I recommend reading it in full.

One Hebrew word related to kartis that Rendsburg did not cover was luckily reviewed by Elon Gilad. (By the way, I highly recommend his YouTube / Instagram videos - short clips discussing the history of Hebrew words in English.)  Gilad discusses (in English and in Hebrew) the word khaltura חַלְטוּרָה - "side job, gig, part-time work."

After noting how the Greek chartes meant "page," he continues:

We move onto the Middle Ages, when the word chartularium, a diminutive meaning little page, came about. This medieval Latin word was used in churches for the list of people (usually donors and their family members) for whom prayers needed to be said every day, to facilitate their acceptance to heaven.

Somehow chartularium made its way into the Russian Orthodox Church in the corrupted form khaltura - and with a new meaning: the prayer that a priest says at a funeral.

Priests got paid extra for these private appearances at the homes of the deceased. But after the Communist Revolution in 1917, which discouraged the practice of religion, Russian theater folk commandeered the word for "moonlighting" - performances done outside the theater companies they worked for.

From this sense of "moonlighting" came the Hebrew meaning of "side gig." 

I hope Bashevkin can now remember chaltura as well!

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zonda

The Hebrew word for "feeding tube" (or more technically a nasogastric or orogastric tube) is זוֹנְדָּה zonda. This is clearly not a natively Hebrew word. In fact, the Academy of the Hebrew Language coined machder מַחְדֵּר (from the root חדר - "to penetrate, enter") as a good Hebrew alternative. However, I've never heard it used, whereas zonda is common. So where does zonda come from?

This site suggests it comes from the German Sonde (when pronounced, it sounds very similar to the Hebrew zonda). Sonde in German means "probe" or "tube," and can mean specifically "feeding tube." The German in turn derives from the French sonde, with the same meanings as the German, but also used to describe a tool to determine the depth of water.

English has the cognate word "sound". The most common meanings of "noise" and "in good condition" are not related to sonde. (The latter usage, originally meaning "healthy", finds a related root in the German gesundheit meaning "Health!".) But there are two other uses of sound that are cognate with sonde. The Online Etymology Dictionary first presents a meaning of "sound" as verb that relates to the French noun we saw above:

sound (v.2)

"fathom, probe, measure the depth of water" with or as if with a sounding line and lead, mid-14c. (implied in sounding), from Old French sonder, from sonde "sounding line," perhaps from the same Germanic source that yielded Old English sund "water, sea."

This last suggestion appears in the etymology for another meaning of "sound," this time a noun:

sound (n.2)

"narrow channel of water," c. 1300, sounde, from Old Norse sund "a strait, swimming," or from cognate Old English sund "act of swimming; stretch of water one can swim across, a strait of the sea," both from Proto-Germanic *sundam-, from a suffixed form of Germanic *swem- "to move, stir, swim."

The sound I'm most familiar with is Puget Sound in Washington State. There are many others you might recognize.

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