hasta and ad

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been in the news recently, so I thought I'd take a look at the first word of his catchphrase, "Hasta la vista, baby". While hasta la vista is used to mean "see you later", the literal meaning in Spanish is "Until the (next) sighting." The word hasta, "until", has its origins in Arabic, coming from the Arabic word ḥattá (or hata) - also meaning "until."

I looked around for a Hebrew cognate to hatta, and if I understand these (1, 2, 3) books correctly, there is an unsurprising one - ad עד - "until" in Hebrew.

Klein says that ad, and its older form adei עדי, come from the root עדה, meaning "to pass by" (found in Iyov 28:8 and Mishlei 25:20). This is also the root of ad meaning "eternity", which Klein says literally means "progress in time".

Ad as "until" is found in a few other words:

• Biladei בלעדי - "without, apart from". Klein says it is compounded of bal בל (=not) and adei עדי (= as far as, up to). That preposition is the source of the adjective biladi בלעדי - "exclusive"
• Achshav עכשיו - "now". Klein says it is probably a contraction of "ad kshe'hu" עד כשהוא - literally, "until as it is".
• Idkun עדכון - "update". This is from the root עדכן, which is a contraction of ad kan עד כאן - "until here, so far."

And lastly we have the word for a Purim carnival, עדלידע (or עדלאידע) adloyada. This is a contraction of the Aramaic phrase found in Megila 7b עד דלא ידע - "until he could not discern (between cursed Haman and blessed Mordechai)." This article describing the word's history says it may have been influenced by the Greek Olympiada - their word for the Olympic games, another kind of celebration.

Now to finish, Arnold has been in the news for contrasting himself to a leader who has been widely criticized. However, since this blog is not political, any parallels to the Purim story are entirely coincidental...