sababa and machloket

I found a couple of interesting etymologies related to words that we've discussed before, so I thought I'd share them with you now.

Back in 2006, we talked about the word tzvi צבי. I wrote that Klein:

connects it to the root צבה - meaning "to wish, desire". This verb is found in Aramaic Daniel 6:18, in the Aramaic translations to Biblical Hebrew words such as חשק, חפץ and רצון (all meaning will or desire), and in the Talmud as well (Yoma 86b, 87a). Therefore a translation of Eretz HaTzvi could be "a desirable land", which would pair up well with the phrase ארץ חמדה - Eretz Hemda, which means the same thing.
From this root we also get the Hebrew word צביון tzivyon, which originally meant "will or desire", later became "beauty", and in Modern Hebrew means "character, nature".

Well, this apparently is also the root of the Hebrew slang word sababa סבבה - meaning "cool".  As Shoshana Kordova writes:

Sababa is one of several Hebrew slang words meaning “great” or “cool” and can express enthusiasm, satisfaction or assent (“sure,” “no problem”).
“How was your presentation? Did everything go as planned?” one colleague might ask another. “Oh yeah,” the response might be. “It all went sababa, no hitches.”
Sababa comes from the Arabic word tzababa, which means “great” or “excellent” in spoken Arabic, though it is also a more formal Arabic word meaning “yearning” or “strong love.” 

So this meaning of "yearning, strong love" in Arabic for tzababa is cognate with the Hebrew צבה, also meaning "desire."

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In 2017, I discussed the root חלק, meaning to divide. It is the root of the word machloket מחלוקת, meaning "division, dispute, disagreement."

This word appears in a well-known mishna (Avot 5:17) -

כָּל מַחֲלֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם, סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם. וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם, אֵין סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם. אֵיזוֹ הִיא מַחֲלֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם, זוֹ מַחֲלֹקֶת הִלֵּל וְשַׁמַּאי. וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם, זוֹ מַחֲלֹקֶת קֹרַח וְכָל עֲדָתוֹ:

Every machloket that is for the sake of Heaven, will in the end endure; But one that is not for the sake of Heaven, will not endure. Which is the machloket that is for the sake of Heaven? Such was the machloket of Hillel and Shammai. And which is the machloket that is not for the sake of Heaven? Such was the machloket of Korah and all his congregation. 

The word machloket in this English translation originally appeared as "dispute" and "controversy." However, Safrai, in his commentary, says that this understanding is difficult. Disputes "for the sake of heaven" should be easy to resolve by good arguments, whereas disputes not for the sake of heaven, where personal and external factors are involved, will not be settled by claims of logic.

So Safrai, quoting Melamed, writes that the word machloket here does not mean "dispute", but rather "division", i.e. the different groups (on either side of the debate). This was the meaning in Biblical Hebrew (it appears frequently in Divrei Hayamim), and is parallel to the word miflaga מפלגה - also meaning division (the root פלג means divide as well), and is the word for "political party" in Modern Hebrew. Therefore, Safrai concludes, that groups that are organized for a positive purpose ("for the sake of heaven") will endure.

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tzofeh and tzipui

The Hebrew root צפה has two different meanings.

One means "to look, observe, keep watch, expect", and gives us such words as:

• tzafui צפוי - "foreseen"
• tzofeh צופה - "scout"
• mitzpeh מצפה - "lookout, observatory"

The other meaning of צפה is "to coat, to cover, to overlay." Tzipui ציפוי means "covering, coating, glaze."

Is there any connection between the two meanings?

Klein doesn't indicate any. He provides two distinct etymologies. For the meaning "to look", he writes:

JAram. צְפֵי, אִצְטֽפֵי (= he looked out), Ethiop. tasafawa (= he hoped), New Punic צפא (= seer). cp. also Akka. ṣubbu (= to look at).

And for the meaning "to cover", he simply notes:

JAram. צִפָּא (= laying over, covering).

Not too much to go on there, but certainly no connection is offered. To find some possible theories, we're going to need to go to older dictionaries. Since linguistics was not as developed when they were written, these suggestions are much more speculative. But since there is nothing even in Klein's theory that precludes a connection (like the two roots having clearly distinct origins), it is interesting to read their theories.

Steinberg, in his Milon HaTanach, seems to indicate that the original meaning of the root was "to cover", and the secondary meaning, "to observe", came from the sense "to put one's eye on". If this is the case, perhaps it follows a similar development as the English word "cover", which earlier meant "to put something over something else" and later, in the field of journalism, came to mean "to investigate."

Gesenius says the root means "to shine, to be bright", based on an Arabic cognate. From this, he writes, the meaning "to look out, to view" properly means "to enlighten with the eyes." And he claims that the original meaning of "to cover" was "to overlay with gold or silver", i.e. to make splendid. (Notably, the BDB, which is built on Gesenius, does not mention this theory.)

Jastrow has a similar theory. He also says the original meaning was "to shine." While he doesn't explain the connection between "to shine" and "to look" (I assume it has something to do with light), like Gesenius, he says that "to cover" originally meant "to cover with shining plate."

Finally, Tur Sinai, in a note on Ben Yehuda's entry for the meaning of "to overlay" writes that perhaps this root doesn't mean "to cover" at all, but rather to purify and to improve - "to ennoble" in his words. He then says that this would make the root cognate with an Arabic root צפי meaning "to purify", which is related to another Arabic root צפא, meaning "was pure and clear." If this is the case, Tur Sinai notes, it could be connected to the other Hebrew root, meaning "to see" - which would properly mean "to see clearly." In any case, he summarizes, tzipui in Biblical Hebrew never means to simply cover, but to cover with some better material. 

So did I cover everything?

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badeken

Just before the main part of the Jewish wedding ceremony under the chuppah, the groom approaches the bride, and covers her face with a veil. This ceremony is known as the "badeken."

In the past, when I thought about the etymology of the word, I assumed it derived from the Hebrew badak בדק - "to examine." My assumption was based on an association with the story of the wedding of the patriarch Yaakov. He thought he was marrying Rachel, but was deceived, and ended up marrying her sister Leah. Since the badeken ceremony is the last chance for the groom to "inspect" the bride before the chuppah (and in many arranged weddings in earlier times, perhaps the first time he met her at all), I figured this was his opportunity for a bedika בדיקה - "inspection", hence badeken.

But no. This Yiddish word,  באַדעקן,  actually derives from the German bedecken, meaning "to cover" (in this case with a veil). It has an Indo-European etymology:

From Old High German *bidecchen, from Proto-Germanic *biþakjaną, equivalent to be- +‎ decken. Cognate with Dutch bedekken, English bethatch, Swedish betäcka.

I had never heard of the English example bethatch (and neither has my spell checker), but of course it is related to "thatch", which is the covering (i.e. roof) of a house. The Online Etymology Dictionary provides the following entries for thatch:

thatch (v.)
late 14c., thecchen, from Old English þeccan "to cover, cover over, conceal," in late Old English specifically "cover the roof of a house," related to þæc "roof, thatching material," from Proto-Germanic *thakjan (source also of Old Saxon thekkian, Old Norse þekja, Old Frisian thekka, Middle Dutch decken, Dutch dekken, Old High German decchen, German decken "to cover"), from PIE root *(s)teg- "to cover." 

thatch (n.)
Old English þæc "roof, thatch, cover of a building," from Proto-Germanic *thakam (source also of Old Norse þak, Old Frisian thek, Swedish tak, Danish tag, Middle Dutch, Dutch dak "roof," Old High German dah "covering, cover," German Dach "roof"), from PIE root *(s)teg- "to cover."

We've seen *(s)teg before - it's ultimately the root of the Hebrew word tag תג - "crown".  And one more English cognate is the word "deck". The noun refers to the covering of a boat, and the verb means to "adorn, array or clothe with something ornamental (as in deck the halls)." Which is pretty much what the badeken ceremony is - and an easy way to remember the proper etymology.

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kesef and kisufim

The Hebrew word kesef כסף - "silver" or "money" and kisufim כיסופים - "longing", share the same root. What is the connection between the the two?

According to most scholars, both words derive from an earlier root meaning "white" or "pale".

For example, Klein, in his entry for the verb כסף - "to long for", writes:

Aram. כְּסַף (was pale, was white; whence ‘was white for shame’, ‘was ashamed’), Arab. kasapha (= was colorless, was obscured, was eclipsed — said of the sun or the moon).

As Stahl writes, both shame and yearning cause a person to become pale.

And Klein continues in his entry for kesef  - "silver":

Related to Phoen. כסף, BAram. and Aram. כְּסַף, כַּסֽפָּא, Syr. כֻּסְפָּא, Ugar. ksp, Akka. kaspu. These words prob. derive from כסף and lit. mean ‘the pale metal’.

In his concordance, Even Shoshan lists three meanings for kesef, seemingly in the order the senses developed:

1) the metal silver, which is the most frequent use of kesef in the Bible
2) an abbreviation of shekel kesef  שקל כסף - "a weight of silver", which represents a particular value of silver, based on a standard weight
3) price, which only appears three times in the Bible. This sense is not connected to silver at all and developed into the common meaning today, "money."


One other word that may derive from this early meaning "white" is Caspian, as in the Caspian Sea. The Online Etymology Dictionary has this entry:

Caspian (adj.)  of or pertaining to the great inland sea of central Asia, 1580s, from Latin Caspius, from Greek Kaspios, named for native people who lived on its shores (but who were said to be originally from the Caucasus), Latin Caspii, from a native self-designation, perhaps literally "white."

This site theorizes that the Semitic word may have come from the Sumerians, and from Mesopotamia, the word spread to the Caucasus.

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