Teaching English to Hebrew Speakers

Idioms It is helpful to identify those idioms that have a Hebraic or Aramaic origin. There are more than a few of these. Some of them are translated Hebrew idioms. For example, (to escape) "by the skin of my teeth" is a translation of B'3or SHinai (using 3 for the letter aiyin) in the book of Job 19:20. It means "barely, hardly, with difficulty" because the Hebrew phrase is a pun on the word B'QoSHi at a time when the aiyin had a G/K-sound, as in 3aZa = Gaza. Most idioms (defined narrowly as phrases whose meaning cannot be determined by analyzing the "words" in them) are transliterated (not translated) from a foreign language directly into common words of the target language. For example: The "beans" in "spill the beans" and "doesn't know beans about ..." is related to Hebrew BiNah = understanding, intelligence. The "bag" in "let the cat out of the bag" and "left holding the bag" is related to Hebrew BaGaD = to betray. The "cat out" is from Aramaic QiSHoT = truth, at a time when the shin had a dental D/T-sound. So, to let the cat out of the bag is to betray the truth, to tell the truth when no one would dream of doing so. If you were left holding the bag, everyone else got away. You got caught because you were betrayed. Sometimes both transliteration and translation are involved. For example, "count sheep!" (to help one go to sleep) seems to be the translation of a Hebrew transliteration pun, S'PoR KeVeS, on the Latin phrase sopor quies = sleep quietly, restfully (without moving). A soporific is a drug that makes you sleep. Quiescent means quiet, still or inactive. (U and V are the same letter in Latin.) This idiom has been borrowed back into Israeli Hebrew as LiSPoR K'VaSim, to count sheep (plural). Many other English idioms probably have a Semitic origin. Here are a few of them: kick the bucket - 3aGav B'3aiDen = literally, make love in paradise the Jolly Roger - DeGeLai Ra3a = flag of evil (via Arabic) raining (pole)cats and dogs < maBooL GeSHeM SH'Qi3a = torrent of rain descends, where SH'Qi3a > OE DoCGa = 4-legged dog Welsh rabbit = cheese and ale on toast < [W]aLav = milk + SHachaR = ale + PaT lekhem = pita/toast (with an ancient W-sound for the het) Idioms that seem to have a Germanic origin include: "has an axe to grind," probably a transliteration of acht[ung] Grund, compare Beweggrund = motive "[does that] ring a bell?", probably a translation of Glock as a pun on Latin recollect(are) For more of these, do a Google search for < idioms Hebrew "izzy cohen" >

Vocabulary Building Knowing the ancient sounds of the Hebrew letters helps build vocabulary by providing mnemonic aids based on cognates across languages. The het usually appears in English as a W (via Germanic) and less often as an X (via classical Greek and Latin). The W in chinaware is the het in kHaR-SiNa (from kHeReS = pottery, clay). Today we have hardware and software but the earliest wares for sale were divrei kheres = things of clay. The aleph had a het-like GHT/CHS-sound. That explains why the Rashi-script aleph looks like a het + chupchik. If aleph = GHT, the 2nd word in Tanakh, bet-resh-aleph, is cognate with BRouGHT (forth). One can retain this ancient aleph sound by substituting the letters het-shin. For example, the root het-shin-bet means to think (in a logical sequence) and to count (1, 2, ...), that is, to aleph-bet something. kHaSHMaL het-shin-mem-lamed occurs in Tanakh only in the book of Ezekiel (YekHeZKeL) with the meaning "color of amber". Replacing the het-shin with an aleph and giving the mem an MB-sound produces @aMBaL, cognate with amber. Sometimes this word is translated as electrum, an alloy of gold and silver with the same color. In many languages, the word for "electricity" is derived from amber, which has static electricity. The shin's ancient T-sound explains why the Rashi-script shin looks like a tet turned 90 deg. clockwise and why today's handwritten shin looks like a closed tet. This makes SHeN = tooth cognate with Latin dent- and LaSHoN cognate with Latin, the tongue of the Romans. The ancient heh had a dalet+heh sound. This explains why the definite article is heh in Hebrew but "the" in English and makes the Hebrew word ToRaH cognate with truth. The consonantal vav had an PH / F-sound. For example, the Greek word phasis (phase of the moon) was borrowed into Hebrew as vav-samekh-sof (VeSeT). Giving the het its Wsound and the vav its F-sound means that Adam was calling his wife het-vav-heh WaFath or wife. The yod is often parallel to a G via Germanic, a K via Greek, and a hard C or CR via Latin. Yod-resh-het = moon is parallel to GRoW via Germanic and AncLatin KReX which metathesized to cresc- from which we get increase, decrease, crescendo (grow louder), crescent (moon-shaped) and croissant (a moon-shaped pastry). Based on these ancient sounds, YH+VH is equivalent to Gott/Cath + FaTH, that is a fathergod or creator in normal Semitic noun-adjective word order. Compare Latin Ju[t]+PiTer, with loss of the t that cannot be pronounced before a P.

Homonyms The same semantic concepts often join to form homonyms across languages. For example, the root tzadi-lamed-lamed has the meanings: TZ'LiL = a sound you hear, TZoLeLet = a submarine that dives deep, and Talmudic Da:3ah TZ'LooLah = a lucid mind. In English, sound is also a homonym with the same three meanings: a sound you hear, deep, as in the whale sounded = dove deep, to sound the depths of the sea, and healthy, having a sound mind or body. For more of these, do a Google search on < homonyms "izzy cohen" > Synonyms Changes in the sounds of letters can create synonyms in both Hebrew and English. For example, changing the sound of the shin from D/T to SH results in two words for (female) breast: SHaD (with the older spelling but newer sound) and DaD (with the newer spelling but older sound). Both are cognate with teat, tit, and titrate (to measure a fluid drop-by-drop). Likewise, changing the sound of the English suffix -tial to "shal" caused the word martial (pertaining to the military or war) to sound like marshal (arrange in a logical order, make ready for action; an officer of the law). Both @aVaQ aleph-vet-kuf and ViQoo'aKH vav-kaf-oo-het mean "a quarrel". It seems the original quarrel-word was *ViQoo@ with an aleph = GHT at the end. This synonym was created when the aleph lost its sound and moved to the beginning of the word, producing the homonym @aVaQ aleph-vet-kuf which now means both "dust" and "quarrel, argument, controversy". Compare the English idiom "dust-up", where the "up" may be a transliteration of @aF = anger. Treating the aleph as GHT and placing it at the end of the word @aF makes @aF cognate with FiGHT. When the aleph had a residual T-sound (as GHT still does in English), @aVaQ = dust sounded like TaBaK (the precursor of English tobacco). This word was anciently used for other substances that were ground to a powder (dust) and used like snuff. Place Names Phoenician names for geographic areas are still being used in west Asia and north Africa. Because Phoenician was also a Western Semitic language, these names sound quite Hebraic. These names were derived by configuring the gigantic body of a god or goddess over the surface of the area to be mapped. The name of each part of that body became the name of the area under it. This produced a scale 1:1 map-without-paper ... an ancient GIS (Geographic Information System) ... by which the name of a place indicated its approximate location and direction with respect to all other places on the same map whose

name was derived in this manner. For more information on this topic, see
http://historicalcartography.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/anthropomorphic-maps/

Cognates Contact me if you want to receive a list of possible English - Hebrew cognates. IEM = Isaac E Mozeson. H = Hebrew. TH = Talmudic Hebrew. For example: A a developed from Heb alef and Gk alpha via Etruscan and Latin. aardvark < Afrikaans aarde = earth + varken = pig < VL murricare = snout MB < alefresh-tzadi eretz + mem-oh-resh-gimel morag = threshing-sledge = sled, TH palate (roof of the mouth) of an animal (see earth, pig, morgue, warthog) abacus < ME < L: board, counting board < Gk bax < IEM: alef-bet-gimel-oh-saf abagos = ABCs = 123s since Hebrew and Greek ABCs are also the numbers (see digamma) The standard derivation is from Heb @aVaQ = dust. Abaddon = hell; abandon < ME abandounen < MF abandoner ~? Gk Apollyon < alef-vetdalet-oh-nun avadon = destruction, ruin, hell, doom, perdition < alef-vet-dalet avad = lost, perish, die Job 28:22, Rev 9:11, Esther 8:6; lost thing Deut 22:3 (see hell, sheol, Gehenna, crazy) abash < ME < OF abacher < abaissier = to put down, bring low ~ abase (not ~ AF abaiss < abair < OF esbahir = to gape, marvel, amaze < baer = to open wide, gape < VL batare) < bet-yod-shin biyash = to embarrass, bet-oh-shin bosh = to be ashamed, boosha = blush, shame, lamed-vet-oo-shin lvoosh = clothes, lit. for shame (IEM: which cover up our shame Gen 2:25) (see mess) abbot, abbey < L abbas < Gk abbas < Aram alef-bet-alef aba = father < alef-vet av = father alefT (IEM: > rvrsl pa, papa < Gk pappas = father; L avus = ancestor) Deut 32:6 (see pope, father) abdomen < L = belly ~ bet-tet-nun beten = stomach Gen 30:2 fruit of womb = pri beten (see stomach, quean) Best regards, Israel "izzy" Cohen Petah Tikva cohen.izzy@gmail.com +972-54-754-2744