PERSPECTIVE IN PRAISE OF HEBREW

VARON, BENNO WEISER

PERSPECTIVE IN PRAISE OF HEBREW BENNO WEISERVARON A non-scholar's conversion to a difficult but unique language It would be an exaggeration to claim that I fell in love with Hebrew at first...

...I wasn't even proud about this "discovery," since both words sound alike...
...Sabal" (the b and v are the same letter in Hebrew), I said, "is a stevedore, or a porter...
...There exists no linguistic subtlety which the proper craftsman cannot bring out in Hebrew, even if it has to be in highbrow Hebrew (which a fair rendering of "My Fair Lady" demands...
...Yet those for whom Hebrew is the mother tongue, and those who, born elsewhere, somehow manage to master it, have the privilege of speaking one of the most expressive, concise, and harmonious languages in the tower of babble of our contemporary world...
...It opens itself only to a lover whose intentions are serious...
...But while I was sitting next to him, the Kamrath-method made my mind spin...
...Hebrew tempts one to become an etymologist...
...In moments of despair, I came to the conclusion that Hebrew was not only a Semitic, but also an anti-Semitic language: why else inflict it on the Jews...
...There was Dolly Ben-Yehuda Witmann, daughter of the father of modern Hebrew, its sibling, of sorts...
...and smichut the union of two words which eliminates the "of," as in the English "mother's dar- ling," or the Latin status construetus...
...I thought I had made a discovery when I told Dr...
...Recently, I met a Mr...
...Another revelation was that the Philistines who gave Palestine and the Palestinians their name, got theirs from the Hebrew word plishtim which means "invaders...
...Israel needed the backing of other countries, and Mr...
...There was no surprise when my illustrious teacher added that "compass" is matspen, from the same root...
...Sharett may well have been second only to Ben-Yehuda as a coiner of new words...
...Kamrath, "but I am fortunate enough to be able to prove it...
...Excellent...
...Shemen is fat, shamen, a fatso...
...It was used for solid food in general...
...For them, it is a manginah (which for anybody else means "melody," and nothing else...
...Richard Nowitz, photographs...
...Kamrath was the inventor and founder of the Ul-pan system which has provided hundreds of thousands of immigrants to Israel with the basic Hebrew for their integration into their homeland...
...From these two words he created a new verb, Vadken, to bring up to date, and its appropriate noun, idkun...
...I also concluded that the world admired the Israelis for the wrong reasons: what was admirable was not that they made the desert bloom, diverted the course of their rivers, and won wars against all odds, but that they did all this on top of speaking Hebrew, a fulltime job in itself...
...From him I learned to admire the language which in my frustration I had so scorned for many years...
...Cover, pages 10-11, 53...
...Ben-Yehuda was a linguistic purist who ruled out all for- cert is a concert for all but the members of his family...
...It is possible to recognize a word by its construction...
...When one Ambassador to Italy sent a 400-word report on how, over drinks and sandvichim, he exchanged a few words with the Ambassador of a country with which Israel had no relations, Mr...
...I'hitkanes, to have a reunion...
...Sharett...
...But to come to this conclusion, it's not enough to flirt with Hebrew...
...What did the word remind me of...
...Kamrath that mil-chama, war, must derive from le-chem, bread...
...There is an obvious connection with chumash, The Pentateuch, and the number chamesh, five...
...The best method of learning it is to be born and grow up in Israel...
...He had recalled a Biblical verse that freed him from the sloppiness of the living language...
...As a youngster, I made several halfhearted attempts to learn it...
...And if this difference becomes even sharper in the past and future tenses, why does it affect you, him and her, them, and not me or us...
...An equal surprise was for me the etymological origin of the Hebrew word for weaponry, chimush...
...How come...
...They will not increase the numbers of those who arrive in Israel with the standard phrase, pa 'am achat la-mad'ti ivrit, aval kvar shachachti 6t hakol (once upon a time I studied Hebrew, but I already forgot it all...
...A celebrated Hebrew essayist used, as would thousands of slang-prone Israelis, the transitive instead of the intransitive when he asked me, Shuv hishmantal, which was intended to mean, "Again you gained weight...
...mir-pa'ah, ambulatory clinic...
...Well, the link is chomer, material, which, carried as a load, is chamur for the chamor, certainly in the sense of "gravity...
...For instance, the word chamur stands for "grave," "serious...
...Saval, who probably could provide employment for a hundred stevedores, was very gracious about it...
...In a war the soldiers are welded together into a solid mass...
...Ani sovel, I suffer, must be a common experience of people who carry heavy loads...
...Another one of my teachers was Moshe Sharett's daughter, Yael Medini...
...German exercised a greater influence on his neologisms than any other foreign language did...
...There were interruptions, after which I generally was too advanced for the beginners, and too far behind for the advanced...
...Samuch is close...
...samich, dense...
...In writing, length is further reduced by the omission of all vowels, though this is the nemesis for the neophyte who has to guess at them...
...But my great teacher was as much at home in European etymology as in that of his own language...
...Yet the most exciting part of Hebrew is the relationship between words which seemingly are unrelated...
...I was 47, and the circumvallations of my brain had lost their immunity to the sedimentation of calcium...
...My interlocutor was taken aback, but understood...
...Sharett obligingly produced gibui, from gav, back...
...But what is the difference in reading, sleeping, drinking, studying...
...Nevertheless, in recent years, an increasing number of American youngsters who graduate from Hebrew day schools speak Hebrew with a surprising fluency...
...Saval had had an orthodox education, he was curious about the meaning of his name in Hebrew...
...I passed...
...Page 12...
...Though not a prude, I was a bit shocked to learn that the word for feminine, n'kevah, literally means "perforated...
...Both words have the same infinitive, lehaniach...
...Sharett was a master of the abstract...
...samchut is an authorization...
...As I learned the word I'hager, to emigrate, I suddenly understood why that unfortunate maidservant who was, at the request of Sarah, sent away by Abraham together with their son Ishmael (which would provide a more justifiable case for Arab hostility against Jews than the partition of Palestine), was called Hagar...
...It was certainly a surprise to learn that tikvah, hope, comes from kav, waterline or aqueduct, and, that in a country where water always was scarce and valuable, the verb Vkavot means both to hope and to collect water...
...Admittedly, Hebrew is, for the adult American, more difficult to master than any European language spoken South of Scandinavia and East of a line going from the Eastern borders of East Germany and Austria to those of Italy...
...Kamrath awakened the detective in me...
...Of chaval, of course, which means "what a pity," "what a shame...
...Another group of words describes places like misadah, restaurant...
...What weapon consists of five parts...
...But I can hold my own in a conversation, though perhaps unnecessary caution prompts me to play, where Hebrew is spoken, the strong, silent type...
...Tsafun is hidden, while tsafon is North...
...You're right," he said, "the correct thing would have been to say shamanta...
...Bialik, the poet laureate of Hebrew letters (whose poems, tragically, lose their rhythm in modern Hebrew, since Bialik pronounced his Hebrew in Ashkenazic), preferred to speak Yiddish, because, as he claimed, "Hebrew one has to speak, while Yiddish ret zich alein (speaks itself...
...PERSPECTIVE IN PRAISE OF HEBREW BENNO WEISERVARON A non-scholar's conversion to a difficult but unique language It would be an exaggeration to claim that I fell in love with Hebrew at first sound...
...The first one, of course, the least sophisticated of all, the human fist...
...But the most fascinating feature of Hebrew is what I came to call "the logic of the Hebrew dictionary...
...The explanation was acceptable, but astonishing: because the sun hides in the North, a certainly surprising knowledge for a Mediterranean people, 3,000 years ago...
...Which may not be just an excuse, because as difficult as it is to learn Hebrew, it is as easy to forget it...
...Mordekhai Kamrath who, alas, died much too young...
...And thus instead of ivrit I learned ben-yehudit...
...Jeffrey Goodby, drawings...
...Od means "more," and he who suggests you do more, encourages you...
...Pages 24-38, 61...
...The compression of the spoken language is achieved by the frequent omission of the "of" or "to," and by the substitution of a single vowel for words such as "my," "mine," "your," "yours...
...The Pentateuch consists of the five books of Moses...
...The poem is reprinted with the kind permission of Hadassah Zionist Youth Commission...
...asmachta, a reference...
...But in Bialik's days Hebrew was not yet the modern language it is today...
...Semech means support...
...I accepted with equanimity the information that Satan's alter ego, Beelzebub, is a bowdlerized version of the Hebrew bal-zevuv, Lord of the Flies...
...Kamrath rewarded me with one of his stentorian laughs...
...But since Mr...
...The Director General of one of Israel's more important Ministries insisted on saying, like the majority of his and my compatriots, ani meniach, which means "I put," whenever he wanted to say, "I suppose," which is ani maniach...
...The Hebrew translation of any foreign book is at least one third shorter than the original...
...This could make a good theme for historical philosophizing...
...Chabalah is sabotage...
...Only that in this case the verb must derive from the name, and not vice versa...
...Benno Weiser Varon, who has held a number of diplomatic posts in the Israeli Foreign Service, is now active as a lecturer and essayist...
...or, I'kanes means to assemble, I'hachnis, to make enter...
...It is shorter than any other, which is a blessing in a country where speechmaking is the major national sport...
...Credits Natan Alterman, page 30, was a noted Israeli poet and author...
...A greater tour de force was required to find an equivalent for "bringing up-to-date...
...I'hikanes, to enter...
...I was right, inasmuch as both words, lechem and milchamah derived from lehalchim, to solder, to weld...
...I have no cows or sheep, not to speak about the unspeakable—pigs...
...They also need sav-lanut, patience...
...lehasmich, to authorize...
...You know that other word for fighting: krav...
...What is the possible connection...
...Hebrew seemed to me clearly oversexed...
...The word erev, evening, he told me, stems from I'arev, to mix...
...Soldier, he explained, comes from the medieval soude, later sold, the pay which the soldier received...
...A few years later, this word was to play an important part in my professional life, as it refers to the secret code with which Israel's Foreign Ministry cables its messages to its envoys abroad...
...One more example of the feeling for language with which new words are created was another derivation—tsofen, which stands for code...
...Robert Barner, drawings...
...The gentleman had a perfect alibi: his father's name, Savalski, was shortened into Saval when he arrived from one of the Baltic states in Ellis Island...
...It is derived from the root eyt, time, and is itui...
...Let's take the word lis-moch, to rely...
...When circumstances finally forced me to make a serious effort to learn Hebrew, like Balaam, I, who had cursed, wound up praising this magnificent, imaginative, and incomparably logical language...
...But the Ben-Yehuda family does not recognize their non-recognition...
...Because even legendary contemporaries are prone to say kisaot for chairs ("everybody does it"), while there exists not the slightest reason why the plural oikiseh be anything but kis'ot...
...But my famous teacher smiled...
...While Israel's first Foreign Minister and second Prime Minister is widely remembered as a political figure, his contributions to modern Hebrew are virtually unknown outside of Israel...
...Ben-Yehudah was preoccupied with the concrete...
...Schwer tsi zain an etymologist," I said with a shrug...
...Sharett's only answer was a cable: "The Hebrew word for sandwiches is krichim...
...bar samcha is something which I don't claim to be on Hebrew—an authority...
...There exist seven verb forms in addition to the conjugations, of which three are active, three passive, and one reflexive...
...I will never be a Hebrew writer, and it would become disproportionately time-devouring if I tried to do my reading in Hebrew...
...This is not the report of a scholar...
...I played dumb and answered, "Whom should I have fattened...
...As Foreign Minister, Mr...
...Because of the od" I answered, already more sure of myself...
...Few would attribute this to any complexes about my Hebrew, because I will infallibly find and use the opportunity to correct the Hebrew of my interlocutors, including that of some legendary Israeli contemporaries...
...Were not most wars fought over bread, i.e...
...There also exist shorthand terms such as ahavtich (I loved you), which makes one word out of three...
...Lechem, he said, had not always meant bread...
...Can there be a shadow of a doubt that krav is related to karov (close, near...
...Through him, I developed a regard for Hebrew as the most precise and concise of all languages I have come across in my lifetime...
...Sharett would, no matter how important the message from one of his envoys abroad, first cable back corrections of what he considered faulty Hebrew...
...A latecomer to this group is the word makrer, refrigerator, which, however, is still better known as m'karer...
...I thought for a while, and asked: "Because it's a mixture of day and night...
...I respect your doubts," said Dr...
...As rich as modern Hebrew is in expressions, so poor is it in roots, and the multitude of words deriving from a single root is amazing...
...What infuriated me most was that not only nouns and adjectives have different genders, but also verbs and—numbers...
...Then I resented the innumerable exceptions, nouns which seemed masculine but were feminine, and vice versa, and masculine words which acquired, in the plural, a feminine ending and vice versa...
...Of all the languages I know, Hebrew is the only one which has a word for the American "timing...
...Mismach is a document...
...He called Hebrew "archaic" and claimed it was as impossible to express oneself creatively in Hebrew as "to play a minuet on a ram-horn...
...Though his name may not evoke much recognition, there should be instant appreciation once I add that Dr...
...To present but two examples of how the same root is used in verbal forms of different meaning, let's take likshor, to knot...
...I hoped to rescue something of my discovery, and said: "Switching from Hebrew to English, doesn't this make soldier and solder the same word...
...A minority did not make it...
...Arthur Koestler, who in one of his ideological metamorphoses was a Zionist and lived in Palestine, resented Hebrew, which he could not master, in spite of the tremendous gift for languages which has made this multifaceted man a celebrated writer in four of them...
...The majority of these neologisms was accepted and entered contemporary Hebrew...
...He may not have been able to appreciate it, but the lyrics of the beautiful songs were as sophisticated as those of their splendid originals...
...But had he had, some forty years later, the opportunity to see "My Fair Lady" presented in Hebrew at the Habimah Theater in Tel Aviv, he would have noticed that the audience laughed exactly at the same spots and with the same intensity as those who saw the musical in London...
...He didn't have only a booming voice, he had also the gift of stentorian laughter...
...Unfortunately, my intentions became serious only when I moved to Israel...
...In spite of its ancient roots, Hebrew is definitely entrenched in the last quarter of the Twentieth Century, more so than, for instance, Spanish, which is controlled by the slow-moving, if not outright fossilized, Academia Real de la Lengua...
...But temptation may also mislead the amateur etymologist...
...L'oded means to encourage," he stated...
...Can you explain, why...
...I took it in stride when I learned that mat spun is the hidden ingredient of the soul which unfortunately is not common to all men: conscience...
...To my good fortune, when I started to take Hebrew seriously, each of my teachers was, if not a legend, heir to a legend...
...But the strongest influence on my Hebrew was Dr...
...michbasah, laundry...
...I was ready to admit that a man walks differently from a woman, which might justify that the man holech, while the woman holechet...
...Vkasher, to connect...
...economic advantages...
...Saval, and since I knew a number of Sephardic Jews, mostly from Tangiers, who carried the same name, I asked him whether he was aware of the fact that his name was Hebrew...
...The past and future tenses of the verb eliminate the need for the "I," "you," "he," or "she...
...From Yael, I would learn her father's magnificent abstractions, frequently coined to fill voids in the diplomatic dictionary...
...Ad kan means "up to this point...
...I won no popularity contests by showing off my superiority (which is limited to mistakes others make, but does not protect me from far baser mistakes of my own...
...Arnold Baskin, photograph...
...It is the timing or synchronization of a motor, tizmun, and comes from another Hebrew word for time, more common in the Jewish liturgy, zman...
...But we'll get to the wonders of the Hebrew dictionary a bit later...
...The only exception is the adverb, but there exists in the whole language one single adverb recognizable as such, heitev, meaning "well...
...She knew how to make a lesson interesting, but had one shortcoming: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda had coined the majority of the post-biblical Hebrew terms...
...I admitted that this explanation struck me as rather farfetched...
...Even if you do not know exactly what one of the following words is, you can be sure it's some kind of an instrument: maghetz, mazleg, mashder, machletz, mavreg (flatiron, fork, radio transmitter, corkscrew, screwdriver...
...There exists even a second word for it, though I don't know whether this too was fathered by Mr...
...Pages 15-23, 41...
...smi-cha accredits a rabbi...
...musmach is a graduate...
...He did so either by using a playing around with old words (and created expressions like mivrak, telegram, an item which was not too frequently used by our patriarchs, and which is derived from mavrek, lightning), or by translating literally terms from other languages, such as tapuach adamah, potato, but literally "earth-apple," as in the French pomme de terre and the German Erdaepfel...
...boomed my teacher's voice...
...and lehistamech, the corresponding verb, to refer to or rely upon...
...Obviously, it has the same root as chamor, jackass...
...I'hit-kasher, to establish contact...
...ma'aba-dah, laboratory...

Vol. 2 • December 1976 • No. 3


 
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