Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Hebrew words from maps and books for travellers (+Aramaic)


You probably already know half a dozen or more words of Hebrew without realising it. Do you know the names Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Reuben, Tel Aviv?  That's already more than half a dozen. I discovered the translations of the names Reuben and Joseph when I looked at the story of Joseph in the Bible (Old Testament to Christians)

Arabic, Aramaic, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Russian, Spanish - they have all entered the English language and given us words we easily remember.

Cherubim is the Hebrew plural, of cherub, and you see cherubim in churches and paintings in art galleries in England and Spain and churches worldwide.

But you will probably recognize some of these words, place names and personal or first names:

Bar mitzvah - son (Aramaic) (of the) law kept/good act or deed

Bat mitzvah - daughter of etc

Beer Sheva - seven wells (literally: well seven)

Benjamin - son of my right hand

Bethlehem - building/house (of) bread (bakery?)

Elizabeth - El = god

Gabriel - El = god

Galilee

Hallelujah - praise Jah/God

Jerusalem - salem/shalom=peace
Jah/jaweh/jehova - jo = God (written in Hebrew in two or four letters J H V/W H(consonants vowels written in dots or lines above or in the centre of the letter or below in other centuries to indicate silent letter of vowel; some say the name of G-d is never pronounced and instead the vowels from another word, Lord are inserted, so that you can say a word to make sense of your sentence in a prayer or text)

Joel - god (is also our)lord god -

Nazareth

Rachel el= God (El/allah - written with the letter l)

Reuben - see (a) son! (ben=son)

Tel Aviv - hill (of) spring(time)

More information from:
1 wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Hebrew_origin
2 E a r w o r m s  (I had to insert spaces to defeat predictive text changing it)
(short version of a Berlitz course, beginner level, in one or two discs with a brochure translating what you hear) learn Hebrew. Usually under £20 and you might get one second hand on eBay.

Angela Lansbury, 

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