The Glamour of the Grammar

Count On It

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0200

Numbers pop up in the most amazing places. Today we'll look at a few. And we'll start with one of the Hebrew words for "few," because almost paradoxically it's the plural of the word for "one." One way to say "a few words" is milim ahadot, literally, "words ones." While in the singular, "one" means "one," in the plural it means "some." Leave it to Hebrew to have a plural for "one."...

Side By Side

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0200

What do apples, oranges and tomatoes have in common in Hebrew, as opposed to mangoes, bananas and carrots? Let's find out. (Here's a hint that won't surprise you: The difference between the two groups has nothing to do with the foods themselves; it's a matter of grammar.)

To get started, we look at a construction called smichut in Hebrew - literally, "closeness" - translated as "the construct" in English (creating the unfortunately alliterative phrase "construct construction")....

It's The Little Things

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0200

It is not unusual to hear Israelis yelling "die!" at each other. That's because, in Hebrew, dai literally means "enough," and it's a common way of telling someone "that's enough already; now please quit it." (Two American parents took their children to Israel for the year. One day the five-year-old daughter came home from her new Israeli school and reported that she'd learned a Hebrew word: dai. She reported "it means 'stop fighting.'")....

'Tis The Season

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0200

It's time for another meandering romp through roots and etymology. In honor of the long days of summer, we'll use those interesting if sometimes misleading lenses to view the names of the seasons, starting, naturally, with summer.

In Hebrew, "summer" is kayitz, and right off the bat we find ourselves faced with uncertainty. It looks like kayitz comes from the word ketz, "end," which would make sense because the summer is the end of one of the years in Hebrew....

I Have an Answer

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0200

A little while ago we looked at how to ask questions in Hebrew. This week we learn how to answer.

By way of a segue, we consider a question word that we didn't have room for last time: kama. It means "how much?" or "how many?" and is perhaps most famous among tourists from the phrase kama ze oleh, "How much does that cost?" (Tourists frequently learn the phrase, not realizing until they get an answer that they haven't yet learned the Hebrew numbers.) The reason kama makes a good transition for us is that it has the curious quality of sometimes being its own answer. In addition to meaning "how much/many?" it also means "some." Kama shkalim means "some shekels," for example. The answer to kama? can be kama.

Say Little

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0200

Sometimes brevity is a matter of good style ("Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do," William Safire once directed), and other times it's a matter of grammar, because in many circumstances the shortest possible word is the only grammatical option....

More or Less

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0200

You have lots of choices when you want to compare things in Hebrew.

The most basic function of adjectives is to describe a noun, but they can also form a comparison. When they do, they fall into one of two categories: "Comparative" adjectives compare one noun with one or more others. "Superlatives" compare nouns with all others. (Ordinary adjectives are technically called "positive," so the progression is: positive, comparative, superlative.) An example in English of all three forms is "good, better, best." A song you like might be "good." It might be "better" than other songs. Or it might even be "the best" song. Two other English examples are "cool, cooler, coolest" and "interesting, more interesting, most interesting...."

I Have a Question

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 5 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0200

Asking a question in Hebrew can be complicated. The most basic question word is ma - "what?" - and it has no synonyms. At the other end of the spectrum, Hebrew sports at least eight words for "where?" (How many can you think of?) The word ma stands on its own when it's the subject of a verb. For example, ma kara, "what happened?" Or it can come after a preposition: for example, al ma ata yoshev, "what are you sitting on?" However, when the irksome et is involved, you have a choice. "What do you want?" is usually the more common ma ata rotzeh, but it can also be et ma ata rotzeh....

Helping Hands

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:00:00 +0200

The letter Yud has traversed a confused, almost schizophrenic path.

It originally indicated the consonantal sound /y/, like our English letter "wye." Three thousand years ago, the ancient Hebrews invented another use for it, adding a vocalic role to the letter. So for most of its history it has also represented the sounds /i/ as in the "ee" of "see," and /ei/ as in the "ay" of the American pronunciation of "day." (In fact, it was in part this doubling up of purpose, using 'yud' and two other consonants as vowels, that led to widespread writing and perhaps to the ubiquity of the Bible.)....

Resumption Presumption

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 8 May 2009 00:00:00 +0200

Pronouns are tricky.

For example, it might be true that "the problem with not having a hat is that you can't take it off to show respect," but when you read that sentence it's easy to miss the subtlety that "it" refers to a hat, even though you don't have a hat....

In Search of Order

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0200

The root ayin.resh.kaf, which gives us the verb arach ("arrange," "set in order or," "organize"), pops up in the most amazing places.

Perhaps the oldest and most famous image is arach shulhan, "set a table," which we find in Psalm 23: ta'aroch l'fanai shulhan,....

Dot Dot Dot

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0200

The sixth stanza of the famous 16th-century kabbalistic poem Lecha Dodi ends with the word tilah, "on its tel." (A tel is a hill or mound formed from rocks, soil, and ruins of successive cities built on the same spot.) The word caught my eye because each letter of the word has a dot in it, and I began wondering what the longest such word is. (A seven-letter answer appears at the end of the column.)...

Cause of Action

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0200

We've already looked at four of Hebrew's seven binyanim (except that there are really at least nine), which are also known as paradigms or, in this space, by the somewhat literal "building blocks." This week we look at a fifth: hiph'il....

I Say Again

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0200

Hebrew words generally come from three-letter roots. For example, from the root k.tz.r we get the word katzar, the adjective "short," and also ketzer, the noun "short (circuit)." Similarly, from y.r.k we get the word yarok, which is the color "green," and also the word y'rakot, "vegetables." (One vegetable is a yarak. Don't be misled by the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who think the singular is yerek. It's yarak. Really. A yerek is any green, not specifically a vegetable.)

New words can be formed by doubling up one or more of the root letters, in a process called "reduplication"...

Dangerous Curve Ahead

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0200

Last time we looked at how to create 'pi'el' and 'pu'al' verb forms. Today we'll learn more about what those forms mean, and also discover the answer to the puzzle I posed: What pu'al form means the same thing as its related pi'el?...

More Buildling Blocks

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0200

Several months ago, I asked readers to find passive and active forms of a verb that mean almost the same thing. Zachar (remember) and nizkar (think about) are one such pair. The challenge was to find another. This week we'll get a hint....

First Things First

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0200

There's a class of words in Hebrew whose pronunciation, even when spelled with all of the vowels, is potentially unclear. Can you think of what it is?...

And Jubal, His Brother

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0200

The study of where words come from is called etymology, etimologya in Hebrew. Though both words ultimately come from the Greek for "true meaning," a word's etymology is as much of an adventure as it is a window in true meaning. Start looking into etymology and you never know where you'll end up. Here are a few examples from the words for musical instruments....

Bewteen You and Me

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 2 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0200

Last time we learned a little about the pronouns. This time we'll look at the prepositions, that is, words like "in," "with," "from" and so forth that come before nouns and pronouns. Both pronouns and prepositions tend to be comprised of short words, often prefixes or suffixes, so it's a reasonable follow-up. But it's also important, because they don't get along so well....

Me and You

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Pronouns are the words like "I," "me," "you," "it," etc. that substitute for nouns. In Hebrew, they tend to be short words, frequently suffixes, and in this regard they complement the prepositions nicely. Today we'll look at the pronouns, and save the prepositions for next time....

Modern Stress

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 5 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Last time we noted that, traditionally, Hebrew words were accented on the last syllable unless one of a handful of rules moved the stress back one syllable. Modern spoken Hebrew is more complicated....

Stress Management

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0200

With several exceptions, Hebrew words traditionally enjoy word-final stress. That is, the final syllable is usually accented. So "Abraham" in classical Hebrew is avraHAM; "Israel" is yisraEL; "where" is eiFO, etc. Today we'll look at eight of the exceptions, when stress shifts back a syllable, and next time we'll look at modern Hebrew....

What Goes Around

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 7 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0200

My recent column on the names of some of the holidays prompted a lot of questions about the Hebrew word for "holiday" itself: hag. (There are other words, too, like mo'ed. We'll cover them another time.) The word hag comes from the root het.gimel.gimel, and while it means "holiday," it has traditionally referred specifically to the three "pilgrimage" holidays: Succot ("the festival of booths"), Passover and Shavuot ("the festival of weeks"). For this reason, some translators prefer "festival" for hag.....

Protocol

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200

It was about a year ago that "The Glamour of the Grammar" first ran in The Jerusalem Post, so this seems like an appropriate time to revisit some past columns with reader comments, corrections for the record and some elaborations. We'll go in reverse order.

...; Over the summer I posed a puzzle that generated more on-line and e-mail feedback than any other column in this space. I challenged readers to find a Hebrew word that has four identical letters in a row. The best answers in the column were mimemam (from their mem) and uvavo (and his hook)....

Two Whom It May Concern

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Generally "to" and "from" are opposites, but in at least one circumstance they mean the same thing in Hebrew. Can you think of what it is?...

Remember This

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200

We recently looked at the name Rosh Hashana. This week we examine the words that form a few more holidays.

In addition to "head of the year," Rosh Hashana has traditionally enjoyed a second name, yom hazikaron, though that name now tends to refer to Yom Kippur. Yom means "day," and zikaron is a word commonly translated as "remembrance." But it, and the words related to it, are more complicated....

First things First

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200

We recently tackled the cardinal ("counting") numbers: "one" (ehad or ahat), "two" (shnayim or shtayim, also shnei or shtei), "three" (shalosh or shlosha), etc. As Rosh Hashana approaches, it makes sense to turn to the ordinals: "first," "second," "third," etc....

Girl People And Boy People

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0200

It's hard to talk about people in Hebrew. What gets in the way is gender. Even though all Hebrew nouns are either masculine or feminine, most of the time that distinction is purely a matter of grammar. (We went through this in December: "The birds and the bees.") But some grammatical gender corresponds to real-world gender, and then things start to get interesting, because there are in fact two different ways a word in Hebrew can refer to human gender. The gender can be incidental or inherent....

Double Or Nothing

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 8 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0200

There's only one word in Hebrew (or maybe two, but really one) in which the same letter appears four times in a row. Can you think of it? The answer is at the end of the column....

A Stiff Necked People

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Hebrew has a convenient one-word answer to "why is the sky blue?" Stam. That is "just because" or "for no good reason" or "it just is." (For the purposes of probing Hebrew, we'll ignore the meteorological nuance that the sky's hue actually has an explanation.) This week we'll take a look at this common Hebrew word, and at its opposite, as well....

As Easy As One, Two, Three

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200

"Why are the numbers backwards?" asks a reader, by which she means, why do "masculine" numbers like shlosha end in -a, when usually the -a ending is reserved for feminine words? Let's find out....

Reason For Pause

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

In Hebrew, the world is divided into two places: ha-aretz, "the land," and hutz la'aretz, "outside the land." The former means "inside Israel," and the latter means "everywhere else." As chance would have it, you can be "in" either place. When you're in Israel, you are ba-aretz, and when you are not in Israel, you are in outside-of-Israel, b-hutz la'aretz, which more popularly goes by the abbreviation b'hul. But that's not today's point.

Dot One, Part Two

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

"Beged kefet b'rosh mila," that is, "beged kefet [letters get a dot] at the start of a word." A recent column ended with an admonition about this well-known bit of grammatical advice. Today we'll take a closer look....

It's Nothing New

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

"En kol hadash tahat hashamash," we read in Ecclesiastes. "There's nothing new under the sun." Apparently it's true, though a certain irony marks the first time that the thought was penned. Ancient words and phrases continue to resurface in modern Israel....

Yeah, Yeah

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

In Hebrew, as in English, many words come in both positive and negative varieties. For example, "someone" and "anyone" (both mishehu in Hebrew) are positive while "no one" (af ehad) is negative. "Anything" and "something" (mashehu) are positive and "nothing" (klum) is negative. More generally, "yes" (ken) is positive and "no" (lo) is negative. These aren't value judgments, of course, but merely grammatical terms.

One Little Dot

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 9 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

"What's the deal with the dot?" is a question I get a lot. The query refers to the Dagesh, which for months I've been promising to explain. So here's part one.

Say Ah

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 2 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Of all the Hebrew vowels, the Kamatz is perhaps the most confusing. It looks like a little T under a letter, but, unlike most vowel symbols, it represents two different sounds: /a/ and /o/ (roughly the "o" in "dot" and "dote," respectively). Knowing when the vowel makes which sound is part of the subtle joy of learning Hebrew grammar.

You Know What They Say

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0200

In Hebrew, "if already," that is, im kvar, means "what's worth doing is worth doing right." How is it possible that those two simple words convey so much meaning? Let's find out.

Building Blocks

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Hebrew verbs come in (at least) seven varieties. In Hebrew they are called binyanim, that is, "buildings," or, better, "constructions," as in the term, "grammatical constructions." This week we're going to look at two of them.

What the ...?

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0200

A reader writes: "I'm confused by the definite article in Hebrew. Can you help?" Yes....

I'll buy a Vowel

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Hebrew doesn't like words that start with too many consonants. In fact, two is the limit....

What to Do?

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0200

A reader from Akko wants to know how to make infinitives in Hebrew. On the one hand, it's easy. Add the prefix l- (``to'') to the beginning of the word. But nothing is ever that easy....

Have It Your Way

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 8 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Recently we discussed the Hebrew word et. In response, many readers wrote me impassioned notes about how that word interacts with the word yesh, which literally means "there is/are" and more generally is used to express possession in Hebrew. So let's tackle that word, and its partner, ein ("there isn't/aren't")....

It's Like This

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0200

The Hebrew word for "like" --- that is, "akin to," not "hold in endearment" --- is the prefix k'-, written as a single letter Kaf. Like a handful of other Hebrew words, it never stands by itself, and therefore enjoys the technical name "clitic." The two-word English phrase "Like Miriam," for example, is the one-word k'miryam in Hebrew....

Can I Borrow a Word?

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0200

A friend recently asked me in Hebrew, "How do you say karboorator in English?" "Carburetor?" I suggested....

These are a Few of My Favorite Words

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0200

New nouns enter Hebrew in multiple ways. Today we'll look at three of them. The first, onomatopoeia (literally, "word making") is when a word reflects the sound associated with what it represents. Nearly every language has this process. In antiquity, it produced one of my favorite Hebrew words: bakbuk. It means "bottle," and it sounds like what happens when liquid is poured from it: bakBUKbakBUK.... Other examples include ra'am ("thunder") and the almost-cruel m'gam'g'man ("stutterer" --- an equally unfair English example of onomatopoeia).

And Yet Another Thing

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Recently we saw the power of the word "and" in Hebrew. But who would have thought it could be so hard to say? Though it's always written as a prefixed Vav, the word enjoys no fewer than seven pronunciations....

And Another Thing

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0200

"Why does a Vav turn the future into the past in Hebrew?" asks a reader. It's a great question, with a fascinating answer....

What Is Et?

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0200

"Can you explain the purpose and origin of et?" asks a reader. I can (and I will), but a short word is often a sign of complexity in language, and the answer will meander through the nature of nouns and four varieties of verb....

The Birds and The Bees

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 2 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Unlike in English, Hebrew nouns, verbs, and adjectives come in two varieties, commonly called masculine and feminine. The endings -a (singular) and -ot (plural) frequently mark the feminine, and while the masculine nouns have no particular ending in the singular, typically their plural marker is -im. So "man" is ish and "woman" is isha. Adjectives (which in Hebrew follow the nouns they describe) match: ish tov is a "good man" and isha tova is a "good woman."...

Shalom

Joel@Lashon.net (Dr. Joel. M. Hoffman) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Shalom. That ancient Hebrew word, variously meaning "hello," "good-bye," and "peace," seems a fitting way to inaugurate this column on the glamour of the grammar.