2373: Biblical Loan Words Jun 17, 2021

Over the years, a number of collections have been arranged of word in Biblical Hebrew that are from other sources, including non-Semitic ones. Of course, some of these will be obvious, such as פרעה‎ ('pharaoh') from Ancient Egyptian probably or קוף (qof) meaning 'monkey' from either Tamil or Sanskrit, considering that these concepts would not be native. Considering also the timespan of Bible, some of these sources will be found later historically after centuries of contact with other civilizations in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean. However, even in the Writings (כתובים‎) which has the greatest percentage, even a inclusive estimate would put total loan words from any language at less than 2% of all vocabulary.