2730: Aramaic Has Multiple Ways of Saying “There is [/not]” Jun 11, 2024

Hebrew does not have a verb meaning ‘to have’ like many other languages, so rather it uses a verb meaning “there is” (יש yesh) or “there isn’t” (אין ein), plus a dative to express possession, so אין לנו (ein lanu) literally “there is not to us” means “we don’t have”. Of course, these words can also just refer to existence, like in אין מקום (ein makom) “there is no room”, not just possession.

This duality is further complicated in Aramaic, the closest related language to Hebrew, with the forms אית (it) and איכא (ika) both meaning “there is” while לית (leit) and ליכא (leika) each mean “there isn’t”. While this might look more linguistically diverse, it’s not exactly the case, since אית (it) is the basis for all of those words. איכא (ika), the other positive word, comes from a combination אית כא (it ka) for “it is here; it is so”. The negative words are also compounds likewise with לית (leit) coming from  לא אית (lo it) with לא meaning “no; not” (i.e. “there is not”) , and the other negative form, ליכא (leika), also combining with כא (“here; thus”) to make “there is not”. While Aramaic has two forms for these positive and negative particles, instead of Hebrew’s one each, there is not a particular meaningful difference.