2691: Old English Has a Word for ‘Hyena’, Sort of. May 3, 2024
The modern word 'hyena' comes from an Ancient Greek root ὗς (hûs) meaning 'pig' with a feminine ending -αινα (-aina) so called because it has a similar hide to a warthog. This replaced an earlier Old English word nihtgenġe (“night walker”) which is not only cooler, but begs the question of how much contact there was between these parts of the world to have a distinct and known word for the animal. You might think the answer is because of the Roman Empire, but Old English began after the Roman Empire fell, and the Germanic tribes that invaded then-Celtic Britain wouldn't have had much Roman contact. However, hyenas are used in the Bible as a metaphor for Satan, and the term nihtgenġe (“night walker”) would otherwise refer to a demon. So, in way this was the word for them, but it is also likely those living in Britain in the Dark Ages would not have had a clear idea how they looked.
There will be more on this tomorrow.
2536: Bad Censorship (by Catholics) Nov 22, 2021
Catholic censors of the Talmud (the compilation of Jewish oral-law) were tasked with removing sections that the Church didn't like, but often with a clear lack of understanding of the language. In one instance, these censors were told to replace any use of גוי (goi) which literally just means 'nation' with עכו"ם (akum), an acronym עבודת כוכבים ומזלות (avdos cochavim u'mazlos) meaning 'worshiper of stars and constellations', including replacing a quote from Exodus גוי קדוש (goy kadosh) meaning 'holy nation' referring to the Jewish people. This resulted in a quote from the Bible being rewritten as "holy star worshipers" by the Catholics.
2529: sinai Nov 15, 2021
Sinai is certainly a famous place due to its significance in the Bible, but the etymology of it is unclear. The area was known in Ancient Egypt as a place for mining turquoise as was called 'Biau' (mining). It is therefore thought that the Hebrew סיני (sinei) is from the name of the moon-deity of the Mesopotamian pantheon (and its ancient Egyptian equivalent Thoth), who was associated with the area by locals, given that the desert on the peninsula around the mountain in Hebrew is known as מדבר סין (midbar sin) and nearby is the desert מדבר סיני (midbar sinei).
2507: Candace: Mistaken for a Biblical Name Oct 23, 2021
Candace is ostensibly a (New Testament) biblical name, but it was not actually a name. Referred to as a queen in the text, the word was written as Κανδάκη (Kandakē) in Greek, from Kdke in the Meroitic language of the Cushites, was a specific title for the sister of a king. This sort of terminology was commonly used around the region, especially around what is now Ethiopia, but later Greek and Roman sources misunderstood this and treated it as her personal name in Acts. This is how it came to be a name in English, despite it not technically being a biblical name, per se.
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.
2367: Anomalous: The Rare Dagesh in Guttural Letters Jun 11, 2021
Hebrew uses a system of diacritics to represent vowels, but also to represent other phonetic changes. Still, there are some anomalous cases in the Torah. The dagesh—appearing as a dot in the middle of a letter—distinguishes basically 2 features; either it will distinguish between plosive or fricative forms in six letters: בג"ד כת"פ (note that not all of these are still productive) but more often the dagesh is used as a דגש חזק ('strong dot') indicating gemination. This latter use is found in all other letters to effectively double that particular sound but those mentioned above and the 'guttural letters': א, ה, ח, ע, and in many ways ways ר. This last case, ר (reish), representing [ʁ] or [ʀ] is found in at least 17 cases, which is still very few, that are throughout the Prophets and Writings. Even fewer exceptional cases—about four—are found with א (aleph) even though this is often taken as a 'silent letter', such as in Genesis 43:26, Leviticus 23:17, and neither of these have other vowels added.