[Multilingual Monday] Arabic influences on modern Hebrew
First off: this is my first Multilingual Monday in what seems like forever. Miss it? Yes? No? Maybe? :: laugh :: As much as as I love linguistics, admittedly sometimes I have a bit of writer's block -- FAR more common when you're focusing on one particular field and are not yet as entrenched in the study of particular field to be as well-versed as you're like.
But this ... this is something I've enjoyed looking into. Many people will assume that, because of the Israeli-Arab conflict, that the languages of Hebrew and Arabic somehow cease to influence each other at all, and this is simply not the case (or, really, even plausible). Though the Hebrew influences on Palestinian Arabic are not huge, several words have crept into the Arabic language from Hebrew -- words like רמזור, ramzor, "stoplight"; מחסום, maxshom, "roadblock"; בסדר, beseder, "okay"; and פלאפון, pelefon, "cell phone", are all in common use in the area's variants of Arabic.
The reverse is much stronger. This is interesting as -- in part due to the conflict -- there is an extreme amount of hesitance to learn the Arabic language, despite the language being the country's second official language. Arabic is taught in schools, but many can tell you that they remember little from these lessons, and are almost never taught by native speakers. This is, however, starting to change, as seen in this article.
Slang is full of words lifted from the Arabic language. Something can be described as "awesome" with סבבה, sababa(from صبابة) or even על הכיפאק, al hakifak (from على كيفك); you tell someone to get a move on with יאללה, y'allah (from يا الله), and people tell one another off with כוס אמק, kus emek ("your mother's pussy," from كس امك). Everyday objects have names borrowed from Arabic -- גרב, gerev, "stamp", from Arabic جورب, juureb; קטיפה, ktifa, "velvet," from Arabic قطيفة, qatiifa; אבזם, avzem, "buckle," from Arabic إبزيم, ibziim.
One interesting find is that number prefixes in English that come from Greek and Latin (bi-, quad-, hept-) in Hebrew are attempts to use the Arabic roots. For example, a tricep in Hebrew is שריר תלת-ראשי, sharir tlat-reshi, "tri-headed muscle". Note that "three" in Hebrew is שלוש, shalosh, whereas "tri" is much closer to the Arabic ثلاثة, theletha.. This is also seen in other prefixes and names based on them (for the example, an octagon is מתומן, meteman, again not based on שמונה, shnomeh, but rather on ثمانية, themanya).
But this ... this is something I've enjoyed looking into. Many people will assume that, because of the Israeli-Arab conflict, that the languages of Hebrew and Arabic somehow cease to influence each other at all, and this is simply not the case (or, really, even plausible). Though the Hebrew influences on Palestinian Arabic are not huge, several words have crept into the Arabic language from Hebrew -- words like רמזור, ramzor, "stoplight"; מחסום, maxshom, "roadblock"; בסדר, beseder, "okay"; and פלאפון, pelefon, "cell phone", are all in common use in the area's variants of Arabic.
The reverse is much stronger. This is interesting as -- in part due to the conflict -- there is an extreme amount of hesitance to learn the Arabic language, despite the language being the country's second official language. Arabic is taught in schools, but many can tell you that they remember little from these lessons, and are almost never taught by native speakers. This is, however, starting to change, as seen in this article.
Slang is full of words lifted from the Arabic language. Something can be described as "awesome" with סבבה, sababa(from صبابة) or even על הכיפאק, al hakifak (from على كيفك); you tell someone to get a move on with יאללה, y'allah (from يا الله), and people tell one another off with כוס אמק, kus emek ("your mother's pussy," from كس امك). Everyday objects have names borrowed from Arabic -- גרב, gerev, "stamp", from Arabic جورب, juureb; קטיפה, ktifa, "velvet," from Arabic قطيفة, qatiifa; אבזם, avzem, "buckle," from Arabic إبزيم, ibziim.
One interesting find is that number prefixes in English that come from Greek and Latin (bi-, quad-, hept-) in Hebrew are attempts to use the Arabic roots. For example, a tricep in Hebrew is שריר תלת-ראשי, sharir tlat-reshi, "tri-headed muscle". Note that "three" in Hebrew is שלוש, shalosh, whereas "tri" is much closer to the Arabic ثلاثة, theletha.. This is also seen in other prefixes and names based on them (for the example, an octagon is מתומן, meteman, again not based on שמונה, shnomeh, but rather on ثمانية, themanya).