Re: Hebrew and Semitic questions

On Friday 14 February 2003 12:28 am, Wesley Parish wrote:
> On Friday 14 February 2003 09:21 am, you wrote:
> > On 13 Feb, Steg Belsky wrote, answering Danny Wier :
>
> <snip>
>
> >     I'm commenting, because today I chanced to hear something
> > unusual, (for me at least) that has relevance to this topic.
> > There is a word for "son" in Hebrew,
> > taken from Aramaic: |bar|, which is almost always only
> > found in the construct form. As in |bar mitsva|
> > (= son [of the] commandment). In modern usage,
> > the feminine is usually taken from Hebrew, not Aramaic.
> > Thus, "Bar Mitsvah" for girls is called |bat mitsva|,
> >
> > |bat| meaning "daughter".
> >
> >     The phrase |bar mazal| (literally, son of the [zodiacal]
> > constellation [= luck]) means "lucky guy". The feminine
> > form should be |bat mazal|.
> >     However, today I heard a native-born Hebrew-speaking
> > professor refer to herself as a |barat mazal|. It seems that, in an
> > effort to exude a certain amount of elitism, she eschewed
> > common custom and reverted to Aramaic, which to a Hebrew
> > speaker carries the same sort of connotation of formality
> > as Latin words do in English
>
> Now that _is_ interesting.  I would've thought, since Hebrew is actually an
> older West Semitic language, and the sacred language of the Jewish people,
> that it would've been the other way around.  Evidently not.
>
> Why would that be., I wonder?
>
I would expect it is because Hebrew is now the colloquial language, and you
can't really exude elitism with your native tongue.

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