Re: Hebrew and Semitic questions

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?

Wesley Parish

 (Are the connotations the same
> for Latin words used in Romance langs? Are Latin words
> used in Romance langs?)
>
> Dan Sulani
> ----------------------------------------------------
> likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a
>
> A word is an awesome thing.
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

Replies