Re: Hebrew, etc. [was: Multi-lingos

On 23 Aug, Steg wrote:

>On Tue, 22 Aug 2000 19:38:09 +0200 BP Jonsson <bpj@...> writes:
>> In Lucus America is called Al-Maghreb-al-Akbar "The Greater West" in
>> Arabic
>> -- since it was Tarik, who Here conquered Spain who discovered the
>> New
>> World There.  What would be the Hebrew counterpart of that?
>
>> /BP 8^)>
>-
>
<snip>

>Unlike Arabic, Hebrew doesn't have a comparative pattern for words,
>instead using the word _be-yoteir_ which can be translated as an adverb,
>"morely".
>So literally "The Greater West" would be something like Ha-Ma`arav
>ha-Gadol be-Yoteir, which actually comes out "the Greatest West" because
>of the definite article.  But i'd expect that it'd just be translated as
>Ha-Ma`arav ha-Gadol "the Great West", implying that there's also
>Ha-Ma`arav ha-Qattan "the Smaller West" out there somewhere.
>
In Israeli Hebrew, "Ha-Maghreb" is used to denote
the western end of north Africa, especially Morocco.
To describe what, in English, is referred to as "The West"
(The US and other democracies), the word for west in
Hebrew is used, thus "Ha-Maarav". Israeli Hebrew follows
English usage when referring to America, calling it
"artsot ha-brit" (= united states, or more literally,
"states of the covenant" ) or simply  /amerika/, or when
referring to the western hemisphere, sometimes you'll hear
"ha-olam hachadash" (= the new world).
    Interestingly, we refer to our region as  "ha-mizrach ha-tichon"
or "the middle east", preserving a western view of geography.

Dan Sulani

--------------------------------------------------------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.