Re: The Saharan page (was: Basque article)

On Wed, 11 Aug 1999 13:29:59 -0500 Eric Christopherson
<raccoon@...> writes:
>Hebrew has a tradition of coming up with names by using one consonant
>from
>each word in a phrase; for example, the word Tanakh (meaning the
>Hebrew
>Bible) comes from Torah (Law), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim
>(Writings),
>the three parts of the Bible; also Rashi, the acronym for Rabbi Shlomo
>ben
>Itzhak. Something I find especially interesting is how Lag B@'omer
>translates to "33th of Omer," but lag is really L (lamed, used for the
>number 30) + G (gimel, the number 3).  Does anyone (Steg? :) ) know if
>any
>other numbers are made from acronyms?
It's called _gematriya_.  Traditionally, numbers in Hebrew were written
in letters, instead of numerals.  Somewhat like Roman numerals, but more
exact, since Roman numerals only have intervals of 1 - 5 - 10 - 50 -
100...
Gematriya goes according to the intervals
alef through yud = 1 through 10 (intervals of one)
kaf through tzadi = 20 through 90 (intervals of ten)
quf through tav = 100 through 400 (intervals of one hundred)

Today, euro-arabic numerals are used, except in traditional uses such as
days of the month, years, series (where English would use A,B,C...),
biblical chapters/verses, etc.

So when you have the Hebrew and the English dates it looks something like
this:
K"Tt Av, H'TShN"Tt --- 11 Ogustt, 1999
29 Av, 5759 --- 11 August, 1999

K"Tt = kaf-ttet = 20+9 = 29
H'TShN"Tt = hei(+apostraphe)-tav-shin-nun-ttet = 5000+400+300+50+9 = 5759

Since the highest the actual letters reach is 400, thousands are
represented by the thousands-place with an apostraphe (since a quote-mark
is used before the last letter to mark it as an acronym)

La"G ba`Omer is the 33rd day of the Omer, which isn't a month...it's the
49-day period from the second day of Pesahh (Passover) until Shavu`ot
(Feast of Weeks/Pentecost?)

Other days which are known by the pronounciation of their number-letters
are:

Tt"u (written Ttet-Vav) biShvat, the 15th of Shvat, the "New Year of the
Trees".
Tt"u b'Av, the 15th of Av, which is a minor, mostly forgotten peace and
love holiday.

Usually when you say the date, you just list the letters instead of
pronouncing them.
Also, the fast days having to do with the destruction of the Temples
(other then Tzom Gedalya, which is named after a person) are called by
the actual *numbers*, and not by the gematriya of the numbers:

Tish`a b'Av "the 9th of Av" instead of *Tt' b'Av (single-letter numbers
have one apostrophe, as do abbreviations of single words)
Shiv`a-`Asar beTamuz "the 17th of Tamuz" instead of *Y"Z beTamuz.
`Asara beTeiveit "the 10th of Teiveit" instead of *Y' beTeiveit.

Diasporan Ashkenazim call these fasts by the "Yiddishafied" blurrings of
their names:
['tIS@bVv]
['SIv@sarb@'tVmuz]
[@'sVr@b@'tejvejs]

The Ramba"m (another acronym, Rav Moshe Ben Maimon)'s book _Mishne Tora_
(which means something like "a repetition of the Torah") is also known by
the name _(ha)Ya"d haHhazaqa_ ("the strong hand") because the word _yad_,
"hand", is also the gematriya for 14, and it has 14 sections.

In Israeli calendars, it's common to replace the long-winded names for
days of the week ("yom rishon, yom sheini" = "first day, second day"...)
with just the letter representing their number, so the top row looks
like:

? (alef) - B - G - D - H - V - Sh

for

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - Sabbath

Another 'common' numerical acronym is _TRY"G_ ("taryag"), 613, the number
of the commandments in the Torah.

Years can be written "with more specification", meaning with the
thousands marked, or "with less specification", without the thousands
marked.  So you'd find TShN"Tt for (5)759 some places, and H'TShN"Tt for
5759 other places.

Hmm....does anyone's conlang/conculture do stuff like that?
The Rokbeigalm have real numerals, which are based on finger-binary, so
they don't need to use letters.


-Stephen (Steg)

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