Purim (Hebrew: ????? Pûrîm ) is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman’s (who was a high-ranking political advisor or minister to King Ahasuerus of Persia) plot to annihilate them, as recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther (in Hebrew: Megillat Esther). According to the story, Haman cast lots to determine the day upon which to exterminate the Jews. The word for lots in Hebrew is “pur”, hence the name purim (which is the plural form of pur).
Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Adar, the day following the victory of the Jews over their enemies. In cities that were protected by a surrounding wall at biblical era, including Shushan (Susa) and Jerusalem, Purim is celebrated on the 15th of the month, known as Shushan Purim. This year Purim takes place on March 21st. (and in Jerusalem: on March 22nd.).
Purim is characterized by public recitation of the Book of Esther, giving mutual gifts of food and drink, giving charity to the poor, and a celebratory meal; other customs include drinking wine, wearing of masks and costumes, and public celebration.As mentioned above, a festive meal called Seudat Purim is held, often with wine as the prominent beverage; consequently, drunkenness is not uncommon at this meal.
The jovial character of this feast is illustrated in the saying of the Talmud (Megilla 7b) stating that one should drink on Purim until he can no longer distinguish between the phrases, arur Haman (”Cursed is Haman”) and baruch Mordechai (”Blessed is Mordecai”).
In Hebrew these phrases have the same gematria (”numerical value”), and some rabbinical authorities have ruled that one should drink wine until he is unable to calculate these numerical values.
It’s interesting to note, that Madonna (yes, Madonna), who has become a follower of Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) in recent years, has chosen to take the Hebrew name Esther. Esther plays one of the leading roles in story told in the Book of Esther and she was both smart and beautiful (and wife of the Persian king!).
Tagged: celebrations, Hebrew, Madonna, Persia, Purim
We have decided to post an article written by Jim Edwars, as it has a very strong connection to article writing and to words – which are our blog’s main subjects. We publish the article as-is. Hope you enjoy it and benefit from it, like we have been doing. We strongly recommend Jim Edwards ebook; in fact we believe it is a must.
“The Web’s Best-Kept Traffic Secret”
– by Jim Edwards
(c) Jim Edwards – All Rights reserved
=====================================
Did you realize that thousands of website operators use a simple technique to generate targeted visitors to their websites without paying a dime in advertising? It’s true.
In fact, the technique works so well that many of them don’t want you to discover how they get those thousands of website visitors and make so many sales on virtual “auto-
pilot.”
Their method?
Creating tightly focused articles other people publish in their ezines (online magazines and email newsletters) and post on their websites. This method rates so powerful that some even call it “the web’s best kept traffic secret.”
Now, you may ask, “Why would an ezine publisher or website owner publish my articles for their subscribers?”
The answer: Content!
Over a 100,000 ezines and newsletters operate on the web (along with millions of ebsites) covering everything from pets and cooking to investments and real estate. Many of them need tightly focused content and they simply can’t produce all of it themselves. Look at it this way… it’s the same reason newspapers use the Associated Press. Individual newspapers often can’t afford staff writers to cover every story, so they accept articles from outside their organization.
You can do the exact same thing for various ezines and websites catering to your niche audience!
You can get valuable publicity — exposure you often couldn’t even pay for if you wanted to — by providing valuable, content-rich articles in exchange for a byline and a link to your website (called a “resource box”)!
The following represent only a few of the enormous benefits of writing and distributing simple articles online:
** Attain “Expert” Status **
Let’s face it! In the eyes of virtually everyone who reads your articles you rank as the “expert” on the subject.
Just look at people who write newspaper columns. You may disagree with their viewpoints, but they still have an elevated status in your mind compared to the “average Joe” off the street.
** Pre-sell Website Visitors **
If your article appeals to a niche audience hungry for more information on a very focused subject, you actually pre-sell them better than any sales pitch. In their minds, you’ve already delivered content they really want so when they click over to your site you already have a “reputation” in their minds.
** Traffic Lasts Longer **
Even though the Internet changes very quickly, webmasters are usually very slow to remove content from their sites. Once you get an article posted on another person’s website, you have an excellent chance of that article staying there for weeks, months, even years.
** Increase Links To Your Site **
In a recent search I found just a dozen of my articles posted on over 813 different websites! Not only do those postings bring me traffic, but they also help my search
engine positioning because of my increased “Link Popularity.”
** Builds Your Affiliate Base **
Fact: Affiliates always take the path of least resistance. If you provide excellent articles they can easily post on their sites or copy and paste into their ezines, your affiliates will promote you more often and more effectively compared to those who don’t give them tools. Plus, as you make more sales and publish articles, other people will see you providing excellent tools and will want to sign up as your affiliate so they can use them too!
** Build a Huge “Opt-In” Email List **
You can use articles to build up a huge list of subscribers by simply compiling several articles into a series and delivering them at preset intervals. Often called a “mini-course,” this technique allows you not only to prove to your subscribers that you deliver great
information, but enables you to capture their name and email adress so you can send them articles and special offers in the future (with their permission).
** Requires No Special Skills **
People often think they need to be a “writer” in order to publish articles, but that’s not true!
FACT: If you have a passion for a subject and can talk and explain things like you would to a friend over a cup of coffee, you can write articles people will love to read.
So if you operate a website selling virtually any type of product or service (whether your own or as an affiliate), publishing and promoting with articles should rank high on your
list of traffic generation strategies. No other method of generating targeted traffic to your
website provides the quality, quantity and steadiness of traffic in such a simple, straightforward, and cost-effective manner.
—-
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook, “Turn Words Into Traffic,” that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate link!
Click=> http://hop.clickbank.net/?idiom/ezarticles
There are approx. 7,000 known living languages in the world today and half of them are in the process of becoming extinct!!! Amazing figures indeed.
On March 21, 1948, the Governor General of Pakistan – Mohammed Ali Jinnah declared, that the Urdu language would be the only language for both West and East Pakistan. The peoples of the East Pakistan (whose main language was Bengali) started to protest against this decision.
On February 21, 1952, several students campaigning for the recognition of the Bengali language as one of the state languages of Pakistan were killed (shot) by the government police.
Linguistic and cultural diversity represent universal values that strengthen the unity and cohesion of societies. The recognition of the importance of linguistic diversity led to UNESCO’s decision in 1999, in the 30th session of its General Conference that the Organization would launch and observe an International Mother Language Day on 21 February every year, throughout the world.
This is mostly the international recognition of the Language Movement Day, which has been commemorated in Bangladesh (formerly: East Pakistan) since 1952.
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When did you last talk to someone about the weather? Do you find yourself doing it often? With close friends or total strangers? We are all familiar with the myth about Englishmen, when meeting with a stranger they’ll eventually start talking about the weather. True, English people do talk quite often about the weather, but they probably do that less often than we believe and not because they find climatic conditions such an interesting topic. They, like the rest of us, do that because finding oneself with a total stranger in a small place (let’s say, a train compartment and facing each other) can be quite embarrassing. Therefore by talking to the other person about a neutral topic (you guessed rightly: the weather!) one is making a connection – creating some kind of relationship - without putting too much effort. The other reason may be that by engaging in a conversation people learn things about each other (even if they only discuss the weather) and satisfy their curiosity. These two aspects of languages behavior are very important from a social point of view: first, the function of language in establishing social relationships and the second, the role played by language in conveying information about the speaker. So next time you hear two English (or any other) people talking about the weather, you’ll remember it is in fact all about sociolinguistics…
Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context on the way language is used.
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Two days ago I had the most incredible experience: I went to the Nalaga’at (”Do Touch”) Theatre Company which consists of an ensamble of Deaf-Blind actors. It is a unique and innovative cultural center, the first of its kind in the world.
Located at the old Jaffa Port (Tel Aviv, Israel) in a beautifully designed building, I was greeted by deaf waiters who welcome the audience as they enter, and offer refreshments and light snacks at the “Bistro”.
The performance itself was very touching: we experienced an hour of performance with this incredible group of actors. They began by kneading dough for bread which was actually baked in ovens on stage during the whole performance.
I learned about their dreams, had a short peep of their both silent and dark world, was astonished to discover their humor and was appreciating the wonderful group collaboration, accompanied and assisted by some very dedicated translators.
Whenever the audience applauded, the translators tapped on the actors’ shoulders to include them in the experience in real time.
There is also a special restaurant, called “Blackout”, located in that center, where you eat in complete darkness and are served by blind waiters. The restaurant is separated from the theater although it is located in the same building. You need to make reservations for this restaurant. If you stay in Tel Aviv, I warmly recommend a visit to this amazing center, but bear in mind that you cannot enjoy both the restaurant and the performance on the same day! For more details dial: 03-6330808.
It is our pleasure to announce that yesterday a new coin was introduced into circulation in Israel, the 2 NIS coin. Unbelievable as it may sound and although this new coin is only one day old, we already have a new blend word for it: “Shnekel“. This is a result of blending the two Hebrew words: “Shney” + “Shekel” (= 2 shekels). You will have to agree that “Shnekel” is shorter, more creative and much more fun….. Welcome, Shnekel, to the Israeli monetary system!
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I don’t really like what I’m doing and I can’t tell anyone I’m doing it. Not allowed to. Strictly forbidden. I wish I could. I also wish I could do something else, but it’s too late. I missed my last opportunity when I was 49 years and 364 days old. Had my chance then but didn’t take it. Not that anyone bothered to tell me about it. Yesterday I went to my manager and she laughed out loud, puffing away at her cigarette: ‘bit too late, ‘ain’t it love; had to think of it earlier.
Earlier indeed, I was only 50 years and 7 days old. What’s the deal? Why am I doomed to do the same thing over and over again? It wasn’t making any sense to me. I decided to go to Amy’s and spill the beans. I can tell her what I do, she’s my best friend. It wouldn’t harm anyone if she knew what I’ve been doing for the last ten years. At least I’ll get her support and who knows maybe she’ll have a clue as to how to get out of it. I reached her coffee shop in 2 minutes. She greeted me warmly, but gave me a suspicious look.
How come you’re here on a Monday? Not used to seeing you on a week day.
Just wanted to chat with you. Listen, you know that I…..
Chat? About what? She turned her head shouting at her new waiter to hurry up; customers were waiting for their menu.
What were you saying? She frowned.
It’s about my job… work…what I do… I’ve never talked about it but I’m….
Don’t! I really don’t want to know!
Why not Amy; you’re my best friend?
I know, that’s exactly why! It’ll ruin our friendship!
Ruin it? That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?
No it is not.
What???
Friends are there for you to cry your heart out when your lover’s been cheating on you, your boss fired you, you haven’t paid your bills, or worst of all you can’t get into last year’s pair of jeans. Not for listening to your stuff!
I couldn’t take it any more. I felt dizzy and held my head so the world would stop spinning around me. Seconds later, when the dizziness passed I was about to just say it – but couldn’t. I was afraid of losing our “friendship” forever.
Because…. Amy began slowly.
Because what? I snapped!
You look so desperate you’ll expect me to save you.
So????
So that’s a little way over my head. I have enough on my hands as it is.
‘Nicole how many times do I have to tell you to clean the tables immediately after the customer leaves????? Can’t you see we are short of tables today? Use your head if you have one’, she added quietly.
Feeling very strange and more so lonely, my occupation saga seemed even more unfit for me. I had a wild guess that Amy knew about my job, she just didn’t want to hear it said out loud. So what if my job is to distribute customers among all the cafés in the neighborhood? I walked out of Amy’s café which was gradually getting crowded (well I haven’t been idle all morning) and went back to my headquarters, where a long queue of impatient coffee addicts was waiting for my return from my coffee break. Can’t take it, the coffee, I’m a tea person myself.
All languages make up new words as they go along. Sometimes it happens because our life style changes and we suddenly need new words. Brunch was invented because we weren’t hungry enough at breakfast but couldn’t wait till lunch. So we blended the two words. Linguistics call this process blending. Motel is also a blended word (motor+hotel). We bet blog (web+log) immediately came into your mind, didn’t it?
When we are not blending, we sometimes combine two words together. It’s called compounding. There is almost no limit to the kinds of combinations of words that occur in English: boyfriend, rainbow, landlord; newborn, undergo and sailboat are only few examples. At times of greediness we even make up three compound words, such as mother-in-law (god bless her) and sergeant-at-arms.
Shortage of time leads to shortcuts, a process known as clipping. We say gym instead of the longer gymnastics; gas instead of gasoline; bike (bicycles), pop (popular) and math is short for mathematics.
Acronyms can be viewed as other type of shortcuts. They are words which derive from the initials of several words put together to create a new word. Radar (Radio detecting and ranging); Laser (Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation); OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries).
How does the term “onomatopoeic words” sound to you? Too long? Hard to pronounce? Quite right! (let’s clip that one…) Anyway, it means words that imitate the sound of their meaning: cuckoo( Hebrew: Kukeeya – ????? ), bottle (Hebrew: Bukbook- ?????), boom, whisper (French: chuchoter) , splash, click, buzzer (Hebrew: zumzum – ????) swoop, hiccup (Hebrew: sheehook – ?????) and the cat purrrrrrrs….
Can you guess what Fallopian tubes, boycott, July and August all have in common? They are all eponyms – words deriving from names of persons or places. A separate article will be dedicated to eponyms as there are many different types of them.
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December 27th, 2007 by phraseit in Articles · 1 Comment
It was a great shock to hear that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated earlier today. Only a few days ago we posted our article “Please Don’t call me Judas” where we chose to include Benazir Bhutto’s name and its translation; Benazir meaning “without comparison” (in Urdu) and to pay her our respect.
We wish to send our deepest condolences to the people in Pakistan and to Benazir Bhutto’s family.
May her soul rest in peace.
Language is a communication tool and the invention and addition of new words is an ongoing process in all languages of the world.
Often enough we find ourselves misunderstood even when the listener speaks the same language. At times words get in the way, and at other times we can’t find the right words to express ourselves.
So even if we all speak the same language there is no guaranttee that we will succeed in delivering our true meaning to the other person.
What happens when we try to talk with someone who doesn’t speak our language? Are we doomed to continuous misunderstanding? Not necessarily, although it could (and more than often does) lead to misfortunate mistakes, funny at times but hurtful at others.
I remember my experience as a nine year old Israeli residing in England. My name was mispronounced and very often I was called Piano or Pernina or even Pina instead of Pnina. When I was asked how I wanted my eggs at dinner, I didn’t understand why my grandfather who didn’t speak any Hebrew didn’t know what an “eye egg” was. For me it was so obvious but I could see him smiling at my new language innovantion. I kept saying “eye egg” and wasn’t understood. How was I to know that the expression is “fried egg”? In Hebrew it’s called “eye egg” because the shape of a “fried egg” resembles that of the human eye. Well, at least that’s how Israelis see it… How was I to know that English people saw things differently? I even remember pointing to my eye again and again to emphasize the meaning…..
And why did my teacher correct my spelling when instead of “breakfast” I wrote breakfirst? For me it was clear: breakfirst was the first meal of the day therefore I heard break first…..
And how was I to know that a boyfriend is not a friendboy………. who cares for word order, the important thing is to have one!!!
Many times the first sentence you learn to say in a foreign language is: “I don’t speak English/Dutch/French”. I remember on my first day at school my teacher, Mr. Kaufman, wanted to give me something to read and I said “I don’t speak English”, he didn’t appreciate the fact that it was the only sentence in English I knew, even if it sounded as if it was coming out of a native English speaker…
That reminds me of two highway workers who were busy working at a construction site when a big car with diplomatic license plate pulled up.
“Parlez-vous français?” the driver asks them. The two workers just stared.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” The two continued to stare at him.
“Fala português?” Neither worker said anything.
“Parlate Italiano?” Still no response.
Finally, the man drives off in disgust.
One worker turned to the other and said, “Gee, maybe we should learn a
foreign language…”
“What for? That guy knew four of them and what good did it do him?”
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December 26th, 2007 by phraseit in Articles · 2 Comments
Word of the Day
Word of the Day
provided by The Free Dictionary
Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
provided by The Free Dictionary
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You mustn’t miss our Treasure Store.
Our name is almost always given to us by our parents and we bear it throughout our lives. We are identified by our names therefore naming your child is of great importance. Why are most of us so fussy about their names? Why are we annoyed when our name is mispronounced? Why do many people take great care to make sure they pronounce another person’s name correctly, especially in introductions?
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There are people who believe that there is much more to a name than just its sound, origin/meaning, or numerology. Some even go as far a believing that when you name your baby, you are creating the baby’s future. This is a hell of a responsibility, isn’t it?
The sense of personal identity and uniqueness that a name gives us is at the heart of why names interest us and why they are important to us as individuals and to our society as a whole. In spite of their importance, though, most people know very little about names. In a very real sense, we are consumers of names, and we sometimes have a need to know about the psychological, magical, legal, religious, and ethnic aspects of our names.
There are people who love their names and there are those who don’t. I personally know people who actually hated their names and even believed their name harmed them, so they have decided to change it.
The study of names is called onomastics, a field which touches on linguistics, history, anthropology, psychology, sociology and more, although one should bear in mind that not all names are historically traceable.
When people refer to the “meaning” of a name, they most likely refer to its literal meaning.
So let’s look at six names and their meanings:
Benazir (Bhutto) – “without comparison” (Urdu)
Condoleezza (Rice) - Condoleezza (from the Italian musical expression, Con dolcezza, meaning “with sweetness”)
Golda (Meir) – “gold” (Yiddish)
Hanan (Ashrawi) “mercy, compassion” (Arabic)
Hillary (Clinton) – “cheerful” (Greek)
Indira (Gandhi) – “beauty” (Sanskrit)
This is our way of paying respect to these prominent women.
We all know that many names derive from the Bible like Joseph, Rachel, Matthew, Jonathan, Mary and God forbid Judas (Greek: ??????) which is the anglicized Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Yehudah (Hebrew: ????????).
Ancient mythologies are also sources of many names, for instance: Brigit – anglicized form of the Irish name Brighid which means “exalted one”. In Irish mythology, she was the goddess of fire, poetry and wisdom; Dylan – in Welsh mythology Dylan was a god of the sea. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the musician Bob Dylan (real name Robert Zimmerman) are famous bearers of this name. Aurora – from Latin, meaning “dawn”, the Roman goddess of the morning and Jason – from Greek, meaning “to heal”. Last and probably most adored is Venus, the name of the Roman goddess of love (equal to the Greek goddess Aphrodite).
Names affiliated with nature such as flowers and plants: Iris, Daisy, Rose, Violet, Jasmine and Daphne; natural phenomena: Yam (sea in Hebrew), Agni (fire in Sanskrit) and Aputsiaq (snowflake in Greenlandic); gems: Crystal, Pearl, Achlama (Hebrew) and Sapphire.
Names meaning feelings: Joy, Amy (beloved – from Old French), Baruch (blessed – Hebrew).
Each generation has its popular names. Women in today’s maternity wards whose names are Loren, Karen, Linda, Lisa, Hillary, Michelle and Kimberly – and whose mothers are Barbara, Mary, Jane, Helen, Dorothy and Betty – name their daughters Megan, Alyssa,
Hannah, Brittany, Haley and Jasmine.
In recent years androgynous names have become quite popular, in English (Taylor, Madison and Cameron) as well as in Hebrew (Tal, Ophir, Lior, Daniel). This trend can make our world a more equal place: it’s harder for employers to tell a job applicant’s gender when reading a résumé.
Looking for a gift for a newborn baby? Play it safe by picking androgynous colors (white is good, yellow is optional) adding some humor to it and you have the perfect original gift.
Having said this we assume that next time someone is introduced to you, you’ll: a) Pay extra attention to the pronunciation of their name. b) Appreciate the choice made by their parents: they probably had a good reason for choosing it. c) Refer them to our blog to read this article….. 
Have you visited our Treasure Store yet?
At the age of 12 I already knew what I wanted to do when I grow up. I wanted to become a simultanuous translator and work for the UN. I sometimes wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that my mother spoke German, English, Romanian, Yiddish and Hebrew and my late father spoke Polish, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew and Latin. Yours truly spoke Hebrew with her parents and when they did not want me to understand they “Yiddished” between themselves. Hence, my passion for languages. At high school I excelled in two foreign languages: French and English.
Yet, mastering two languages is not sufficient to be able to translate. It is a fact that most people who study foreign languages do not become professional translators. So I took up linguistics to be followed by translation studies.
The ideal translator is preferably one who has a vast knowledge in a large variety of topics, as he/she often must integrate many different subjects their work. The more knowledgeable one is the better translation one produces.
Although today the notion is that the world belongs to the young, I am happy to announce that life experience is an advantage.
Being able to enjoy research and willing to spend long hours alone in front of a computer screen are a necessity for a translator who is a detective. Interestingly enough, the Hebrew word “balshan” (a linguist) stems from the same root as ”balash” (a detector), which I believe proves that a good translator must have a strong background in linguistics.
That’s not the end of the list: translation needs persistence (stubborness?) when searching for the right word (or phrase, or idiom etc.)
Being suspicious will also help you to carry a good translation work, as you must learn which dictionaries / reference books and other support material to trust, since there are so many of them and unfortunately they are not all trustworthy.
Ask yourself, or better ask others, if you are a good listener. A translator reproduces someone else’s thoughts therefore it’s vital to listen carefully to what is being said and how.
So if you still wish to become a translator, last but not least, always strive to improve your writing skills. Being able to write well (not forgetting to proofread) will help you express someone else’s thoughts as eloquently as possible in the target language.
Be-huts-lacha (Hebrew for “Good Luck”).
As a qualified and experienced translator I warmly recommend the NYC-based translation company, Transation Services USA. Their experienced translators will translate for you into more than 100 languages. Whether you need to translate a simple one-page document or a large software localization project, Translation Services USA will always be happy to do the job for you. That’s what we like about them. They also have a translation forum where you can ask questions.
People around me assume that at any given moment they can throw a Hebrew word at me and I’ll blurt out the English translation. Well I can’t. It’s not that simple. I remember long moments of digging in my mind for the exact word but unfortunately it was located deep in my memory disc and was unavailable. For those moments when you need a word in a different language, Babylon is the perfect solution. I’ve used it many a time and as I’m a language freak, I often search for foreign words. It’s fun.
We linguists engage, among other things, in comparing languages and exploring their histories, in order to find universal properties of language as well as to account for its development and origins.
Languages are sometimes genetically related, i.e. descended from the same mother language. For instance, Italian & Spanish are “sisters”, having both Latin for a “mother”. The same goes for English and German, although these two are “cousins”, both belonging to the West Germanic branch. As you have probably noticed, genetically related languages belong to the same family and are described in terms used to describe family members.
Problem is, there are many cases where one identifies similarity between two languages and mistakenly assumes they are genetically related. For instance, the word “mucho” in Spanish and the English “much”, both sound quite similar and share the same meaning, yet English and Spanish are not genetically related.
Comparing the vocabulary of the English language with that of French can be even more deceiving, as in fact almost 60% (!) of the English vocabulary is originated from French. This is due to the fact that during the Norman Conquest (starting in 1066) English was displaced by French, which became the language of the ruling class – of the Court, the nobility, the Church and the schools. During that era, a vast amount of French vocabulary entered the English language. That is called borrowing. Hence, “noble” (adj.), distinguished by rank or title, entered the English when it was called Middle English from Old French and from Latin before it. Similarly, the word “judge”, can be traced back to French and Latin.
Therefore, when trying to establish a genetic relation between two (or more) languages, one must not rely on comparison between their lexicons (vocabularies), although it’s very tempting to do so, because it may lead to the wrong conclusion.
Words in different languages may quite often sound the same. This has nothing to do with sharing the same origin or borrowing words form one another.
Hebrew and English are certainly not genetically related. Once this is established, we will reveal to you some words which sound exactly the same in both languages, yet have completely different meanings. Let’s start with the English “who” which in Hebrew is “he”; the English “he” is in Hebrew “she” and “me” is the Hebrew “who”. Are you laughing (crying) yet?.
Maybe it will be less confusing in table, as follows:
English “who” is Hebrew “he”; English “he” is Hebrew “she” and English “me” is Hebrew “who”.
Here are some more weird phonetic twins worth memorizing:
The English “sum” is “drug” in Hebrew.
The English “kiss” is “pocket” in Hebrew. (Save your kisses for me…)
The English “gun” is “garden” in Hebrew. (Was this the idea behind Guns N’ Roses?)
The English “butt” is “girl” in Hebrew. (Interesting???!!!)
The English “dear” is “shed” in Hebrew while the English “shed” is “ghost” in Hebrew.
The English “shore” is “bull” in Hebrew while the English “bull” is “stamp” in Hebrew.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to try and write a short paragraph composed of the above English words, and then translate it into Hebrew?
Did you know? That:
Hebrew is written from right to left.
The original Hebrew script developed alongside others in the region during the course of the late second and first millennia BCE; it is closely related to the Phoenician script, which itself probably gave rise to the use of alphabetic writing in Greece (Greek). It is sometimes claimed that around the 10th century BCE, a distinct Hebrew variant, the original “Hebrew script” (”Ktav Ivri”), emerged, which was widely used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and until they fell in the 8th. and 6th. centuries BCE (taken from: Wikipedia).
There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, amongst which 5 are written differently when they appear at the end of a word (then called “final letters”).
The Hebrew alphabet has no vowels (!!!). When learning Hebrew, in order to acquire the right pronunciation, one is introduced to a system of dots and dashes called nikkud (points). Most of these points (nikkud) indicate vowels.
Most texts in Hebrew are not written with vowels, as when you know the language vowels are not needed in order to read a text. When a certain text does include nikkud it is called “pointed text” (e.g. children’s books).
Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value. Final letters have the same value as their non-final counterparts. The numerical value of a word is determined by adding up the values of each letter.
Gematria is an entire discipline of Jewish mysticism that is devoted to finding hidden meanings in the numerical values of words. For example, the numerical value of the word “Chai”, meaning life, is 18. This is very significant; therefore you should bear in mind that if you wish to donate to Jewish charities it is common that the donation is made in denominations of 18. (i.e. 18, 36, 180)…
Rosetta Stone Hebrew Level 1
GDHSXCH19245964
