Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Cohen, Izzy" <Izzy_Cohen AT bmc.com>]

Hayim Sheynin [mailto:hsheynin AT gratz.edu] wrote:
>>
Don't you think that the words 'bear' (verb) and the noun 
'bear' are the products of homonymy (tsimudim, or lashon 
nofel al lashon in Hebrew), because the origin of the first 
one in Indo-European from the words having general meaning 
'to carry', while the second one in origin refers to 'brown' 
(color). So bear-ing and DOVeN-ing could not be parallel in 
etymology.

There were many attempts to find etymology of davnen. I 
didn't find any of them to be sufficient. What it comes 
to my mind now, that it can be imitative formation to 
express monotonous and repetitious speech accompanied 
with frequent shaking or noding.
<<

Dear Dr. Sheynin --

I agree that bear (to carry) and bear (the brown animal) 
are homonyms in English. And "davening" has nothing to do 
with carrying a load or with the color brown. It also has 
nothing to do with the sound "bear".

But, it may have something to do with bears-in-the-sky,
the constellations Ursa major and Ursa minor (which 
includes the North star), and with the process of 
determining one's orientation. 

I suspect the same semantics that accounts for bear 
(the animal) --> (getting one's) bearings [in English] 
may account for Hebrew DoV --> Yiddish davening. 
Although the Yiddish word for bear is BeR, the meaning 
of Hebrew DoV would be well-known to Yiddish-speakers.

dosh kham,
izzy 
izzy_cohen AT bmc.com
>From cc.constantine AT worldnet.att.net  Mon Jan 20 13:56:59 2003
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Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 10:51:03 -0800
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] RE: Transliteration Schemes
From: c stirling bartholomew <cc.constantine AT worldnet.att.net>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
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Peter,

My comments about learning the script being much easier than learning than
transliteration simply reflect my personal experience. It didn't take me
more than a few weeks to learn the script and after 15 years of dabbling in
Hebrew (I am only a dabbler) I am now just getting to the point where I can
read transliteration.

You are correct, reading Hebrew silently isn't the best way to learn. But
Hebrew isn't spoken in my neighborhood. My Macintosh speaks Hebrew with a
terrible digital accent. I have used a tape of Genesis made at Multnomah
Bible College back in the stone age and I have used the state department
language course package on Modern Hebrew. But aside from that I never hear
the language. This is not good. I totally agree. If someone can point me to
some web page with MP3 files of biblical Hebrew reading I would appreciate
it. Can't afford to buy R.Buth's package.

Like I said before, transliteration has a useful place where comparison of
different languages is being done. It is useful in reference books for
linguists who do not know the script. Linguists who work in a dozen
languages have a good excuse for not knowing the script.

Thanks for your comments,

greetings, clay


--  
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062