Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George F Somsel <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:45:00 -0500 "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
writes:
> Uri:
> 
> In good English, "man" refers only to the male of the species.
> 
> To use an example from a different language, the German word "Frau" 
> can be translated as "Missus (Mrs.), "woman" or "wife". The Germans 
> have only one word, English three, so when translating from German 
> to English one needs to check the context to recognize which English 
> word fits.
> 
> So with Hebrew vs. English, Biblical Hebrew used )Y$, or for a child 
> BN, where proper English would use "person", "anyone" and "child". 
> So had I authored Psalm 1:1 in English first, I would have written 
> "Happy is the person ..." In Hebrew we have a grammatical masculine 
> where )Y$ stands in for "anyone". Overly literal translators (and I 
> am just as guilty as anyone else) often put in "man" to preserve the 
> Hebrew phrasiology, even when it does not fit proper English.
> 
> The Levitical passage that started this discussion, has a context 
> indicating that )Y$ means "man" as in male of the species.
> 
> Karl W. Randolph.
____________________

Uri,

Ignore what Peter and Karl have said.  The Brits have forgotten how to
speak English (Perhaps we Yanks will need to teach them English ! ) and
Karl's native language (if I remember correctly) isn't English.  There is
a generic "he" in English which is alive and well.  Also, "man" is used
to refer to either a male or female in various contexts.  There is a
politically correct movement in which "he or she" is constantly used, but
the generic usage is still valid.

george
gfsomsel
___________