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  • From: Matanya Ophee <m.ophee AT orphee.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ex3:14
  • Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 11:15:50 -0400

At 08:09 AM 9/15/2005, Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru> wrote:


> >That does not makes sense in English. In other languages, Russian and
Modern
> >Hebrew in particular, it is idiomatic refusal. And this meaning is
supported
> >by similar constructs in Ex33:19.
>
> For a very good reason: modern Hebrew colloquialisms are based
> directly on Russian, the language used by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and
> others of my father's generation. One example:
>
> Russian: duraka pol rabota nye pokazivaiut
> Hebrew: letipesh lo mar-im khatzi avoda.
>
> There are hundreds of similar constructions, directly borrowed from
> Russian which you will never find in the Bible.
>

Then, again, there are many Russian - including Old Russian - words and
idioms subtly based on Hebrew. Much of Russian prisoners' slang is
straightforward Hebrew.

Yes, of course. But I think that in the present context, it is important to distinguish these borrowings by the time element. For example:

can you find anywhere in Tolstoy or Dostoevsky a typical (modern) Russian expression such as xoxme (hohma, or khokhma)? There is no need to argue that Russian contains a huge amount of English, French, German, Persian words. The fact that modern Hebrew is based on Russian colloquialisms of the late 19th century, was never mentioned to us in school in old Palestine Erets-Israel, and it was not until I married a Russian woman that I began to understand how much of what I say in Hebrew, in the right situation, is perfectly understandable to her, without even knowing the language.

With one qualification: the Modern Hebrew I am referring to is the one I learned from my mother and father, and spoke almost exclusively for the first 28 years of my life. Today, the language has turned into something else. Reading Israeli newspapers or listening to my grand children talk, I often ask for a translation...:-)



Matanya Ophee
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