Hebrew - Blog Posts

Are there capital letters in Hebrew? How do I make it clear that one word is very important?

so kyle probably knows some hebrew right?

does he ever just speak it because the other three can’t understand it?

Don't forget your Jewish mates 🕎😘

חג חנוּכּה שׁמח

—Queen Esther

I write my poetry in Hebrew and it's so sad I can't show it to you all 💔

Stay yourself, stay curious

Cr: belladonna on Pinterest

I write my poetry in Hebrew and it's so sad I can't show it to you all 💔

Stay yourself, stay curious

Cr: belladonna on Pinterest

Give me a word and I'll translate it to one of the oldest languages - Hebrew!

Any word!!!!!!! ヽ⁠(⁠*ﾟ⁠ｰﾟ⁠*⁠)⁠ﾉ

Stay yourself, stay curious

// TW bullimia regarding Reva from ''my year of rest and relaxation "

Reva is bullimic and Jewish. If you say the word 'Reva' with a Hebrew tonation, it sounds like the word 'Re-e-va' , which means 'hungry' in female form.

A fun little Hebrew fact of the day.

making my way slowly through your roommate's biblical hebrew gtn translation. not a scholar of semitic linguistics but i am learning modern hebrew and trying to read the fic is absolutely breaking my brain, i understand maybe every fifth word at BEST. but i love it. and it's indirectly helping me study for an upcoming exam. tell your roommate i appreciate him very much

AWW anon thank you, I will tell him as soon as he wakes up!! I'm also learning modern hebrew rn so I'm having the same experience 😂 Good luck on your exam!! if you want any help practicing (or with understanding the fic) feel free to PM me :D this makes me so happy :D

My roommate has been translating Gideon the Ninth into Biblical Hebrew (and including notes that people like me, who do not speak Biblical Hebrew, can also enjoy)! And if you happen to be a scholar of semitic linguistics, I can put you in touch 😊

This is just all wrong.

Frist, in Biblical Hebrew the ending 'im' (ימ) is MASCULINE plural. Which could be its own discussion but the Scholarship is split so I won't go into that here.

Second, the word Elohim (אלהימ) is not "the name for the creative power in Genesis" it is a noun meaning 'god' or 'gods' and can refer to either the God of the Hebrews or false gods. It appears continuously in the Old Testament not just Genesis.

Thirdly, YHWH (יהןה) IS the name of God. And it doesn't appear much later it appears in Genesis 2 (and there are some suggestions as to why these chapters use different words for God but that's a different post).

'Al Shaddai' is actually 'el Shaddai' (אל שדד) the 'el' coming from 'elohim' and it means 'God Almighty'. While it does come later it is not a name for the God of the Bible.

The origin of the word Jehovah is very long but basically Jewish people would not say YHWH out loud and so would substitute the word 'adonai' (אדני) which means 'Lord' or 'Master' and can also refer to humans. Jehovah comes from the Latin of the Hebrew word that is produced when you take the vowels of 'adonai' and place them over the Hebrew letters YHWH. It is not a "mispronunciation" it is an evolution of a reading tradition.

(Edit: added tags.)

i rly like Clozemaster! it was recommended to me and i felt like i was learning actual plausible dialogue instead of random duolingo shit lol. i hope it helps u!!

i’m going to israel in a couple months and i really wanna learn more hebrew (i only know the basics) and i was wondering wondering if anyone had good recommendations for good apps/sites (not duolingo pls) id love to hear them! also preferably free or free for students!

any recs are helpful tysm!!!

Fun Fact:

Before Victor Frankenstein created his infamous monster and sparked the debate over man's right to create artificial life, a 16th century Jewish mystic called the Maharal invoked the names of God to give life to clay. This created a golem with superhuman strength and loyalty that guarded the mystic's community from persecution in medieval Prague. The golem also wore an amulet that gave it the power to turn invisible and summon dead witnesses whose testimonies were considered totally valid in Prague's court and used to prove the innocence of people who judges were biased against. The problem with the golem is that although it was animated, it couldn't speak, had no free will and took instructions way too literally, causing it to do things like chop down entire forests when asked to get firewood. And one night, the golem was feeling lonely and neglected, so it rampaged through town, attacking the innocent people it was supposed to protect. This forced the mystic to remove one letter from the Hebrew inscription of "emét", changing the meaning from "truth" to "death" and rendering his creation lifeless.

The story started so positive too...

Shalom to our Jewish Heritage today. Judah Benjamin and our Hebrew fighters for Southern Existence.

Fun fact! The 'if I forget Jerusalem may I forget my right hand and may my tonguestick to the roof of my mouth' is actually a thing that can happen! Your left hemisphere is controlling both the right part of your body and your language function. The saying basically says 'if I forget Jerusalem, I must have brain damage'. Obviously the ancient people didn't know it was *brain* damage, but it was a thing that happened to people

If you ask a non-jew what is the symbol of a Jewish wedding they will say it's breaking a glass. But why?

What you don't know is that when the groom breaks the glass the couple are already married. The rabbi has technically already pronounced them husband and wife (though there isn't really that part in a Jewish wedding).

The glass is crushed to represent the grief of the destruction of the temple. The groom says "If I forget you Jerusalem may my right hand be lost, may my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don't remember you and don't put Jerusalem at the top of my joy" (my translation) Even at the happiest event of our lives we will always remember Jerusalem and Zion (i.e Israel) and how it was destroyed and how we were exiled from it. Then and only then, you may kiss the bride.

The verse is from the same psalm that starts with "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion"

This has been Jewish tradition for over 2,000 years and it doesn't matter if it was Jews in Europe, Africa, Asia - we always yearned to return to the land of Israel.

So if you say we aren't indiginous to the land of Israel or that we have no claim to the land, you need to educate yourself.

Miri Mesika - Two Banks

this is honestly so endearing

“In Jewish thought, a sin is not an offense against God, an act of disobedience. A sin is a missed opportunity to act humanly. The verb to sin in Hebrew is also used in the sense of ‘missing the target.’ When God created us free to choose between good and bad, He also gave us the capacity to know when we had chosen wrongly”

— Harold Kushner, To Life!: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking (via huzzahitsthedoctor)

In the Mishnah, Rabbi Yosi makes the radical statement: “androgynos bria bifnei atzma hu / the androgynos he is a created being of her own.” This Hebrew phrase blends male and female pronouns to poetically express the complexity of the androgynos’ identity. The term bri’a b’ifnei atzmah is a classical Jewish legal term for exceptionality. This term is an acknowledgement that not all of creation can be understood within binary categories. It recognizes the possibility that uniqueness can burst through the walls that demarcate our society. The Hebrew word bria (created being) explicitly refers to divine formation; hence this term also reminds us that all bodies are created in the image of God. People can’t always be easily defined; they can only be seen and respected, and their lives made holy. This Jewish approach allows for genders beyond male and female. It opens up space in society for every body. And it protects those who live in the places in between.

Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla and Reuben Zellman

In general I am a casual observer and usually do not make comments, especially since I am here to learn and have no background in linguistics. But in this case I feel strongly compelled to put my 2 cents' worth of thoughts in.

Although I cannot say that I am anything like fluent, I do have a reasonable amount of Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, and I have to say the first thing I thought when I saw this article was "ah". Because although I can see how katakana is derived from Chinese, using the rather restricted stroke combinations that is the basis of all Chinese characters, the same cannot be said for hiragana, because at the very least, squiggles do not exist in Chinese, at least by the time it was exported to Japan. What you might think are squiggles in Chinese are in fact just our possibly lazy, or perhaps more elegant way of writing, the way cursive would look compared to printed letters. Hirangana bears only a superficial resemblance to Chinese and always feels like it must have another source of inspiration.

Also keep in mind that Chinese was basically an imported language into Japan, and an attempt to shoehorn Japanese sounds into Chinese characters (which I think I can safely say did not sound the same) must have been unwieldy at best. In fact, today, Japanese pronouciations of kanji differ so much from the Chinese, and often their usage too, that I would use my knowledge of the characters only as a rough starting point as to what they might mean in Japanese.

Also, I looked up Kūkai, and, to cut a long story short, he was a Japanese Buddhist monk who went to China to study the sutras, and, to quote from the Wikipedia page directly:

Kūkai arrived back in Japan in 806 as the eighth Patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism, having learnt Sanskrit and its Siddhaṃ script, studied Indian Buddhism, as well as having studied the arts of Chinese calligraphy and poetry, all with recognized masters. He also arrived with a large number of texts, many of which were new to Japan and were esoteric in character, as well as several texts on the Sanskrit language and the Siddhaṃ script.

And a quick look at the Siddham script shows that it has its roots in the Aramaic alphabet.

This is the man to whom the invention of the kana system is attributed to, and if that is the case, I see a possible connection that is as not as far-fetched as it seems.

The History of Hiragana

In Japanese language, we have three types of letters, Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana.

Hiragana’s root is from old Ivrit and Palmyra letters.

The first column:  Phoenician alphabet The second column: Ostracon The third column: Old Aramaic The forth column: Imperial Aramaic The fifth column: Dead Sea scrolls The sixth column: Palmyrene script The seventh column: Palmyra

The first column: Hiragana The second column: Consonants The third column: Vowels The forth column: combined with the consonant and the vowel The fifth column: Sousho-tai (a hand writing style) The sixth column: Kanji

Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & the Catholic Imagination, or: The Met Gala Does Catholic Art Ho

Every year the Metropolitan Museum of Art throws a big fancy fashion party with a theme seemingly picked solely for the ASTOUNDING potential to dazzle, and every year 90% of the attendees fail to clear even the most minimum of bars. This is one of those years, because it is every year.

BUT, that 10% who actually went for something went pretty dang FOR IT this particular May, an IMPROVEMENT over last, and we’re here for it. We being my bff Jen and I.

Jen: I’m in it for the Opulent Imagery™ Jen: Angel wings and tall hats and people doing their best cosplay of Jude Law Jen: Rihanna comes dressed as the entire Ghent Altarpiece, etc. Me: C O R R E C T

HERE ARE SOME OF OUR FAVORITE LOOKS

**Caveat: I do not give a flying buttress if it skews more Byzantine or Eastern Orthodox than strictly Catholic, just make it loud.

RIHANNA

Jen: it’s everything I wanted.

CARA DELEVINGNE

CONFESS, but make it FASHION

CARDI B

Holy Mother of—

LILY COLLINS

I don’t know who the hell this is but I LOVE this little goth number, YES. And saint tear-drop eyes!

LANA DEL REY

GUCCI SERAPHIM, HEART ARROWS, I feel weak.

ZENDAYA OF ARC

I mean lead us into battle, christ.

CHADWICK BOSEMAN

Finally, a fucking VESTMENT.

JORDAN ROTH

Okay okay a few dudes actually showed up!

ARIANA GRANDE

She’s wearing the goddamn Sistine Chapel and looks adorable, this is just so likable what do you even do

GRETA GERWIG

Whaaaaaaat yes, yes u went to Catholic school, girl! This is nuts I like it.

DONALD GLOVER

Me: But like, again, great color Donald Glover but, a suit? Jen: NO NO THE BACK OF IT Jen: They don’t show it in that picture, which is a travesty

Me: Oh SHIT Me: AND HIS LITTLE TWO FINGER PAPAL GESTURE LIKE A PEACE SIGN

KATE BOSWORTH

This is stunning, and Very art history

Sub Category: Stand-Out Headpieces

Rosie Huntington Whiteley, Lynda Carter, Janelle Monáe, Amber Heard

Okay, in conclusion:

- way more commitment than last year, pls keep it going - I know I’m missing some peeps but it’s laaate I gotta turn in - none of them had the sand to go as slutty St. Sebastian so men are Canceled