50 Fun Facts About Hebrew Language

A Latin reading of the Hebrew word qaran led Michelangelo to carve which biblical figure with horns?

Moses wears two small horns in the marble made for the tomb of Pope Julius II. The Hebrew verb is now read as 'shone' or 'sent out rays', describing his face as he came down the mountain.

Shalom, the Hebrew word used for both 'hello' and 'goodbye', literally has which meaning?

Peace is the core sense of shalom, whose three consonants also give Hebrew its words for 'whole' and 'paid for'. As a greeting it wishes the other person well-being.

Which Israeli self-defence system, developed by Imi Lichtenfeld, has a Hebrew name meaning 'contact combat'?

Krav Maga grew out of the street fights of 1930s Bratislava, where the boxer and wrestler Imi Lichtenfeld defended Jewish neighbourhoods. He later developed it for Israel's army.

Which Hebrew word of praise, sung in churches and synagogues, titled Israel's 1979 Eurovision winner?

Hallelujah, literally 'praise Yah', won for the group Milk and Honey on home ground, as the contest was held in Jerusalem that year.

J.R.R. Tolkien based the secret language Khuzdul largely on Hebrew for which people of Middle-earth?

Dwarves keep Khuzdul private and speak the languages of their neighbours in public, a likeness to Jewish history that Tolkien himself pointed out.

Bethlehem, the town where the Gospels place the birth of Jesus, has a Hebrew name with which meaning?

House of Bread is what the name means to Hebrew speakers, though one scholar traced it back much further, to a temple of the Canaanite god Lakhmu.

Which Israeli spy agency, formed in 1949, goes by a Hebrew name that simply means 'the Institute'?

Mossad is short for the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. It was set up as the Central Institute for Coordination on the recommendation of David Ben-Gurion.

Which word for a final, world-ending battle is usually traced to the Hebrew for 'Mount of Megiddo'?

Armageddon appears only once in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation, as the place where armies gather. The real Megiddo was a city that saw important Israelite battles.

Mazel tov, the congratulations guests shout at a Jewish wedding, literally means what in Hebrew?

Good fortune is the literal sense: mazel once meant a constellation or zodiac sign, so the phrase began as a remark that the stars were favourable.

Which Oscar-winning actress, born in Jerusalem, directed the Hebrew-language film A Tale of Love and Darkness?

Natalie Portman left Israel at the age of three but kept Hebrew as her first language. Her film adapts the memoir of the Israeli novelist Amos Oz.

L'chaim, the toast raised over drinks at Jewish celebrations, translates from Hebrew as which phrase?

To life is the meaning, and a tavern number with that English title in the musical Fiddler on the Roof carried the toast far beyond Jewish tables.

Which everyday courtesy is a Hebrew speaker offering with the word toda, often lengthened to toda raba?

Thank you is toda, a noun that also means gratitude. Adding raba, 'much', makes the warmer phrase that works out literally as 'many thanks'.

Hebrew numbers its weekdays instead of naming them, so which day is Yom Rishon, literally 'first day'?

Sunday opens the week in the Hebrew calendar, and the days that follow are simply counted off as second, third and so on rather than named after gods or planets.

Which language, believed to be the daily speech of Jesus, replaced Hebrew as the everyday Jewish tongue?

Aramaic pushed Hebrew out of daily speech in Judea, probably in the 3rd century CE, leaving Hebrew mainly a language of prayer, study and writing until its modern revival.

Hebrew belongs to which language family, making it a relative of Amharic, Maltese and ancient Phoenician?

Semitic is a label coined by historians at Göttingen in the 1780s, who took it from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis.

Which sounds does everyday Hebrew writing, from newspapers to street signs, mostly leave the reader to supply?

Vowels are shown only by optional dots and dashes, which modern Israeli spelling saves for dictionaries, poetry and books for children or newcomers.

Which Israeli city was named after the Hebrew title given to Theodor Herzl's utopian novel Altneuland?

Tel Aviv pairs tel, an ancient mound of buried ruins, with aviv, the season of spring. Translator Nahum Sokolow chose the two words to echo the novel's meaning, 'Old New Land'.

Hatikvah, Israel's national anthem, adapted from an 1870s poem by Naftali Herz Imber, has a title meaning what?

The Hope began as a poem that Imber wrote in the late 1870s while he was the guest of a Jewish scholar in the city of Iași, decades before any Jewish state existed.

Which Hebrew name for a biblical sea monster did Thomas Hobbes borrow as the title of his 1651 book?

Leviathan gets a full chapter of description in the Book of Job, which is what the philosopher's title alludes to. The word later became a term for any great whale.

Which lexicographer led the revival of spoken Hebrew and raised its first native speaker of modern times?

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda raised his son Ben-Zion entirely in Hebrew and began the first modern Hebrew dictionary, a project his widow Hemda carried forward for decades after his death.

Which collection of Jewish oral law, compiled by Judah ha-Nasi, lends its name to the Hebrew of the early rabbis?

Mishnah was put into its current form by Judah ha-Nasi, who feared that the oral traditions of the Second Temple period would otherwise be forgotten.

Which English form of God's name arose when readers gave the Hebrew consonants YHWH the sounds of another word?

Jehovah is a hybrid that most scholars trace to scribes who marked the sacred name with a reminder to say 'my Lord' aloud instead. Later readers pronounced the two as one word.

Mitzvah, a Hebrew word often used in English for any good deed, has which primary, literal meaning?

Commandment is the core meaning, and religious tradition counts 613 of them in Jewish law. A bar or bat mitzvah marks the age at which a young person takes them on.

Which spring festival, marked by a Seder meal and days without leavened food, is called Pesach in Hebrew?

Passover is a word first recorded in William Tyndale's English translation of the Bible and later kept by the King James Version. The festival opens on the 15th of the month of Nisan.

Which Jerusalem prayer site, begun under Herod the Great, do Hebrew speakers usually shorten to the Kotel?

Western Wall is a word-for-word translation of the full Hebrew name, HaKotel HaMa'aravi. Outside Israel the same stones were long known as the Wailing Wall.

Hanukkah, the eight-night Jewish festival of lights, takes its name from a Hebrew word with which meaning?

Dedication refers to the Temple in Jerusalem, which the Maccabees recovered and rededicated after their revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE.

Although five Hebrew characters change shape at the end of a word, the script has never had which feature?

Capital letters do not exist in Hebrew, so a name such as Israel begins no differently from any ordinary noun, and a sentence opens without any special mark of its own.

In Hebrew, the word for 'you' is ata or at depending on which trait of the person being addressed?

Gender shapes far more than pronouns in Hebrew: every noun is masculine or feminine, and most verb forms change to match the person doing the action.

Which patriarch does the fourteenth chapter of Genesis call 'Ha-Ivri', a title translated as 'the Hebrew'?

Abraham, still named Abram at that point, gets the label Ha-Ivri. Most scholars link it to a word for 'across', describing migrants who came from beyond the river.

Despite its title, the New Testament's Epistle to the Hebrews survives in which original language?

Greek of an unusually polished kind is the language of Hebrews, and that style is one reason most modern scholars reject the old idea that Paul wrote it.

Sababa and yalla, two staples of Israeli slang, were both borrowed into Hebrew from which language?

Arabic gave Hebrew slang both sababa, an all-purpose word for 'cool' or 'great', and yalla, a brisk way of saying 'come on'.

Which Hebrew word meaning 'gathering' names the collective farming communities that began with Degania?

Kibbutz communities were traditionally built on agriculture, though factories and high-tech firms have since taken over much of the work. English keeps the Hebrew plural, kibbutzim.

Sabra, the nickname for a Jew born in Israel, comes from the Hebrew name of which plant?

Prickly pear cactus is thorny outside and soft inside, an image native-born Israelis adopted for themselves: tough at first meeting, warm underneath.

Which Hebrew-derived word did Leo Rosten illustrate with a parent-killer pleading for mercy as an orphan?

Chutzpah comes from a Hebrew word for insolence or cheek and reached English through Yiddish. It names a quality that can be admired or deplored, depending on who is showing it.

Messiah comes from the Hebrew mashiach, a title once given to kings and high priests, with which literal meaning?

Anointed one refers to the holy oil rubbed on a new king or high priest. The title 'Christ' is simply the same idea carried over in translation.

Satan began as an ordinary Hebrew noun, applied in 1 Samuel to human beings, with which meaning?

Adversary, or accuser, is the plain sense of the noun, which comes from a verb meaning to obstruct or oppose. Only in later books such as Job does it point to a supernatural figure.

In Rosh Hashanah, the Hebrew name of the Jewish New Year, the word rosh literally means what?

Head of the year is the full literal meaning. In the Bible the festival goes by another name, Yom Teruah, the day of blasting, a nod to the ram's horn sounded on it.

The Hebrew name Yonah, borne by the prophet swallowed by a great fish, is also the word for which bird?

Dove is an ironic name for Jonah, as English Bibles spell him, because his words throughout his own book are notably militant.

The Hebrew name Devorah, borne by a judge and prophetess of ancient Israel, is the word for which insect?

Bee is the meaning behind the English name Deborah. The biblical Deborah gave her judgments sitting beneath a date palm and helped to free Israel from a Canaanite king.

Which Hebrew acronym for the Jewish Bible combines the initials of its three parts, starting with the Torah?

Tanakh strings together T for Torah, N for Nevi'im, the Prophets, and K for Ketuvim, the Writings. The name is first recorded in the notes of medieval scribes on the biblical text.

Which English word for a small group of plotters comes from the Hebrew name for Jewish mysticism?

Cabal gained its sinister edge in 1673, when it happened to match the initials of five scheming ministers of Charles II: Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale.

Which Ivy League university, where freshmen once had to study Hebrew, has the words Urim and Thummim on its seal?

Yale owes both to Ezra Stiles, its president from 1778 to 1795, who prized Hebrew for reading the Bible in the original. Harvard asked only its older students to learn it.

Which Hebrew word names the intensive language schools set up from 1949 for new immigrants to Israel?

Ulpan classes give adults the basics of conversation, writing and comprehension. The model school, Ulpan Etzion, opened in Jerusalem as refugees poured into the new state.

Hebrew builds 'he wrote', 'he dictated' and related words on the consonants K-T-V, a unit called what?

A root in Hebrew is usually three consonants carrying a broad idea, here writing. Different patterns of sounds and prefixes are fitted around it to make each verb or noun.

Modern Hebrew took its word for electricity, hashmal, from a fiery gleam in which prophet's opening vision?

Ezekiel uses hashmal for the brightness at the heart of a storm cloud of fire. The King James Bible rendered it 'amber', while an older translation chose elektron.

The 1913 'War of the Languages' began when trustees picked which language for Haifa's future Technion?

German was the choice of the board, in line with the German-Jewish fund behind the school. After months of opposition, the trustees reversed themselves in February 1914 and picked Hebrew.

Which Hebrew-language novelist shared the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature with the poet Nelly Sachs?

S. Y. Agnon was born Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes. He signed his first story published in Palestine, 'Agunot', with a pen name drawn from its title, and later made it his legal surname.

Mayim, the first name of The Big Bang Theory actress Mayim Bialik, is the Hebrew word for what?

Water is mayim, and the actress owes the name to a family nickname for her great-grandmother, Miriam.

Ima, the counterpart of abba in everyday Hebrew, is what a child calls which family member?

Mother is ima and father is abba in everyday Hebrew, the pair Israeli children use much as English speakers say mum and dad.

Boker tov, traditionally answered with a cheerful 'boker or', is the Hebrew way of saying what?

Good morning is boker tov, and the traditional reply, boker or, wishes the first speaker 'a morning of light' in return.