Of Course I Speak A Little Hebrew:
Hebrew Loan-Words in
English
I speak English
pretty well, so that means that I also speak a little Hebrew. To begin with, from
amen to Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament),
there are many Hebrew-English words that are Biblical or religious --
Satan, Sabbath, rabbi (a Jewish clergyman or
teacher), Messiah, jubilee, hallelujah,
cherub, cherubim, seraph, and seraphim (these last four are all names of different kinds
of angels), Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Israel,
Beelzebub (another name for Satan), and Armageddon (a
term that means something like "the final battle between good and evil at the
end of the world"). Another area in which English has borrowed Hebrew words
is names for animals -- behemoth (a huge animal mentioned in the
Book of Job whose name is used in English to mean something or someone that
is really very large), elephant, gopher, camel and
leviathan (an animal from the Old Testament often depicted as a
creature like a nightmare version of a whale). Besides the Bible and beast
words, there are many other miscellaneous Hebrew-English words --
abacus, bedlam (loud noise and confusion),
cider, cinnamon, coral, gauze (a kind
of very light and loosely woven cloth used in bandaging wounds),
Jew, jockey, jot ("to write a few quick words," as
in to jot down), jug, sapphire and, unfortunately,
sodomy (a nasty practice invented in the ancient city of Sodom).
Obviously, to speak English well means to also speak a little Hebrew.