(Untitled)

[goliard]

Is there such a thing as a good (comprehensive, informative, and not given to crackpottery) etymological dictionary of Hebrew? (The kind that would tell you, for example, that אצטרובל comes from the Greek strobilos 'twisted, whirled; a top; a whirlpool, a whirlwind; a whirling dance, pirouette

Comments

[ijon]

The book is A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language by Ernest Klein, published by Carta Jerusalem and the University of Haifa. You must obtain a copy. If you can't, I'll see if I can get another one and mail it to you wherever you are.

Anyway, Klein (who does know itstrubal is from strobilos), specifically separates אין the "nothingness" from אין the "where". The negative ayin is: (underscores are macrons over preceding letter) "related to Moabite אן, Akka. ia_nu (=is not, is not existing), i_nu (=nothing), Ethiop. en, and according to Gesenius to Arab. ayn (=weariness).

The "where/whence" ayin, on the other hand, is formed from אֵי, cp. Akka. aina, ainu (=where?), Arab. a'yna (=where).

[goliard]

Ooh, thank you! It looks like the Berkeley library has a copy (and Amazon lists it too), so I'll go have a look. Those etymologies may have just shot down a pet theory of mine about אין the negative coming from אין the interrogative; but so it goes.

[anonymous]

I don't actually own a copy of Klein: I use a combination of BDB, HALOT, (sometimes) Jastrow, and the indexes to my various Hebrew grammars. It is interesting - off the topic of this thread, I suppose - to note how the similarity of these words has been exploted in exegesis. The Chabad Hassidic understanding of והחכמה מאין תמצא (Job 28:12, 20) is that wisdom stems from "Nothing" (ie: God).

- Simon Holloway
(who is without a Livejournal account)