[Avodah] How Bitter Can A Month Be? Bittersweet.

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Micha Berger _micha at aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha at aishdas.org) 

>>The  original name of the month is Marcheshvan, give or take some vowels
--  probably Merachshevan. Akkadian roots differ from Hebrew in that the
roles of  /n/ and the semivowels /v/ and /y/ switch. So, merach would
be yareiach in  Hebrew, and shevan would be shemini -- IOW, it's simply
"eight month",  October.<<




>>>>>
I've seen this explanation before -- there was an article about it in  Jewish 
Action, a few years ago -- but it does raise some questions.   Akkadian is a 
cognate language to Hebrew, a Semitic language, but most of the  other names 
of the Hebrew months seem to be Babylonian names -- not  Semitic.  So why would 
just this month (and maybe Av) have Semitic  names while all the others have 
non-Semitic, galus-Bavel names?  
 
Also, all the other months seem to be named after Babylonian gods,  powers, 
forces or whatever -- why would this month alone have a name that is  only a 
number?  Of course in the Torah ALL the months are identified only  by number 
(plus sometimes an additional identifying season, e.g., chodesh  he'aviv.)  But 
if we are borrowing names from other cultures, why would we  take just this 
one month from the Akkadians and give it a number instead of a  name?


--Toby  Katz
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