[Avodah] Titles Before Names

[Jay F Shachter]

>  
> Well, it's a nice little vort, but "Moshe Rabbeinu" seems to follow
> the normal, natural rule of [old?] Hebrew: Avraham Avinu, Yosef
> Hatzaddik, Aharon Hakohen, Dovid Hamelech, Eliyahu Hanavi, Esther
> Hamalka, Yehuda Hanasi, Saadya Gaon.  Name before title, regular
> rule.
>  
> I guess that the Chasam Sofer was not asking, "Why is Moshe's name
> first and his title second?" but "Why do we nowadays put the title
> first and the name second?"  The obvious (at least to me) answer is
> that our Hebrew has been influenced by European languages.
> 

The schools really need to teach girls more Talmud.

The Talmudic titles Rabban, Rabbi, Rav, and Mar all precede the name.

Micha Berger has already sarcastically suggested that maybe the
western language (he changed "European" to "western" when making his
sarcastic comment) was Greek.  But in fact, even in the Torah you can
find titles that precede the name.  The Torah's Hebrew contains no
Greek component whatsoever, just a scattering of loan-words from
Egyptian and Sumerian.  (Parenthetically, why do people speak of
languages "borrowing" words?  Are we supposed to give them back?  It
seems to me that it would be more correct to say that we "copied" the
words from Egyptian and Sumerian, not that we "borrowed" them.)  Look
at the end of Parashath Vayyishlax, at Genesis 36:15-18,29-30,40-43.


			Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
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