[Avodah] Choshen

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Micha Berger _micha at aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha at aishdas.org) 
: Three examples of  Rashi assuming certain words to have come from other  
: languages (or  to be cognate to words in other languages) come to  mind:  
[--TK]

Definitely not "come from other languages"! Rashi on Bereishis  1:11
reads "'Safah achas' - leshon haqodesh."

Clearly Rashi felt the  bilbul leshonos was incomplete, leaving traces
of similarities in some words  from the original leshon haqodesh.




>>>>>
 
 
You meant to type Bereishis 11:1 -- re the Dor Haflaga (or as  they say in 
these erudite parts, Dor HaPalagah).  
 
Yes, Rashi says that the original language of mankind, the "safah achas",  
was Loshon Hakodesh.  However there is no suggestion in Rashi's words that  
"Clearly Rashi felt the bilbul leshonos was incomplete...."  You are making  an 
inference based on what you yourself believe, but there is nothing in  Rashi to 
support that inference.
 
In any case, even if there were traces of Hebrew left here and there in  
other languages, that would not help Rashi's (Chazal's) etymologies of "avrech"  
and "totafos."  In these two cases we do not see foreign languages  retaining 
traces of Hebrew, but the opposite -- the Hebrew language seeming to  contain 
traces of foreign languages.
 
You can't say that in the Caspian language they retained the original  Hebrew 
word for two, "tat," since tat is not the original Hebrew word for  two!  Nor 
can you say that Africi retained a trace of Hebrew in its word  for two, 
since "pat" also is not the original Hebrew word for two.  And  "rech" is not the 
original Hebrew word for king, so you can't find in Latin a  trace of the 
original Hebrew, either. (Not in the word avrech, anyway.)
 

--Toby Katz
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