[Avodah] Leshon haKodesh

[Amitai Halevi]

From: Simon Montagu
> shama`ti mipi HaRav Ephraim Wiesenberg zt"l: words change their meaning and 
> their register, especially words of this kind, and the standard term of one 
> century is considered scatological in another century and needs to be 
> euphemized.

> If you look up the KJV ("appointed to be read in churches") for the verse 
> referred to, you will see that it translates "mey raglayim" with a word that 
> nobody would use in church in the 21st century. I'm sure that the ketiv 
> words in the verse weren't dirty words at the time of Bayit Rishon, but by 
> Bayit Sheni or later they couldn't be read out in public. 

I tend to agree.

The term "shegal" in Nehemiah 2:6 appears in a definitely non-pejorative
context, where it probably was intended to mean "consort".
The old JPS version translates it as "queen", as do most Protestant
Bibles, whereas the on-line English translation of the Septuagint has
"concubine".
Therefore "yishaglena" originally must have simply meant "consorted" or
"cohabited"with her", and - over time - acquired an obscene connotation
that made it necessary to euphemize it.

The process is still  going on. For example: ma`hraot -> motza'ot -> beit
hakisei -> beit hakavod -> beit hashimush -> sherutim.


[Email #2. -micha]

From: "Zev Sero" <zev at sero.name>
> Micha Berger wrote:
>> Abe is agreeing with the Rambam, who gives this phenomenon as the reason
>> why Hebrew is Leshon haQodesh. So, how does the Rambam translate the
>> kesiv in the pasuq Amitai sites. I must say it sure looks to me too like
>> the q'ri is replacing scatalogical terms with more euphamistic ones.

> Perhaps those are Assyrian words that Ravshakeh (or his interpreter) used
> because he couldn't find equivalent Hebrew words, much as modern Hebrew
> uses Arabic swear words.

I doubt it; "horehem" (2 K 18:27) is too similar to "ma`haraot" (2 K 10:27)
for them not to be related etymologically.

> But why go to Melachim, when we have the tochacha of Ki Tavo?  Perhaps,
> though, those words are meta-euphemisms, a phenomenon we find in English
> with regard to the euphemisms used for the place of elimination: as soon
> as a euphemism catches on it becomes "dirty" and people re-euphemise it.
> So perhaps "yishgalenah" doesn't really mean "will f--- her", but rather
> something more genteel, that is still more direct than "yishkavenah";
> perhaps it should be rendered "will mate with her".  At the time the
> Torah was written, perhaps "yishgalenah" was still thought of as clean,
> but at some later stage it became dirty so the sofrim instituted a
> kri that was even more indirect and thus cleaner.

I agree completely. See my earlier response to Simon Montagu's post.
The genteel meaning of "yishaglena" must have been retained at least
until the return from the Babylonian captivity.

Amitai