[Mesorah] Cholov Yisroel or Chaleiv Yisroel?

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

Seth Mandel wrote:
> V'ho ra'yo: there is no Hebrew word akum, as R DB alluded
> to. There is no Hebrew word shlita.  These are written
> abbreviations in Hebrew, and represent the Hebrew words
> that were said.  Yiddish speakers got into the habit of
> pronouncing abbreviations, such as akum, ... ...
> 'aku'm (the abbreviation, since the only word pronounced
> akum in Hebrew means crooked) referring to general goyim
> was an invention of the goyim who were censors.  The use
> of the term pronounced 'akum was therefore never a Hebrew
> use at all, ... ...
> Unless you know Hebrew better than Chazal (oops, I mean
> chachamenu zikhronom livrokho).

I have neither the knowledge nor any evidence with which to debate the learned RSM on the usage and evolution of goy, nochri, oved kochavim, et al. I wish merely to discuss the idea of abbreviations being pronounced as words.

I have always presumed that, contrary to RSM's views, certain abbreviations have been pronounced as words for a very long time.

I have no idea when people started pronouncing Chazal as one word rather than three. But some abbreviations -- notably Tanach and 'Akum -- are (almost) always spelled with the last letter being in the "final" form. Is this not strong evidence that the writer/publisher looked at it as an acronym (like NASA), and not merely an sbbreviation (like USA)?

I don't have much in the way of old manuscripts. But the first volume of Rav Aryeh Kaplan's Torah Anthology, on page 34, has a copy of the first page of the first edition of the Meam Loez on Bereshis. (From what I see on page 32, it looks like it had been printed in 1730.) My guess is that the writers, printers, and readers of this edition were reasonably free from too much corruption from Yiddish speakers, English speakers, Yinglish speakers, and Esperanto speakers.

Near the top left corner of that page, in the margin, I can clearly see HRMB"M printed, and the second mem is clearly the "final" version. Does R' Seth really expect me to believe that the people who read this would have read it as "Harav Moshe Ben Maimon", and not as "Harambam"?

Respectfully submitted,
Akiva Miller