[Mesorah] Malka - Is it always "The King", or sometimes it can be just "King"

[Yitzhak Ajzner]

Babylonian Aramaic, that in which the Babylonian Talmud is written in, adds an aleph to ALL of its nouns.

This makes it somewhat similar to Russian, but the opposite. Russian never has a definite article (I think they don’t have indefinite either); Babylonian Aramaic always has one. It comes to the same thing: you can’t know if the word includes what is added by the definite article.

King = מלכא

The king = מלכא

Same thing.

 

As for Biblical Aramaic, Targumim and other dialects, I’m not as sure, but certainly one would need to be careful to read too much in to the presence of the aleph at the end of the word.

 

Hope this helps.

Yitzhak

 

 

From: Mesorah <mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org> On Behalf Of galsaba--- via Mesorah
Sent: Monday, 11 September 2023 7:05 PM
To: mesorah at aishdas.org; Akiva Miller <akivagmiller at gmail.com>; Mandel, Seth <mandels at ou.org>
Subject: [Mesorah] Malka - Is it always "The King", or sometimes it can be just "King"

 

1. I have a question about the word "malka" with Alef at the end. Is it always "HaMelech", or it is sometimes just "Melech"?

 

2. In Mishlei Perek 31 pasuk 1: " Divre Lemuel Melech". The Targum wrote: "Milohi Dilmuel Malka". What the targum mean? Did he translate it exactly as the Pasuk, ie "Dive Lemuel Melech", or he meant "Divre Lemuel HaMelech"

 

3. I noticed that in Sefer Daniel sometimes it's written "Malka Nevuchadnetzar" and sometimes "Nevuchadnetzar Malka" . Why?
Is it possible that the first one is "HaMelech Nevuchadnetzar" and the second one is "Nevuchadnetzar Melech"? (similar to "Lemuel Melech"?)

 

4. In sefer Daniel Perel 3 pasul 15. The text talk about the Kelei Negina. Most of them end with Alef in the end:"Karna", "Mashrokita", etc. Some do not: "Keitros", "sumpnania". My question is, are those with the Alef in the end, should be translated as "the xxx", and those without Alef are not "the"?

or none of them mean with "the".

 

Thanks

 

 

Aharon Gal

201-414-7190

 

 <http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/mesorah-aishdas.org> orah-aishdas.org

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