Words from this week's reading, traced to their roots by David Curwin, the Hebrew Language Detective. Each begins with the verse where the word appears and continues in his own words.
shlemiel
לְשִׁמְע֕וֹן שְׁלֻמִיאֵ֖ל בֶּן־צוּרִֽישַׁדָּֽי׃
Of Simeon, Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai.
There are many theories as to the origin of the word "shlemiel" - an unlucky, clumsy person. (I'll stick with this spelling over "schlemiel" - although there are as many spellings as there are explanations as to its origin. As Rosten writes in Hooray for Yiddish , page 286, "In Hebrew and Yiddish, the sing letter shin represents the sh sound; to begin an English word with sch is to call for the sk sound, as in 'school' or 'scheme'.")
First of all, it's important to understand how the word entered English. Despite some discussion to the contrary, it's clear that the word entered German from Yiddish, and not the other way around. It became popularized in German via the 1814 story "Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte" ("Peter Schlemihl's Remarkable Story") by Adelbert von Chamisso. However, English apparently adopted the word shlemiel directly from Yiddish, not via German. (It is still used in German, and even the name of the Sesame Street muppet Lefty is "Schlemihl" in the German version).
Now to the Yiddish origins. I'll admit from the outset that I don't know the "true" origin, and I doubt any of us ever will. But I will review the various theories and tell you which seem more or less likely to me.
1) Even-Shoshan suggests that it is a corruption of the similar Yiddish word shlimazel (or schlimazel). Schlemazel is a combination of the German schlim (= "bad, crooked", related to the English "slim" ) and the Hebrew mazal מזל (= "luck").
However, the two words seem to be distinct, and are often paired together, as in the famous saying, "The shlemiel pours soup on the shlimazel" (and in the opening song of "Laverne and Shirley".)
degel
וְחָנ֖וּ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל אִ֧ישׁ עַֽל־מַחֲנֵ֛הוּ וְאִ֥ישׁ עַל־דִּגְל֖וֹ לְצִבְאֹתָֽם׃
And the children of Israel shall pitch their tents, every man with his own camp, and every man with his own standard, according to their hosts.
Degel דגל is an interesting word. Ask any Israeli - or any Hebrew speaker for that matter - and they will tell you that it means "flag". That certainly is the uncontested meaning in Modern Hebrew. But I imagine that only a precious few will know the meaning the word had in Biblical Hebrew (do you?). And as far as when that meaning changed? I'm still working on it myself...
In the Tanach, the word degel primarily appears in the beginning of the book Bamidbar, in the section describing the arrangement of the camp. Verse 1:52 says:
וְחָנוּ, בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אִישׁ עַל-מַחֲנֵהוּ וְאִישׁ עַל-דִּגְלוֹ, לְצִבְאֹתָם
The JPS translation is: "The Israelites shall encamp troop by troop, each man with his division and each under his standard". The translation of degel here is "standard", which originally meant a "flag or other conspicuous object to serve as a rallying point for a military force".
Similarly, verse 2:2 -
אִישׁ עַל-דִּגְלוֹ בְאֹתֹת לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם, יַחֲנוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל: מִנֶּגֶד, סָבִיב לְאֹהֶל-מוֹעֵד יַחֲנוּ.
is translated, "The Israelites shall camp each with his standard, under the banners of their ancestral house; they shall camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance"
However Milgrom, in his (JPS) commentary on Bamidbar , disagrees with the translation of degel as "standard". On 2:2 he writes:
Hebrew degel possibly originally meant a military banner. This is supported by the Akkadian dagalu, "to look", and diglu, "sight".
dayal, doula, and degel - update
אִ֣ישׁ עַל־דִּגְל֤וֹ בְאֹתֹת֙ לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֔ם יַחֲנ֖וּ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל מִנֶּ֕גֶד סָבִ֥יב לְאֹֽהֶל־מוֹעֵ֖ד יַחֲנֽוּ׃
’The children of Israel shall pitch by their fathers’houses; every man with his own standard, according to the ensigns; a good way off shall they pitch round about the tent of meeting.
I have a long list of words to write about. Today I started looking into one of them, and then only later did it turn out that I had already written about it. This happens occasionally - with nearly 700 posts, and often several words beyond the primary word discussed in each, I suppose it’s to be expected. I’m just relieved when I discover it before I write the whole thing.
This time, however, I found some new information, so I thought I’d write a post that updates the earlier one.
I had intended to write a post about the words dayal דַּיָּל - “steward” and “doula.” I was planning on pointing out how they share a common origin. But I had already discussed it in my post on meltzar מֶלְצַר, another word meaning “steward”:
However, as Elon Gilad writes here, Ben Yehuda did not want the word meltzar used for "waiter" in Modern Hebrew. He preferred dayal דייל (feminine dayelet דיילת). He coined dayal on the basis of the Talmudic Aramaic word dayala דיילא - "attendant", which in turn derives from the Greek word for slave or servant - doulos. Doulos is also the root of the English word doula, which literally means "female slave".
However, as happened on more than one occasion, Ben Yehuda's plans did not win out, and people continued referring to waiters as meltzarim. But his word dayal was eventually redeemed - when El Al airlines was founded in 1948, they needed a specialized word for someone attending to passengers - and so a few years later, dayal became the Hebrew word for steward. Quite the journey for these words!
But as noted, I forgot that post, and began to research. I found Klein’s entry for dayal:
More from Balashon on Bamidbar
At the table
- Read Numbers 1:6 aloud. Now that you know where שְׁלֻמִיאֵ֖ל comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say דִּגְל֖וֹ in Numbers 1:52? What would be lost with a more ordinary word?
- Which of this week’s words do you use in Modern Hebrew? Has the meaning moved since the Torah used it?