Language
Amid the familiar clutter of vowels and cantillation marks, a few strange dots appear. They have no obvious function, and yet they go back thousands of years. Their purpose is . . .
Nachman Blumental.
A desecration of what is most sacred.
A Mosaic reader was able to solve the mystery of the Yiddish expression tapn a vant, “to grope a wall.”
From Hebrew to Spanish to German to Italian and onward, the term is now as international as Coca-Cola.
It is practically impossible to utter a complete sentence in Hebrew that lacks gender.
A Russian Jew and an Indian Zoroastrian.
On the possible whereabouts of Ophir and Tarshish, and how to get there by ship from Palestine.
A new history of the language explains its remarkable survival.
What we learn from the story of the Russian phrase shakher-makher, or wheeler-dealer.
Including the oldest one extant.
A linguistic investigation prompted by a meal in Rome of carciofi alla giudia.
Created by an East European Jew disillusioned with Zionism and Hebrew, the language was meant to unite humanity in a spirit of brotherhood.
Why certain terms having to do with the basics of life are less prone to linguistic change than others.
