#hebrew grammar

[snissel613]

Sometimes it hurts me that not every Hebrew verb has grammatical, coherent meaning in all 7 binyanim

[nonstandardrepertoire]

Building our Brakhas: Uncovering the Fundamentals of Prayerbook Hebrew

Deepen your davvening and uncover the fundamentals of prayerbook Hebrew with siddur author and queer Jewish superstar, brin solomon.

hi all! do you ever find yourself wishing you knew more about the grammar of Hebrew liturgy? have you ever wondered what a non-binary grammatical gender in Hebrew might look like? do you just desperately need to come up with an excuse to get out of evening commitments on three specific Wednesdays in March? well boy howdy, do i have a class for you!

next month, i'll be teaching a three-session crash course on liturgical Hebrew grammar, including the nonbinary system i've been using in my siddur. classes are online and sliding scale, with no one turned away for lack of funds. it would be rad to see some of you fine people there!

[coruscanttojerusalem]

Hi! I saw your post about the verse in Psalms sometimes translated “the Leviathan—you made him to play with” which is my Favorite also, but most translations don’t use it. Your note that it’s actually the easiest translation of the Hebrew caught my attention! If you don’t mind, could you tell me more?👀 (I’m very excited to know this but don’t know enough about Hebrew myself.)

This is a very fun little line. The Sefaria text and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia have לִ֝וְיָתָ֗ן זֶֽה־יָצַ֥רְתָּ לְשַֽׂחֶק־בֹּֽו (Livyatan zeh-yatsarta l-sacheq bo). The Hebrew font on here isn't great, but the first word is the Leviathan, the second word (zeh) is the relative pronoun (which), the third word (yatsarta) is the second person singular perfect of "to make" (as distinct from Gen 1:1's בָּרָ֣א, a completely different verb).

The key here is the next two constructions. The prefix "l-" before a verb indicates purpose and usually takes the "infinitive" form, indicating what and English speaker would use the gerund for, like the concept of singing, waking, or, in this case, playing. "sacheq" means "to laugh" or "to play." Isaac comes from the same root. The Lord laughs (Ps. 2:4) frequently at evildoers. But here, the verb is followed by a preposition "b-" which denotes a lot of things but is used for instrumentality primarily, and so can usually (but not close to always!) be translated "with." The vav which follows it (phonemically a long "o" vowel here) refers to a masculine antecedent, which could be the previous verse's "the sea," but it would be much easier to use "Leviathan" as the masculine antecedent.

Because the verb is in its "infinitive" (not actually infinitive, but functionally-equivalent) form, it does not have a clear subject of action. So the thing playing could be God, but it could also be the Leviathan. The two readings are both grammatically possible, but I think that "the sea" (which occurs as the second word of the previous verse) is awfully far away to be the antecedent when another possibility is present.

And it is really cool to think that God plays with creation, especially things that are big and scary to us. It reinforces the love and omnipotence God has.

[progressivejudaism]

Nonbinary Hebrew Project | Grammar & Systematics

How does a third-gender option in Hebrew work? By following the structure of the milennia-old traditional binary aspects of the language, we have devised a system of conjugations and configurations that allow everyone to be included.

I can’t believe that I’ve never posted this here--  this is a thing.   An important thing.   If you are learning Hebrew / know Hebrew, please check this out.  Let’s help this movement to grow.

[ask-jumblr]

Hebrew grammar question - I recently came across the phrase "malakhei habbalah." I have only the most passing familiarity with Hebrew, but I'm under the understanding that malakh is singular, and malakhim is plural. Where does malahkei fit in?

.

[hebrewpod101]

🎯 Must-Know Hebrew Words for Beginners 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe for FREE in HebrewPod101: https://www.hebrewpod101.com/?src=tumblr_emotions_120517  

[mynameisgoliath]

Nouns in Hebrew-שׁמוֹת עֵצֵם בּעברית

Everything in Hebrew is always masculine or feminine so of course nouns are, too.

How to tell feminine and masculine nouns

-a word that ends in

ה

is always feminine, no exceptions

-a word that ends in ת is most often feminine. a notable exception is בַּיִת (house), which is masculine

-words that end in the other letters are almost always masculine. exceptions have often developed to be both feminine and masculine, like שֵׁמֵשׁ (sun)

-words that end in א come from Aramaic, are considered feminine words and are often written with a ה at the end instead, which is considered more correct. 

Plurals

-feminine words pluralize to end in וֹת, eg. בּנוֹת, שְׁמַשׁוֹת

-masculine words pluralize to end in יִם, eg. בּנים, בּיתיים

There are so many exceptions to this though.

Ex. for masculine words which pluralize as if they’re feminine: שׁוּלחַן=שׁוּלחַנוֹת, אַרמוֹן=אַרמוֹנוֹת, רְחוֹב=רְחוֹבוֹת (tables/tables, palace/palaces, street/streets)

Ex. for feminine words which pluralize as if they’re masculine: שַׁנַה=שַׁנים, בֵּיצַה=בֵּיצים, עִיר=עַרים, אישַׁה=נַשׁים (year/years, egg/eggs, city/cities, woman/women)

The links lead to more exceptions, but be careful because the site is mainly concentrated on Chazalit Hebrew so there are words which aren’t like that anymore, especially in the feminine list.

Name of the Action-שֵׁם פּעוּלַה

This is the noun form of the verb. Like שם הפּועַל from the last post it exists in English, but is less noticeable.

Like the name says it is just the name of the action you are doing. So 'to write’ becomes ‘(the act of) writing’ in noun form and ‘to eat’ becomes ‘(the act of) eating’.

In Hebrew?

to write-לכתוֹב-writing-כּתיבַה

to eat-לאֵכוֹל-eating-אַכילַה

to read-לקרוֹא-reading-קריאַה

to drink-לשׁתוֹת-drinking-שׁתִייַה

It isn’t always the add ה at the end and maybe י in the middle format, but it often is, especially for simple verbs.

[chewbaccaaah]

I don’t know if supernatural fans (or the cast) know this, but the word nephilim is a Hebrew based word. In Hebrew, one of the ways to make a word plural is by adding the letters yud and mem, adding the sound ‘im’ to the end of the word. So when they say nephilim, it should mean more than one.