Putting a Campaign Spotlight on the (Hebrew) Character Issue
On Language
By Philologos
Who will get the Hebrew vote November 4? There must be a big one, since I can’t imagine why else the Obama and McCain campaigns and their supporters would be putting out so many Hebrew buttons, stickers, T-shirts, shopping bags, hats, mugs, mouse pads and other paraphernalia.
Will it be a close race? If it’s about politics, perhaps. But if it’s about Hebrew, Barack Obama wins, hands down.
In all fairness, he started with an advantage. “Barak” (with the accent on the last syllable) is both a Hebrew word — it means lightning — and the name of a biblical hero in the book of Judges who answers the call of the prophetess Deborah to fight the Canaanite Sisera.
Thus, there’s no problem with spelling Senator Obama’s first name — nor, really, is there any with spelling his last one. The only question is whether to use what is known in Hebrew as k’tav malei, “full spelling” or k’tav h.aser, “missing spelling” — that is, whether to insert an extra letter, in this case an alef, between the bet and mem to indicate Obama’s middle vowel. Whereas “full spelling” is usually reserved for foreign words that Hebrew readers may have trouble with (it was used in Hebrew “Hillary” buttons during the Clinton primary campaign), in “missing spelling” most vowels are unwritten and have to be supplied by the reader.
Thus, the fact that, as can be seen (top left), the Obama buttons, bags, and T-shirts employ “missing spelling” makes the Democratic candidate seem only even more of a native Hebrew son. If one can fault Obamian Hebrew anywhere, it’s on the joint Obama-Biden button — where, as you will notice (center left), Biden is spelled with only one yod. This would be fine if the name were pronounced BEE-den, but for BYE-den, two yods are needed.
That’s nothing, though, compared with the gaffe on the McCain-Palin button (bottom left). Look at the first letter of Palin. The peh with the horizontal line over it is not even Hebrew; it’s a Yiddish character
never used in the Hebrew alphabet. Worse yet, this line turns the peh into a feh, so that the button is promoting a “McCain-Falin” ticket. And another McCain-Palin Hebrew logo, seen here on a sticker, is no better (top right). Here, a horizontal line has been added below a letter, the lamed of Palin. This line can be read only as the vowel sign pata h., which combined with the yod that follows the lamed obliges the Hebrew reader to pronounce the name “Plein” or “Flein.” (To make sure in Hebrew that the peh is pronounced as a “p” and not as an “f,” you have to put a dagesh, or little dot, into it so that the correct way to spell Palin is oiliit. .)
When Hebraically paired with Sarah Palin, whose first name is, of course, biblical, too, John McCain at least gets his own name spelled right. This is not the case when he has to appear by himself. The McCain mouse pad you’re looking at (center right) treats Hebrew as if it were a mirror-image method of writing English. Does McCain have two c’s in English? Then give it two kufs in Hebrew, even though Hebrew rules forbid a letter from being doubled without an intervening vowel. The result is a word on the mouse pad that looks like makakin, which means “cockroaches” with an Aramaic -in rather than Hebrew -im plural ending. Nor does the apostrophe between the kufs help any, since such a diacritical mark in modern Hebrew is used only to change the phonetic value of certain letters (as when turning a tsadi into a “chadi,” or a hard gimmel into a “j”). And sillier yet is the golf shirt (bottom right) that miniaturizes the first kuf to make it resemble the small “c” in McCain, even though Hebrew has no such thing as small and capital letters.
As far as Hebrew is concerned, it looks like an Obama landslide. The Republicans get a Falin grade.
Questions for Philologos can be sent to philologos@forward.com.
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Is McCain in reality a colony of insects masquerading as a human like Edgar the Bug from Men in Black? Yikes! That could explain a lot, though....
I read the John Kerry's Hebrew buttons spelled his last name (kuf, resh, yod) the same as a talmudic term for an (ahem) emission.
It is cute that someone has decided to make campaign buttons in the Hebrew script, despite all the mistakes. However, the grim picture of Hebrew illiteracy in America remains. I would be curious to know what percentage of American Jews would be able to read those buttons. Although learning the Hebrew alphabet is an endeavor of no more than a few classroom lessons, only a minority has had such lessons. Beyond merely recognizing the 22 letters, only a very small group could actually read a piece of literature in Hebrew. So, it's nice that Philologos explains some of the mistakes in Hebrew orthography, but actually it is quite a scandal that such simple things even need explanation. It would be helpful if some criticism about this state of affairs would be expressed in his column as well. So very few are even aware that something has gone wrong.
Spelling "Barak" with a kuf is a bit of a problem, as, in Arabic letters, the name would be spelled with a kaf: it means "blessed" (like the Hebrew Barukh), not "lightning."
In terms of political buttons at the synagogue I attend, I have to agree with the last paragraph. During both High Holiday and Sukkot services, I saw a number of people with Hebrew Obama buttons, but no McCain buttons--most gratifying to this voter who did her civic duty this past Wednesday! If you are in a state that allows early voting, please take advantage of this--even if you have to wait in line, it's well worth it. The country's future is at stake, so please participate!
Nachum Lamm is correct. Barack Obama's first name is transcribed incorrectly into Hebrew. It does not mean lightning; it means blessing. Juan Cole, formerly president of the Middle East Studies Association (and incidentally no friend of Israel) makes the point here: http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/barack-hussein-obama-omar-bradley.html Curiously, the English word "broker" is also related to "blessing." See: http://www.alphadictionary.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3563 BTW, Israeli media spell Obama's name incorrectly as bet-resh-kuf.
Nachum Lamm and Paul Ogden are correct only if the purpose of the Hebrew transcription is to indicate the etymology of Barack Obama's name. In that case, John McCain's first name should be rendered יוחנן or Yokhannan. OTOH, if the purpose of the Hebrew transcription is to accurately represent the pronunciation of a foreign name as unambiguously as possible in/for Hebrew, then Philologos, Democratic button makers, the Israeli media, Wikipedia [in Hebrew], etc. are correct. If I were the suspicious sort, I would think attributing an Arabic origin to candidate Obama's first name was a sister strategy to insisting on using his Arabic-sounding middle name when neither he nor his opponent use their middle names with any frequency. As for the Semitic origins of broker, most philologists have yet to settle on this etymology. Given that the Anglo-Normans were capable of wondrous legalism without reference to the Golden Age of al-Andalus, I think it's more likely that broker derives through broche, an Old French term for the tool to tap a cask. Broche goes back to a Latin —possibly even Celtic— word for a pointed object. And apropos to this column, wouldn't the Hebrew transcription of Senator Kerry's surname just as likely be kere as in קרי וכתיב kere v-ketiv the difference between what is written and what is read?
You write "even though Hebrew rules forbid a letter from being doubled without an intervening vowel. " How, then, do you explain Hebrew words like "riv'vot", "h.ov'vay (zion)", "sov'vim", "m'kal'lim", and more?...
I thankfully haven't seen any Hebrew McCain swag, and seeing bad-for-the-Jews Palin in Hebrew would be even more revolting. Having seen a few varieties of Hebrew Obama pins, however, I was wondering if his name should end in a hey, even though he doesn't have an h at the end of his name, or an ayin, which seems a better silent choice to me. I've seen both, but the hey is much more popular. May the best button win!
You did not comment on my art. I think I got it not only correctly spelled but my art looks the most like McCain's art. http://www.cafepress.com/hebrewmccain
Words like "riv'vot" do indeed have a sound between the two identical consonants. The "shva" is a "shva na'" - which indeed is pronounced - "rivevot". If the shva were not pronounced, the two letters would be presented as one with a dagesh in it. So Philologos has it right. Ending Obama's name in an 'ayin is not an option. The 'ayin is NOT a silent letter - hence the choice of heh is correct. I would imagine that the idea of using an 'ayin came from the Yiddish, where indeed it is used as a vowel ("e"). "Barak" is Swahili, and it's a borrowed word from Arabic ("baraka" - blessing). So, perhaps there would be justification for writing it with a "kaf" - but obviously no Hebrew spreaker would read it correctly. "Bet-resh-kaf" would be pronounced "berekh" - so the use of a "quf" really makes sense in modern Hebrew. It essentially defines the name as "foreign" (Swahili), and Hebrew uses the "quf" and the "tet" for foreign words (instead of the "kaf" and "tav". Most importantly, the spelling of "bet-resh-quf" will be pronounced by any speaker of modern Hebrew as indeed one pronounces Mr Obama's name. Obviously, in ancient times that would not have worked since the "quf" was pronounced differently than the "kaf".
Hosni Mubarak's name is spelled חוסני מובארכ in Hebrew. Modern Hebrew has no problem with a regular kaf instead of a kaf-sofit when transcribing Arabic words, just as it has no problem with a regular peh instead of a peh-sofit when transcribing English words: An Israeli high-tech start-up is written סטארט-אפ. By analogy, Barack should be written בארכ. Wikipedia spells both Mubarak and start-up this way.
I have a HIllary button in Hebrew. Don't need any of the other buttons.
As far as I know, there isn't an Arabic personal name Barack or Barak. There is Mubarrak, meaning blessed. There are various other Arabic words from that root, but not (as far as I know) barak with a short a in the first syllable and a long a in the second. My guess is that Obama's grandather intended to name his son Mubarrak, which in East Africa might be transcribed Mbarak, and that a schoolteacher instead (perhaps thinking that looked un-English) transcribed it Barack. And I guess that it was in the US that it came to be stressed on the second syllable -- we have a habit of doing that with foreign words. Qatar, for example, should be stressed on the first syllable but almost always seems to be pronounced like catarrh. That underscores the point that there's no particular reason for a Hebrew transliteration to reflect the etymology. The transliterations above reflect the pronunciation and that's all a transliteration can be expected to do.
Far too much fun!
Corinne- here's that interesting article I was telling you about--let me know if you can't open it-- Ginny
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