Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 September 14

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September 14

Pre-revival "hippopotamus" in Hebrew

In modern Hebrew, the term for "hippopotamus" is היפופוטם, roughly "hypopotm": obviously derived from Greek. Do we know of any terms clearly referring to the animal in pre-revival Hebrew? Some hold that the behemoth (Hebrew "בהמות‎") in the book of Job is a hippopotamus, but that's disputed; at any rate, it's not a solid identification comparable to "כצבי", a gazelle. I'm looking (while doubtful that it exists) for something that unambiguously refers to Hippopotamus amphibius. Nyttend (talk) 01:26, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

There seems to be a mention of hyppopotami in Josippon, from the 10th century (Book II, Chapter XVIII, link). It uses the Hebrew word "אפיפטמי", which also somewhat resembles the Greek word. Unfortunately I cannot find an English translation online, though a Dutch translation explicitly identifies this "אפיפטמי" with Hippopotamus amphibius. - Lindert (talk) 11:57, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Besides the Hebrew word behemoth mentioned above, there's an alternative Hebrew term: the construct סוּס הַיְּאוֹר [su:s jə.ˈɔːr] (literally "horse of the river"), identical to the Greek compound word: (horse; ιππος) + (river; πόταμος). I don't know when this term came into use, i.e. whether it might precede the Greek. To expand on what Nyttend wrote above, the last syllable in borrowed Greek word is vowellized, yielding [hi:.poʊ.poʊ.ˈtɑːm], per the vernacular dictionary, Rav Milim, a Comprehensive Dictionary of Modern Hebrew (in six volumes, 1997). The more formal Even-Shoshan (in five volumes, 1999) marks "hyppopotamos" (sic, complete with the "-os" ending, היפופטמוס) as a loan word from the Greek. In my reading, these names are intended to be equivalents for the same animal, which according to Hippopotamus#Distribution, "Archaeological evidence exists of its presence in the Levant, dating to less than 3,000 years ago." This putatively includes the Hula Valley in the Upper Galilee region of present-day Israel. -- Deborahjay (talk) 14:44, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

At risk of a plug, check with Rabbi Natan Slifkin at zootorah.org. He's a great source for things like this. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

mahada yetfalssaf

Per this edit [1] to Daniella Rahme. Google translate [2] says it is Somali. and means "Thanks yetfalssaf", is that correct? Hoping it isn't actually crude or lewd as it was there for 8 days! 220 of ^Borg 02:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)