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The Word: The Dictionary That Reveals the Hebrew Sources of English
The Word is a unique reference book that traces English words to their ultimate origins in biblical Hebrew.
310 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 5, 2015
Wow!
A couple of months back, I was researching the derivation of the name, Anak——as in sons of Anak, the giants who so terrified the scouting party sent by the Israelites into the Promised Land that the whole reconnaissance went belly-up. It's got lots of relatives, like necklace, choking, throttling, hanging and so on. And as I was looking at the list, it dawned on me they all had to do with neck, which suspiciously sounds like it might be Anak with the first letter omitted. Could neck actually be derived from Anak?
Less than five minutes later, I found Isaac Mozeson's book. It looked intriguing enough to buy. Is Hebrew the source of English? I have to say there are many Hebrew words that make vastly, astronomically more sense than some of today's etymologies. (The one for muscle was convincing in its own right. Sorry, but I've always been dubious about the idea it's derived from mouse.)
I taught statistics for many years. I assure you that the chances of the thousands of credible examples Mozeson cites occurring randomly are infinitesmally small.
A couple of months back, I was researching the derivation of the name, Anak——as in sons of Anak, the giants who so terrified the scouting party sent by the Israelites into the Promised Land that the whole reconnaissance went belly-up. It's got lots of relatives, like necklace, choking, throttling, hanging and so on. And as I was looking at the list, it dawned on me they all had to do with neck, which suspiciously sounds like it might be Anak with the first letter omitted. Could neck actually be derived from Anak?
Less than five minutes later, I found Isaac Mozeson's book. It looked intriguing enough to buy. Is Hebrew the source of English? I have to say there are many Hebrew words that make vastly, astronomically more sense than some of today's etymologies. (The one for muscle was convincing in its own right. Sorry, but I've always been dubious about the idea it's derived from mouse.)
I taught statistics for many years. I assure you that the chances of the thousands of credible examples Mozeson cites occurring randomly are infinitesmally small.
November 29, 2019
This book raises an interesting point: if you consider that your own mother tongue belongs to the central trunk of the tree of languages, then you may well relegate to the outer branches the possible true source. It's a natural human tendency to place your own culture in the middle of things, not on the periphery. So does this natural human tendency taint our entire understanding of linguistics and etymology?
I've got to admit there are some compelling examples here that never made sense to me: muscle from mouse?!! Mozeson's explanation makes much more sense.
I've got to admit there are some compelling examples here that never made sense to me: muscle from mouse?!! Mozeson's explanation makes much more sense.
January 6, 2025
I wanted to give this dictionary 4 stars but I don't know enough about the science to evaluate how well the author handled this subject.
It was an interesting subject and remains interesting. I have noticed that certain words in the English language sound surprisingly like they came from Hebrew. Frankly, some of those words come directly from Hebrew such as hallelujah. Many names are Hebrew names such as Michael, Samuel, Emmanuel, Sarah... like that. Those names are not sounded like Hebrew when spoken in English, but if one uses Hebrew rules of pronunciation, they sound correct.
Etymologists and various language experts have a set of rules they use to figure out where a word might have come from. They posit a single parent language, but how they do that seems hodgepodge to me. I'm not fully buying it, so I'm not fully buying the ideas of the author of this book. He admits he is not an expert in this field although clearly he is very intelligent. He uses the rules that the experts use and he uses his knowledge of Hebrew to posit a link to the Hebrew language for many words.
For those who are interested in the Hebrew language this is a fascinating endeavor. I'm not sure the author will be able to convince anyone else. Perhaps over time his ideas will win out. After all... for many, many years no one believed in the idea of the supercontinent of Pangea and denied the obvious signs that Pangea had once existed. Nowaways Pangea is considered scientific fact. Certainly, I do.
I didn't read the book straight through. I read the introduction and picked through the dictionary looking for words that interested me. I don't think dictionaries are meant to be read like other books. They do contain a lot of information though. I think this dictionary would have benefited from including the normative etymology of each word before launching into an extension of that etymology or an alternative to it. That would have made this dictionary more useful to me rather than as a Sabbath amusement.
FYI, I am Jewish, and the author came to our synagogue many years ago to speak on the subject contained in his book. It interested me then and when I saw the book for sale recently, I picked it up.
I will probably be reading it now and again.
It was an interesting subject and remains interesting. I have noticed that certain words in the English language sound surprisingly like they came from Hebrew. Frankly, some of those words come directly from Hebrew such as hallelujah. Many names are Hebrew names such as Michael, Samuel, Emmanuel, Sarah... like that. Those names are not sounded like Hebrew when spoken in English, but if one uses Hebrew rules of pronunciation, they sound correct.
Etymologists and various language experts have a set of rules they use to figure out where a word might have come from. They posit a single parent language, but how they do that seems hodgepodge to me. I'm not fully buying it, so I'm not fully buying the ideas of the author of this book. He admits he is not an expert in this field although clearly he is very intelligent. He uses the rules that the experts use and he uses his knowledge of Hebrew to posit a link to the Hebrew language for many words.
For those who are interested in the Hebrew language this is a fascinating endeavor. I'm not sure the author will be able to convince anyone else. Perhaps over time his ideas will win out. After all... for many, many years no one believed in the idea of the supercontinent of Pangea and denied the obvious signs that Pangea had once existed. Nowaways Pangea is considered scientific fact. Certainly, I do.
I didn't read the book straight through. I read the introduction and picked through the dictionary looking for words that interested me. I don't think dictionaries are meant to be read like other books. They do contain a lot of information though. I think this dictionary would have benefited from including the normative etymology of each word before launching into an extension of that etymology or an alternative to it. That would have made this dictionary more useful to me rather than as a Sabbath amusement.
FYI, I am Jewish, and the author came to our synagogue many years ago to speak on the subject contained in his book. It interested me then and when I saw the book for sale recently, I picked it up.
I will probably be reading it now and again.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews