For the sake of illustration, in this answer I shall represent the shva as a colon in the middle of the word (:). There are four rules for determining whether a shva is na (‘moving’) or naḥ (‘resting’):
Tag Archives: Hebrew
Q&A: What is the difference between the Hebrew words dabar and amar?
The verb d-b-r (דבר) is to speak—i.e. it is more formal and intentional. Hence words put in writing are also dbrim* (‘dvarim’); the Ten Commandments in Hebrew are Aseret Hadibrot (The Ten Proclamations); and religious prophets always warned civic leaders to honour at hdbrim awr H’ xivh* etc. (the things that the Lord commanded).
Continue readingQ&A: What is the meaning of the Hebrew proverb ”שמחת זקנתי בראש חוצות”?
It’s not a proverb so much as an expression of disdain or indifference. In common usage, only the first two words are used—with a suitable expression of boredom or nonchalance, while pointedly not looking away from whatever you’re doing at that moment: שמחת זקנתי… (Simhat zqenti…)
Literally, it means, ‘My old woman’s happiness for all to see’, and is a translation of the Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) expression, La gracia di tu mana (‘Your mother’s happiness’)—i.e., ‘[That might make my mother happy, but] I couldn’t care less’.
Q&A: Why might a translator use a calque?
[A2A] One would use a calque (a.k.a. loan translation) when there is no equivalent word or expression in the target language, but it captures the meaning so well and concisely that one is moved to recreate it by emulating the same word combination using native words in the target language.
In Hebrew, noted examples are:
Continue readingQ&A: Are the Yiddish and the Hebrew cursive scripts the same style?
Pretty much—since the modern Hebrew cursive (MHC) is based on the Ashkenazi cursive style that began to emerge in the 18th century, or thereabouts.
Here’s a fairly typical example of Yiddish handwriting:

Q&A: If the head of government of the Republic of Ireland is widely known as the Taoiseach, why isn’t the head of government of Israel widely known by a Hebrew term rather than as “Prime Minister”?
Three reasons:
- Because only the Irish Prime Minister is accorded this honour (the PM of France isn’t referred to in English as the Premier Ministre, the Spanish PM isn’t called the Primer Ministro, etc.)
- Because Rosh Hamemshalah is a bit of a mouthful for most foreigners
and—last but not least: - Because foreign Jews would confuse the Israeli PM with Rosh Hashanah, and think that he must be celebrated only once a year.
Q&A: Is it possible to design Scrabble in languages that are not fully alphabetic, such as Hebrew?
There is a Hebrew version of Scrabble, because Hebrew has an alphabet (shucks—who do you think invented it?).
However, the Hebrew version is not always readily available—especially when one is abroad (i.e., outside Israel). For those situations (as in many others), SimHebrew (simulated Hebrew) comes in handy, as evident from this example of a Hebrew Scrabble game that we played in the family:

Q&A: Why are the Hebrew words melakh, melekh, & malakh so similar?
Misapprehensions like this are precisely why conventional transliteration of Hebrew is so flawed.
In SimHebrew (simulated Hebrew in Latin characters), the spelling distinctions between those three words are clear, and preserved:
- ‘melakh’: in Hebrew מלח, in SimHebrew mlk
- ‘melekh’: in Hebrew מלך, in SimHebrew mlç
- ‘malakh’: in Hebrew מלאך, in SimHebrew mlaç
See Modern-day Ecclesiastes for more examples.
Q&A: Where can I find good Hebrew-language fonts?
‘The Fonts Project’ פרויקט הפונטים is one go-to site that I use: a diverse range of fonts, and the ability to simulate a short text of your own:

Q&A: Is it true that, in the Book of Revelation, Hebrew letters were used instead of Greek for the mark of the beast (666)?
This urban legend has been making the rounds for years in relation to the logo of a certain energy drink whose logo is three claw marks that supposedly look like the Hebrew letter vav, which also has the numerical value of 6—i.e., ‘666’
The problem is, vav is very length-specific: it goes down to the baseline, but no more. Since the middle claw mark is longer than the other two, it suggests that it is the end-of-word form of a different Hebrew letter (nun = n), whose numerical value is 50—so technically, the numbers are 6–50–6. Not so Beastly.
Last but not least, numerical values above 100 using Hebrew letters don’t work like decimal numbers. To write the number 666 with Hebrew letters, one would write תרס”ו (tav-resh-samekh-vav), which numerically is 400+200+60+6, and would be read phonetically Tarsu™—which doesn’t mean anything, but I’ve trademarked it, anyway, to sell to a company with a devilishly good drink.