Comments on: Happy Purim

By: chazarmaveth

chazarmaveth — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:41:07 +0000

dude! me + moshe were looking at parshas noach, we saw a character whose name (in hebrew) was spelled “chet-tzadi-reish-mem-vav-taf,” translated (by artscroll) as “hazarmaveth.” moshe’s like, “death pig?” it was a joke. it stuck. zehu.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:01:39 +0000

Some of the Arabic-inflected dialects of Hebrew also differentiated between gimel with a dagesh and without. So, were you making kiddush in Yemen, you might hear “borei pri ha-jafen,” which I think is kind of cool.

I don’t know if that’s true to ancient Hebrew or not, but the fact that the dageshim were put there during the Tiberian period indicates that a lot of the letters at least at one time had multiple pronunciations.

By: T_M

T_M — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 17:49:38 +0000

I’d respond but suddenly I’m all tongue-tied.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 17:42:04 +0000

Yeah…”chazar” means returned or repeated, so it’s “death repeated.”

As far as the “th” in “mavet,” it’s technically a more correct transliteration for a tav without a dagesh, which is slightly different sound than a tav with a dagesh. I mean, if you’re really serious about speaking Temani-esque Hebrew. The tav-b’li-dagesh, instead of the Ashkenazi “s,” is actually a “t” sound made against the roof of the mouth with the tongue scooped, like a lot of the sounds in Arabic. It makes the surrounding vowels sound “hollow.” The best way in English to transliterate it is with a “th,” since it kinda sounds like that (although the dalet without a dagesh sounds more like a “th”). It used to be the standard way of transliterating Sephardi Hebrew, which is why you get things like “Beth Israel” or something like that.

Boy, I bet you didn’t really need to know that.

By: T_M

T_M — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 17:13:09 +0000

Wait a minute, chazar maveth is supposed to be pig of death? Isn’t it chazir mavet?

By: chazarmaveth

chazarmaveth — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 14:31:15 +0000

well, good. anything christian is better than JFJ. i agree with michael... we need to make us some cinematic talmud talez -- arba nichn'su l'pardes, tanur d'bar achnai, the story of Elazar ben Dordya (famed debaucherer/last-minute-teshuva-maker)... all dem aggadas deserve epic treatment. dina, i hope you are planning on blogging your story to us...? you'd be a welcome Special Literary Correspondent to The Pig of Death if ever the fancy struck you...

By: Soccer Dad

Soccer Dad — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 05:33:32 +0000

Haveil Havalim #15 – The Purim Carnival!
Mirty Gets Married provides us with, among other things, the Unitarian view of Purim as well as her own take on the holiday. Purim easy? Try making 30 sets of Shalach Manos for your children’s teachers and friends! And delivering…

By: ck

ck — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 23:57:57 +0000

“falafel sandwich?” is that what the kids are calling it these days?

By the way, the movie was produced by Latter Day Saints – yup. Mormons.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 21:14:07 +0000

I’ll be seeing ck in two months. I guess he’ll owe me. Although, hey, ck, if you want to give me instead of that “kiss” a “falafel sandwich,” that’s totally cool with me.

By: T_M

T_M — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 21:07:07 +0000

Michael, you are a genius! If ck were here, I’d send him right over to give you a big kiss!