Does Japanese come from Hebrew?
Oct 8th, 2010 | By Adam
Yesterday morning Dictionary.com come sent me my word of the day. It was “Mana”, which they defined as ”a generalized, supernatural force or power, which may be concentrated in objects or persons”. A bit broad of a definition I thought for the stuff we all know was food as described in the book of Exodus. I was then surprised to discover that (according to dictionary.com) the word was “adopted into English from a Maori word meaning power, authority, supernatural power”. Huh? I had no idea that indigenous New Zealanders had so much influence in Jewish culture…not.
Either way, this week is the perfect opportunity to speak about the origin of language as the Torah portion is Noah which contains the famous story of the Tower of Babble. The story opens by telling us that “the whole Earth was of one language, one speech” or in Hebrew “Vayihee kol ha’aretz saphah akhat oodivarim akahdim”. Can you hear echoes of these words in our language? Could “whole” be related to “kol”? Could “Earth” come from “aretz”? And “speech” from “saphah”?
I posit to you that they indeed are and that if we learn a few basic rules of linguistics you will be able to see this for yourself…in any language.
The rules (in an iddy bitty nutshell):
Letter shifts-this means that certain sounds tend to substitute for each other. For instance, CH, S, TS and Z are frequently interchangeable. There are 5 categories of these shifts-fricatives, bilabials, gutturals, dentals and liquids.
Nasalization-means that M and N sounds sometimes get inserted in the middle of words. You can see the effect that this has for yourself in this little game: (try to match the words)
- A[n]tique Da[n]ce Ha[n]ker Ny[m]phet Ri[n]se Sha[m]poo Stu[m]p Sha[n]k Si[n]k Spa[n]k
- RaHaTS (to wash) SOOaKH (to bend down) TSaB (root of stubble) DaTZ(to leap, rejoice) ATiQ (ancient) SHooPH (to rub, polish) SHoaK (leg) NoEPHet (adulteress) KSaPHak (to clap/strike) HaQeH (to anticipate)
Metathesis-Root letters frequently switch places. Like flutterby becoming butterfly.
There, now you are all experts and can check this out all the time like I do. For instance, I was on the subway and saw a Verizon ad in Spanish that I did not understand. The word that caught my attention was “mensual” which I assumed must be related to our word menstruation, which is of course related to time. (Turned out “mensual” means monthly). So I broke down the word to its root letters (M, N, S). Using 2 principles of linguistics showed me that it came from Hebrew. I switched the S to a Z-a common letter substitution and then used metathesis to change the order to (Z, M, N). The Hebrew word for time is “ZMaN”…ta da!
Hmmm, I can hear you all saying, cute but just a coincidence. To that I ask how many examples would be required to prove it? 10? 100? What if I told you I could show you thousands of examples in dozens of languages and that English itself has borrowed scores of words from Hebrew like in these examples:
- Hebrew: Orah (light), Gaon, Taraph, Yediah (knowledge), Yesh, Ayin, Perot, Terufah (medicine)
- English: Aura, Genius, Trap, Idea, Is, Eye, Fruit ,Therapy
The Torah tells us that at one point there was only one language and despite what the Linguistic Industrial Complex likes to tell us with examples like “Mana” and many other strangely convoluted word origins, there is massive evidence to support its claim. For anyone interested in exploring this further please refer to these sources:
- The Origin of Speeches, Issac Mozeson
- The Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet, Rabbi Eliyahu Munk
- Coincidences in the Bible and Biblical Hebrew, Haim Shore
- The Cipher, Rabbi Zamir Cohen
- As for Japanese, check out The Biblical Origin of the Japanese People, Joseph Eidelberg
Also, it’s no coincidence that we are starting a new round of Hebrew reading and speaking classes next Monday the 18th! Check it out.
Shabbat Shalom
Dear Rabbi Adam Jacobs:
Thanks for making people think about the miracle of language that we take for granted, and for letting them know that there is massive scientific evidence that the Torah has language origin right.
The Origin of Speeches book (now in a bigger 2nd ed.) is actually by a guy who spells his first name “Isaac.”
A mutual friend told me that the linguistic evidence in the Shore book is from my 1989 book.
Much of the Eidleberg data is flawed, but 1000 Japanese words from Biblical Hebrew can be seen by writing me via http://www.edeninc.org Kol Tuv, Isaac
Greetings.
I’m born&bred Japanese just came across this page,and I’m sorry,I have to say it doesn’t make sense to me.
Very interesting connection,if there,but We don’t have any Biblical Origin.
Yeah. You could have good reasons because you say that you have studied linguistics but you have to explain this better. I am Korean and I can tell you Japanese are not going to be happy that their language came from Hebrew which is not anywhere in near the continent. Plus are you aware of the invisible cultural war happening secretly under the table between the Japanese and the Koreans.
Honestly after what they did is just Karma. I am ambivalent about their conflicts because I lived from country to country. But I can understand from both perspectives and right now the Japanese are trying all they can to make it up to Koreans but the Koreans are being well quite stuck up about it with good reasons. Which is not a good start when the country is trying to set the right attitude towards unification (between the Koreas). They really need to grow up a little but I have to give credit to them because they only given a short time with a lot of growing up to do.
So when you define things like these such as the language which is culture not being their own, you have to be ready to explain and back it up so ordinary people like us can understand it. :)
Because what you are doing is no different when Korea made Tae Kwon Do their own and turn it into a Olympic sport or claim that the sword of the samurai (Katana) was actually invented by a Korean. (which is impossible because we only advanced till the copper age). With very little evidence. Koreans’ reasoning is there are text and drawings called ‘sword technique’ written ancient text but really it only shows evidence they used it and not make it.
Japan is an island..so the theory is they are more open to unique cultures. Which as per example Manga Graffiti….Graffiti street art originated from brooklyn. Even their style of hip hop. They are very good at taking what they like from other countries and making it very unique in their own way. That goes for technology as well. Whatever the west make, the Japanese just made it better. The spice route from the Europe to Japan could be the only influence between Hebrew and Japan. But really, Jewish influence is not the only influence during the Edo period. Many Europeans traveled in this area. And its influence is not one way is a mutual influence. Example would be Japanese prints that influence one of Van Gogh’s paintings.
Hebrew is an old language I get it. Its been around, maybe one of the longest. If what you say is right, then the Japanese just took the hebrew and just made it better. I believe in looking back to receive wisdom but to unlock it you have to move forward and usually not as easy as it sounds.