á"ä
From the
Hebrew Word âï
to the
Japanese Sono
I wondered how the Hebrew word for
garden, âï, is
related to the Japanese word for garden, 'sono'. Upon learning that the word 'sono' in Japanese means 'garden' the Hebrew origin of the
word resonated within me. The meaning of the Hebrew word âï is 'garden' or 'kindergarten'. Variants
of the Hebrew word âï exist in a number of
Semitic languages, to wit: Aramaic: âðà and âðúà; Ugaritic: gn; Arabic: janna;
Akkadian: ganna. In all these languages the variations of the
word mean 'garden', although the word is derived from the Hebrew radical âðï meaning to defend, protect, guard,
shelter. In Arabic jannay means 'he covered', 'concealed.1
After some consideration it became clear
that the shift from the Hebrew âï to 'sono' also involves a shifting of the Hebrew word æï to sono. The Hebrew radical æ-å-ï means 'to feed'. The
word æåï means 'to feed' in
both Aramaic and in Biblical Aramaic. Likewise in Akkadian
zanānu
means 'to feed' (the macron over the second 'a' indicates that the sound is
long).2
We will see that the derivation of the
word Japanese word 'sono' is not only a sound-alike cognate
of the Hebrew word æï that involves a simple æ'
to S phonetic shift. The word tells us just how it is
derived from its Hebrew alphanumeric provenance.
Let's look at the word 'sono'. The Hebrew letters æ' and â' are mirror images of
one another, which, when handwritten, create an enclosure together (this might
be a protecting enclosure like a (âï but, not less important, they are also
supplements of one another adding up to the number 10. I suspect that in
the translation of Hebrew to other languages there are letter shifts of letters
that supplement to 10, 100 and 1000 as well as phonetic letter shifts and
metatheses.
The phenomenon of 'g' to 'z' shifts occurring that create cognates in various languages certainly can be demonstrated. One example is: The Hindi 'zanana' (meaning woman. Notice how close the Hindi 'zanana' is to the Akkadian zanānu.), which seems to be related to the ancient Greek γυνη. Another example is the word 'zither', which is probably derived from the Greek κιθαρα (Lat.cithara).This is evidently the source from which 'guitar' was derived. The ultimate etymon of zither, κιθαρα, cithara and guitar alike is the Hebrew word âéã.
Let's not ignore the 'ō'
sound, which is doubled, in the word 'sono'. I
write the foregoing statement and treat the matter most deliberately and specifically
because in considering the Hebrew etymon of words in other languages many
follow the principle of the øù"é, which states that vowels may simply be
ignored for the most part when analyzing Hebrew words. This sweeping diminution
of the importance of the Hebrew vowels is obviously based on the fact that
Hebrew is written without the system of punctuation marks that was developed by áéú àùø.Though
accepted by the øîá"í, the system of vocalizing the Text
developed by áéú àùø was still not deeply
ingrained in the Jewish consciousness as part and parcel of Hebrew during the
time of the øù"é. The øù"é may have been hostile
to the system of vocalization that áéú àùø developed,
as it is generally accepted that they were Karaites. The øîá"í accepted
the authority of the àùø Dynasty,
albeit reluctantly and qualifiedly, on
the basis of their singular scholarship, which was undeniable to any appraising
their work honestly. The øù"é may
not have been quite so generous of spirit in accepting that the knowledge of Text
of Torah on the part of Karaites was superior to that
of the Rabbis. Another reason that
the øù"é belittled the importance of vowels in analyzing how words are
derived from Hebrew is
the fact that the various inflections of radicals are formed, in part, by using
different vowels. Thus, the morphology of the Hebrew language is based on the
fact that vowels change and are fluid. This, to the mind of the øù"é, was evidently reason to dismiss them
as being of less import than the letters of the radicals.
It does not appear that these bases
are reasons that will support the assumption that vowels can be ignored when
analyzing how words are derived from their alphanumeric Hebrew etymons. First
and foremost vowels exist. It is impossible to speak without vowels. This and
more, all of the àîåú-ä÷øéàä (vowel letters) in the
Hebrew alphabet have values and all consideration of Hebrew words involves
computation. The values of àîåú-ä÷øéàä are always taken into consideration
when the values of Hebrew words are computed, no
matter which system of computation is employed.3 Some of the àîåú-ä÷øéàä are used to create vowel indications.
The å'
appears in the name of the çåìí, the ùåø÷, the ÷áåõ and the ñâåì. It is used to create the topological
structure4 of the çåìí, which is a å', not
merely a horizontal line segment, with
a dot over it and the ùåø÷, which is a å' with a dot next to the left side of it across from the middle
of the å'. The é', likewise is to be found in the names of vowels, to wit: the çéø÷ and the öéøä. It is used principally to create the
çéø÷ âãåì, but also to create the öéøä âãåì and, to a lesser extent, the ñâåì âãåì.
As I have discussed in my book äð÷áä: ä÷øáðåú
åäëôøåú, which can be accessed
from the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/7oxud, we
find throughout both 5úð"ê and the Dead Sea
Scrolls6 that àîåú-ä÷øéàä are both not written
in some words where one would expect to find them and ostensibly
"superfluous" àîåú-ä÷øéàä are found in other
words where one would not expect them to be according to accepted orthography.
See my discussion of the names æáåìåï, éùËøåï and the word ëé, which is sometimes spelled ëéà in the
Hebrew, therefore, is an alphabet,
not an abugida and most certainly not an abjad, as the disavowal of the utmost importance of the
alphanumerical qualities of àîåú-ä÷øéàä on
the part of the øù"é necessarily implies.
It is also true that all the vowels in
Hebrew (äúðåòåú)have
names and those names have values of their own.
No, it does not at all appear that vowels
are to be summarily ignored. The letter å', equaling 6, is twice â'.
In the word 'sono' we have a
doubling of the letter â' twice,
i.e., the two "ō", or å' sounds. Let's bear in mind here that å' is the only absolutely symmetrical
letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Sono contains
the name of the letter å', which we have said is a twice-pairing, or quadrupling, of â'.
This seems to me to be a play on the
radical æ-å-â. Quite obviously, the
nasal ð'
or 'n' is also a prominent letter in the words 'âï', ',æï' and 'sono'. I have discussed the fact that the
nasal letter ð' has the characteristic
of appearing and disappearing in my book äð÷áä: ä÷øáðåú
åäëôøåú, (see
URL above). To find the passage quickly, it will aid the reader to highlight
the word 'disappears'. You do not need to speak or read Hebrew proficiently to
understand this passage.
The word 'sono'
is not just a simple phoneticæ' to 's'
shift. It actually tells us what the arithmetical functions that
have been used to create the entire word are.
I wrote about the fact that æ',
a dental fricative often shifting to the 's'
sound, being equal to 7, is the supplement of 3 (â') that
adds up to ten. Now, ù (shin) and ù (sin), equaling
300 as they do, are 3 X 100. ñ', equaling as
it does 60, is also a multiple of three ((â'; it equals 3 x 20. These connections are not
fortuitous and they have some bearing in how languages are generated from their
provenance and substrate, alphanumerical Hebrew.
REFERENCES: 1. A COMPREHENSIVE
ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE FOR READERS OF ENGLIGH, by
Rabbi Dr. Ernest Klein, Copyright ©
1987 by The Beatrice & Arthur Minden Foundation &The University of
Haifa, CARTA, The Israel Map and Publishing Company, Ltd., Jerusalem – Tel
Aviv, 4/6 Yad Harutzim St.
P.O.B. 2500 Jerusalem, Israel 91204. Editor: Baruch Sarel
2. ibid.
3. Numerology - Gematria
The Mathematics of the
Torah http://tinyurl.com/bk6a3
4. as the term is defined in:
"The Shapes of Visual Signs over Human History"
See: http://tinyurl.com/cokpp
5. For an extensive list of these variant spellings,
see:
ñôø äéëì ä÷ãù, ÷åð÷åøãðöéà òáøéú åàøîéú,
îàú ã"ø ùìîä îàðãòì÷òøï
LIPSIAE Veit et
Comp MDCCCXCVI
6.
For an extensive list of these variant spellings, see: THE Dead Sea Scrolls
CONCORDANCE, Volumes One and Two, The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran [PART ONE] by Martin G. Abegg, Jr. with James E.
Bowley & Edward M. Cook & in Consultation with EMANUEL TOV, Copyright
2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan,
DoreenDotan@gmail.com