1/7 In the Bible, the Anemone was likely called Na'aman. So why do Israelis today call it Kalanit?
The name comes from Aramaic: Kalanita. It means "Little Bride." 👰‍♀️ Here is the story of how it won the linguistic war. 🧵 2/7 We first find the word in the Talmud. Rav Papa warns that Kalanita seeds are often confused with caraway.
Centuries later, Immanuel Löw (a Hungarian rabbi) proves in his dissertation that Kalanita was the Aramaic name for the Anemone.

1/8 There is a Hebrew word that technically means: "I will die for you."
But today, you hear it used by taxi drivers, waiters, and grandmas just to say "Sweetie."
The word is Kapara. Here is the intense history behind Israel's favorite slang. 🧵 2/8 First, the literal meaning. Kapara (כפרה) means "Atonement."
It comes from the same root as Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement). It is a heavy, religious word. It implies sin, judgment, and cleansing.
So how did it become a pet name?

1/6 Day 1: One candle. Day 8: Eight candles.
It feels like a tradition as old as time.
Actually? It’s a "new" innovation that started with a burning camel. 🐫🔥
The secret history of the Menorah. 🧵👇 2/6 The oldest code of Jewish law (the Mishnah, 200 CE) ignores Hanukkah.
It mentions the candle exactly once. Not as a holy ritual, but as a liability issue.
The Case: A camel loaded with flax catches fire on a shopkeeper's lamp. Who pays?

1/ “You Israelis aren’t real Semites. You can’t pronounce Ayin or Het. Hebrew is a European language.”
You’ve heard the claim.
Linguistically? It collapses in five seconds. 2/ First: There is no such thing as a “Semitic person.”
Semitic is a language family, not an ethnicity.
Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic — these are Semitic languages.

1/ In Hebrew, “Aluf” means two things:
a champion… and a general.
Same word — totally different origins. 2/ In the Bible, the root א-ל-ף meant ox, then chieftain — the leader of the herd.

1️⃣ One out of every 145 Israelis is a lawyer.
And the Hebrew title they all use — Orekh Din — comes from… a scribal mistake. 2️⃣It begins with a line in the Mishnah:
“Al ta‘as atsmekha k’orkhei ha-dayanin.”
For centuries people thought it meant:
“Don’t act like legal advocates who arrange arguments for judges.”
Makes sense — the Hebrew root ער״ך means “to arrange.”

Why is Hebrew called Hebrew?
Because in the Hebrew Bible… it isn’t. 👇 (1) 701 BCE. Jerusalem is under siege.
Assyrian officers shout threats in the people’s language.
The Judean envoys beg:
“Please—speak to us in Aramaic, not in Yehudit, in the hearing of the people.”
Yehudit. Judean. That’s what they called it. (2)

1/
Why do some Hebrew letters have two sounds?
ב = B or V
כ = K or Kh
פ = P or F
Ever wondered why? 🧵 2/
Originally, each of these letters had only one sound.
ב was always B, כ was always K, פ was always P.
So what changed?

1/9 🧵 The Hebrew word for piano is psanter (פסנתר). It traces back to the Bible – but there, it wasn't a piano at all. It was a harp. So how did a harp become a piano? This is the wild story of a 2,000-year linguistic journey... 🎹 2/9 Early Hebrew speakers had a problem: how do you say "piano" in Hebrew?
Some just borrowed piano from Italian. Others tried recycling biblical terms like ugav or nevel.
None of those caught on. 🤷‍♂️

🧵 THREAD: The Hebrew word for chrysanthemum is chartzit. And hidden inside is one of the most beautiful linguistic journeys in history. 🌼 1/7 The ancient Greeks called this flower chrysanthemon — from chrysos (gold) and anthemon (flower). The golden flower. 2/7

🧵 THREAD: Buy flowers in Israel today, and you'll get a zer - a bouquet. But for most of Hebrew history, zer had nothing to do with flowers. 🌸 1/13 In the Torah, zer is the golden rim around sacred objects: "You shall make a golden zer around it." 2/13

🧵 THREAD: Superman’s biggest secret isn’t his identity. It’s that he’s Jewish. 🦸‍♂️ 1/12 Everyone knows Superman has a secret identity. But here’s the one nobody talks about: Superman is Jewish. 2/12

1/8 🧵 Great question! What was the real pronunciation in the biblical "shibboleth" test? TD;LR It probably wasn't about "SH" vs "S" at all.

https://twitter.com/raphael_da19664/status/1950572867235528994

2/8 The traditional story: Ephraimites couldn't say "shibboleth" and said "sibboleth" instead. But linguistically, this makes no sense. No Semitic language shows SH merging with S, and S-speakers usually don't struggle with SH.

1/15 🧵 This Hebrew letter ש represents two sounds today: "sh" and "s." But here's a 2,000-year-old mystery that just got solved: it used to represent THREE completely different sounds. 2/15 Today we distinguish them with dots - right side for "sh," left side for "s." But why would ancient scribes create one letter for three sounds? The answer reveals secrets about how Hebrew really sounded 3,000 years ago.

🧵 THREAD: Atzabani might be Hebrew's most overloaded word. Not because it's misused — but because Hebrew speakers use it for literally every negative emotion imaginable. Here's why that's a problem. 1/8 2/ When someone says a person is atzabani, what do they mean? Nervous? Angry? Jumpy? Irritable? Tense? Bitter? Furious? The answer is: yes, all of those. One word trying to cover seven different emotional states.

🧵 THREAD: Hebrew didn't borrow the English suffix "-able." It accidentally invented its own version — and the story shows how languages can solve the same problem in completely different ways. 1/9 2/ English has "readable," "drinkable," "breakable." Hebrew now has qari, shati, shavir. Same function, totally different system. But Hebrew had to build this from scratch.

🧵 THREAD: The Hebrew word for duck — barvaz — only appeared in 1908. But its origin story spans 5,000 years and shows how words can travel through civilizations to land in the most unexpected places. 1/7 2/ It started with the Sumerians, who invented writing and called geese uz. This word began an epic journey: the Akkadians adopted it, then Aramaic speakers turned it into awaz (adding an alef for easier pronunciation).

🧵 THREAD: The Hebrew word for "one"—ekhad—seems ancient and unshakable. But here's the twist: it's a linguistic imposter that overthrew the original word across almost every Semitic language.
A story of ancient revolution hiding in plain sight. 1/10 2/ Thousands of years ago, ALL Semitic languages used the same word for "one": 'isht. You can still see its fossils: Akkadian ishten, Ugaritic 'isht, Ancient South Arabian 'isht. A perfect linguistic family tree.

🧵 THREAD: Think English spelling is chaos? Hebrew says "hold my beer" with 22 letters, zero vowels, and pure linguistic anarchy.
Let me introduce you to the most unhinged writing system ever created... 1/12 2/ Meet Alef (א): the ultimate shapeshifter. In ani (אני), it's "a." In eretz (ארץ), "e." In eem (אם), "ee." In rosh, somehow "o." And in or (אור)? Dead silent. One letter, five personalities, zero consistency.

1/12 🧵 Epic travel day—three flights across four countries with my wife and kids. So naturally, here’s the etymology of the Hebrew word for airplane ✈️ 2/12 December 17th, 1903. Two bicycle mechanics from Ohio achieve the impossible—human flight. But they have no word for what they’ve just invented. They simply call it “The Machine.”

1/12 🕯️ Jews pray three times daily for a messiah to come. But here's the twist: the Torah never mentions this idea. At all.
So how did Jews go from having no messiah to obsessing over one? 🧵 2/12 The word "messiah" DOES appear in the Torah, but it just means "anointed priest"—nothing cosmic, nothing world-changing.
The answer to this transformation is heartbreak.