Conference taveng::bagels

    Are you looking for a hebrew-hebrew or hebrew-english dictionary?
    
    When I was living in Israel, there was a technical dictionary
    available, which translated from hebrew to english, french, and
    german.  As I remember, it came as a 2 or 3 volume set, and was
    available from most of the better bookstores, including steimatzky's.
    This was back in the late 70's BTW.
    
    bahazlacha,
    steve

    There is a Hebrew-Hebrew computer lexicon called - "Lexicon Hamchshev".
    You should be VERY careful about taking these things too literally.
    Many technical terms, while having "official" Hebrew translations,
    are used in their English form (more or less - with an appropriate 
    Hebrew/European accent applied).  For example to run a compilation is
    "compilatzia".  This holds true for most fields, not only computers.
    If you start using all the "official" words you may find that people
    don't have a clue as to what you are talking about!
      
    

    re: .2
    
    Oh, you mean such as "machshir biyoon" instead of televizia?  That
    reminds me of the Hebrew purification society.  I once saw a comedy
    skit on the televizia where no one was allowed to use any
    "Anglicazations", and it was quite funny.
    
    Derach Agav, where can one get one of these "Lexicon Hamachshevs"?
    
    David
    

    Remember a few years when the French government tried to do the
    same thing by banning things like "le weekend" (in favor of "le
    fin de semaine")?  Didn't work.  Foreign words get adopted when
    they are shorter or easier than the pre-existing native words (or
    when favored by a current fad: "levis" is used everywhere, and in
    a lot of places a soda is a "cola").  Trying to eliminate
    word-borrowing probably only works for languages which are no longer
    spoken (Latin?).

>>>    Remember a few years when the French government tried to do the
>>>    same thing by banning things like "le weekend" (in favor of "le
>>>    fin de semaine")?  Didn't work.  Foreign words get adopted when
>>>    they are shorter or easier than the pre-existing native words (or
>>>    when favored by a current fad

HAH!

That comment reminded me of another neat example from French!  The common
usage word for "sandwich" is "le sandwich".  However, the Academy
proposed banning "le sandwich" in favor of "quelque chose a manger
entre deux pieces de pain" [lit., "something to eat between two
pieces of bread"]. Needless to say, it didn't fly.

/don feinberg

Whether or not a language borrows words (and what it does with the
words it borrows) is fairly complex and heavily dependent on the
intrinsic linguistic structures of the language.  English is notorious
in that it is willing to accept words from almost any source without
doing much damage to their pronunciation.  Other languages have other
requirements. 

For example, the word for telephone in Finnish is "puhulainen", which
translates, roughly, to "the thing you speak through", using the root
word "puhua" -- to speak or breathe and the case ending "-lainen".  In
addition to a rich system of case endings, Finnish has very rigid
requirements regarding consonant sequences which make direct
borrowings quite difficult. Of course, "puhulainen" is semantically
similar to German "fernsprech", and probably derived from it. 

Martin.

Right.

Hebrew also have very strict rules as to the forms of "verbs" and "nouns"
derived from them (using the 3-letter "root" system). However, international
technical words, managed to find their way into the common spoken language,
with a strange way of imitating those rules.

(for example: "to xxxxxx" in Hebrew is "le'xxxxxx" ["to eat" = "le'echol"],
 so "to compile" became "le'campel")

Le'hitraot,
Nitsan

    I guess that this it is not so surprising that a simple request
    for info on a technical dictionary would spawn an entire conversation
    on the language, but I've no objections.
    
    re:-1
    
    Yes Nitsan, I remember certain "word games" that we used to play
    in Hebrew, particularly with the tenses.  Lemeshel(Par Example),
    to walk down Dizengoff was to "Lehizdengeff", of course it took
    the reflexive form!  I would subsequently invent all sorts of silly
    things with other "foreign" words and decline them into Hebrew passive
    tense(Hoophal).
    
    David

    My favorite borrowed English Hebrew word is the one for "headlights",
    which is "seeledbeem" (phonetically) in Hebrew. Note this is the
    plural. The singular is, naturally, "seeledbuh". 
    
    (Note to non-Hebrew speakers: the joke is that one forms plurals
    by adding "eem" to the end. But "sealed beam" comes pre-pluralized.)
    
    You native speakers can confirm this. It was in a text I used in
    Hebrew school.
    
    --Dan

    re: .9
    
    How long has it been since you were in Hebrew school?  I owned a
    car in Israel, and the headlights were always referred to as:
    "Orroat".
    
    David