Monday, August 20, 2007
Seems to be the question of the moment. Paula Stern has a round-up of links and quotes on the question of Nadia Abu El-Haj's mastery (or lack thereof) of the language.
Also, Candace de Russy mentions the rumor that Barnard has already approved the tenure bid: Why Is Columbia Cowering?
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Nadia Abu el Haj apparently has better command of Hebrew than Lassner does. He is clueless while she is certainly correct about the use of the word Tel in Zionist naming conventions.
See http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/06/long-version-of-tenure-wars_14.html .
Nadia Abu el Haj apparently has better command of Hebrew than Lassner does. He is clueless while she is certainly correct about the use of the word Tel in Zionist naming conventions.
See http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/06/long-version-of-tenure-wars_14.html .
It was not Lassner who analysed El-Haj's quality of Hebrew but Candace de Russy who says:
"Throughout this remarkable passage, Abu El-Haj appears to be entirely unaware that tell (tel) is a common Hebrew word meaning both “hill†and “artificial hill created by the remains of an ancient settlement.†A direct translation of Tel Aviv, for example, is Hill of Spring, a hopeful name for a city that makes no pretense to antiquity. El-Haj’s assertion that the names of these towns were condemned by the Va’ad ha-Shemot is sheer untruth."
De Russy has got it exactly right. "Tel" in Hebrew means "a hill".
"In Hebrew, the name Tel Aviv translates as "Hill (tel) of Spring (aviv)". This is the title given by Nahum Sokolow to his Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzl's book Altneuland (German: "The Old New Land"). There is an account that Sokolow came up with the Hebrew title "Tel Aviv" to allude to the destruction of the ancient Jewish state and its hoped-for restoration: aviv = "spring" to symbolize renewal, and tel to symbolize the destruction of the ancient state, following not the usual Hebrew meaning of the word "tel" but its use in archaeology, meaning "mound of accumulated ruins". (Wiki)
Noga Ron (?) obviously did not read the Wiki passage very carefully. It agrees with Nadia Abu el-Haj and not with the critics of Facts on the Ground.
In any case, the slang use of Tel as hill has taken over common spoken usage. In the 1950s, Tel appears to have been the equivalent of Tumulus or Barrow while the meaning of Hill was considered substandard.
The other accusation against Abu el Haj relates to Nahal, which Abu el Haj's text correctly uses as the equivalent of Wadi on p. 105 (Nahal Keren is Hebrew for Wadi Keren). The usage on p. 95 could easily be a typo or something from an old map. A stream bed could easily be associated with a dwelling place (the correct meaning of naveh). A town is `aiyarah. A valley would be biq`ah or `emek. Settlement in the abstract sense is hityashvut or hitnahalut (more correctly squattage). This last word is the source of the confusion of Abu el-Haj's critics, who apparently do not have a particularly good grasp of Modern Israeli Hebrew.
When I read http://www.paulasays.com/articles/nadia_el_haj/does_nadia_abu_el_haj_know_hebrew.html , most of the linguistic confusion seems to be in the minds of Abu el Haj's critics and not in the pages of her book.
So you tell me now now that "tel" is the slang use for Hill. Remarkable ignorance. Of the same calibre as Joseph Massad (no doubt a pal of el-Haj) instructing his students that "Zion" is Hebrew for "penis".
BTW, the correct meaning of naveh is "oasis".
Ayara means a small town. "Ir" is a town. "Krach" is city.
A wadi might, or might not have a stream in it.
Nahal is what the French call "riviere", to diffentiate from "fleuve".
Martillo is an embodiment of Hartley's Law, that says: "ignorance expands to fill the space available". That is, the greater the ignorance, the more certain the ignorant will be in his own beliefs, and the less interested in any real knowledge.