Pontifex.

As I said recently, Lena Eltang’s novel Каменные клены (Stone Maples) is giving me the pleasure of investigating all sorts of allusions, and one such led me on such an interesting trail I’m sharing it here. She quotes a line in Middle Welsh, A uo penn bit pont, which turns out to mean ‘He who is head, let him be bridge’ and to come from Branwen ferch Llŷr, the second branch of the Mabinogi (a book I happen to own thanks to my grad-school Celtic studies). By googling the Welsh, I turned up an article by Stefan Zimmer, “A uo penn bit pont: Aspects of Leadership in Celtic and Indo-European” (Zeitschrift fur celtische Philologie, 53.1 [2003]: 202–29; Academia.edu), which is full of good stuff. Zimmer starts with this summary of his aim:

The alleged saying in the title of this contribution has never been found attested elsewhere in Celtic literature, except by citation, of course. If it was a fixed expression, or even a proverb when the story became fixed as we have it, it must have had a long history already. The following investigation is an attempt to detect this background by means of historical linguistics and a comparison of IE literary formulas, adducing also archaeological findings.

He explains the context in the Mabinogi: “When Bendigeidvran leads his Welsh army against Ireland in order to avenge and free his unfortunate and maltreated sister Branwen, he comes to the river Llinon i.e. the Liffey.” The Irish have taken down the only bridge, but the Welsh king has a surprising solution:

Nit oes, heb ynteu, namyn a uo penn bit pont. Mi a uydaf pont, heb ef. ‘No, he says, except „He who is head, let him be bridge“. I’ll be the bridge.’ And accordingly, he bows over the river, is covered with fascines, and his whole army crosses over his back to the side where the Irish army stands, looking on and waiting in terror.

He then goes over the grammar of the quote:

Of the verbal forms, the first one is unproblematic: uo, lenited after the relative pronoun a, represents bo, 3rd sg subjunctive of the copula (originally a subj. aor., according to Watkins 1962: 154–5). The second offers two formal possibilities: /bit/ could stand for ModW bydd, the consuetudinal present, or else for ModW byd, the imperative (often spelt bit in MW). The few attestations of OW /bit/ are problematical. […] Here, of course, only a verb form is possible. Syntax would permit both present and imperative. The traditional understanding as the latter seems more probable and natural, and I see no reason to part from that interpretation.

After a long excursus on the word for ‘bridge’ (pp. 205-212: “Latin pons […] is not only a bridge, i. e. an elevated plank over a watery surface, but also a plank laid down on a wet surface, e. g. on boggy or swampy earth”), he gets to the heart of his essay:

This deviation over bumpy log roads turns out to be a short-cut towards the solution of the old riddle. The name of the religious brotherhoods in France: just mentioned, viz. Fratres pontifices, frères pontifes immediately recalls the old Latin pontifices. […] The word-formation being transparent, there can be no doubt that the title pontifex originally described the ritual ‘maker of pontes’, with pons most probably still bearing the older meaning of ‘way, track (through or over watery earth)’. This fits perfectly with the archaeological findings relating to the Terramare-culture. In early Italy, the king, or the king-priest, or indeed the king and the priest together had to find safe passages through the swampy landscape.

He takes a side trip to India:

Vedic literature has preserved a precious parallel to L pontifex in the term pathi-kṛt-. The compound itself is not inherited, as the variant ablaut grades of the first, and the different roots used as second member in the two languages show. There can be no doubt that these are secondary changes, easily explicable within the respective languages. The root *dheh1- ‘to put, place’ has retained the old general semantic sphere in India, but gained the more precise meaning ‘to do, make’ in Italic. The root *ku̯er- ‘to cut, carve’ is lost in Latin, but was generalized to ‘to do, make, cause’ in Indo-Iranian. […]

Many gods are praised in their capacity of providing for free ways, as ruling over the paths, or in semantically similar connections.

He provides a “striking parallel” from traditional Buddhist literature; in the Mahākapi-Jātaka or Vānara-Jātaka, a monkey prince lies across the river Ganges to allow his 80,000 followers to escape. “The result of this short overview over Indian testimonies should be clear enough: ‘finding the way, clearing the path’ is a primary duty of a leader, one of his foremost qualities.”

Unfortunately, it is not possible to trace the history of the formula or its variants down through Proto-Celtic into the earliest Insular Celtic texts. There are too many missing links, too many lexical replacements have occurred. But social conditions are still comparable between Vedic India, Early Rome and Dark Age Ireland and Britain. The stories certainly do not give us a realistic picture, but even if it is idealistic, or ideologically distorted, some aspects must be true. Fortunately, archaeology is able to confirm some features of life in the heroic period as depicted in the stories. One can still see bits of the log roads, e. g., where CúChulainn drove through the country (or at least those who first told of his adventures). […]

Every king of Britain was the leader of his people, and ideally, he had all the qualities required for a king. […] Finding the way implies creating of trackways, ordering log roads to be built, or even bridges. With the fading out of old formulas, the loss of obsolete vocabulary (partly due to the effects of sound laws, to be sure), many expressions must have become opaque. Not always was the poetical tradition strong enough to secure correct replacements. Often, the imagination of a poet and scholar might have misunderstood an old epithet, and given fanciful explanations (think of Varro or Cormac). Most poets certainly were creative enough just to invent, if necessary, a story or at least a context which made their new understanding sensible. This is exactly what can be observed here again. The story-teller who first invented the scene did no longer understand why a traditional leader was a pontifex (to use the Latin term, as the Celtic one is lost). He most cleverly succeeded to tell us why, and how it may have been plausible. He probably knew that in olden times Brit. *pont was not only ‘bridge’, but also, and probably much more often, a ‘log road’. The small detail, that Bendigeidvran was covered by fascines (‘hurdles’ is the traditional translation of MW clwydeu) may not only recall the practice to build tracks through bogs and swamps, current till the present day, but also the older meaning of pont.

Fascinating stuff. The OED’s pontifex entry (updated December 2006) says:

Etymology: < classical Latin pontific-, pontifex Roman high priest, in post-classical Latin also pope (4th cent.), bishop (5th cent.; frequently from 7th cent. in British sources), archbishop (frequently from 8th cent. in British sources), apparently (following ancient etymologists) < ponti-, alternative stem of pōns bridge (see pons n.) + -fic-, -fex, combining form of facere to do, make (see fact n., int., and adv.), though this may represent merely a folk etymology. Compare Old French pontifex Jewish high priest (c1000).
In sense 4 chiefly used punningly or allusively with reference to the supposed etymology.

Sense 4 is “A bridge-maker” (1686 J. F. G. Careri Let. 6 Apr. in Coll. Voy. & Trav. 88/1: “Jucundus on the Seyne two bridges laid, For which he well may Pontifex be said. Pontifex has here a double meaning, as signifying a bridge-maker; whereas the true acceptation of it is a bishop”). They don’t seem to have taken note of Zimmer’s article, which came out shortly before the revision, but I expect they’ll eventually get around to it.

Oh, and if you’re interested in Middle Welsh, Gareth Morgan has a website Reading Middle Welsh: A Course Book Based on the Welsh of the Mabinogi which looks like it would be quite helpful.

Comments

  1. The word-formation being transparent, there can be no doubt that the title pontifex originally described the ritual ‘maker of pontes’, with pons most probably still bearing the older meaning of ‘way, track (through or over watery earth)’. This fits perfectly with the archaeological findings relating to the Terramare-culture. In early Italy, the king, or the king-priest, or indeed the king and the priest together had to find safe passages through the swampy landscape.

    Needs clarification. What findings and what’s the evidence of the scouting function of priests?

    A “leader” and “guide” are indeed close roles, but…

  2. Or it is about division of labour between the two leaders (the (sacred) king takes decisions “where to move”)?

    And by why Franks could not retain Meroving[ian]s in a role similar to Japanese emperor or German president and Caroling[ian]s in the role of shogun/chancelor/major domus? blatant disrespect to tradition:(

  3. There’s lots more material in the full article, of course. Libgen is your friend.

  4. @LH, actually, our styles of quoting are different. I often follow references (and generally consider them the most valuable information), so usually when I quote something, I also leave the numbers or add footnotes.

    Accordingly I read the paragraph that you quoted as if there are no references….

  5. ‘way, track (through or over watery earth)’

    Many gods are praised in their capacity of providing for free ways, as ruling over the paths, or in semantically similar connections.

    ‘But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. ‘ [KJV]

    ” Moses holds out his staff and God parts the waters of the Yam Suph (Reed Sea). The Israelites walk on dry ground and cross the sea, ”

    “General scholarly opinion is that the Exodus story combines a number of traditions, one of them at the “Reed Sea” (Lake Timsah, with the Egyptians defeated when the wheels of their chariots become clogged) …”

    (“The Hebrew term for the place of the crossing is Yam Suph. Although this has traditionally been thought to refer to the salt water inlet located between Africa and the Arabian peninsula, known in English as the Red Sea, this is a mistranslation from the Greek Septuagint, and Hebrew suph never means “red” …”) — Perhaps this should be on the ‘Uncompromising Hebraism’ thread.

    Same mythology? Or I’m kinda thinking a miraculous crossing of treacherous waters is more of a cultural universal.

    Unfortunately, it is not possible to trace the history of the formula or its variants down through Proto-Celtic into the earliest Insular Celtic texts.

    It’s the kind of ‘formula’ that might get re-invented many times, methinks. So I’m unconvinced there’s any direct linguistic trace entailed.

  6. Sure, there’s no way to prove it, but it seems to me suggestive enough to be worth bearing in mind.

  7. J.W. Brewer says

    The Bible is interestingly enough almost completely bridgeless. If you search the AV/KJV for “bridge,” it turns up exactly once, in 2 Maccabees (12:13), which is not only canonicity-challenged but was written pretty late in the process as it describes events from the 2d century B.C. And then it turns out that the Greek of the relevant passage is obscure and/or subject to manuscript variation, so at least some more recent translations are bridgeless even in that verse. E.g., the RSV talks of “earthworks” in the same passage and NETS of “earthen ramparts,” with in both cases footnotes acknowledging uncertainty. The Vulgate FWIW has “pontibus,” which is I guess in context ablative plural?

    I will admit to knowing nothing of how the timeline of the diffusion of bridge-building practices may have varied throughout the ancient/medieval world.

  8. @ J.W. Brewer. On the other hand, Akkadian, which went out of daily use about 300 BCE, had a word for ‘bridge’: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%92%D7%A9%D7%A8.

  9. I can’t believe our resident Hiberno-Cambrian eye doctor hasn’t weighed in on the Welsh.

  10. Stu Clayton says

    The Bible is interestingly enough almost completely bridgeless.

    There is no “problem” in it either. Nor “solution”. Nor “halo”. According to this.

    “Halos” were avoided, as being a pagan meme. I suppose that would also explain the absence of spaghetti carbonara.

  11. They ordered carbonara for the last supper, but the delivery service got the address wrong, and so they had to make do with bread and wine. Otherwise we would get pasta at communion.

    It’s the kind of ‘formula’ that might get re-invented many times, methinks. So I’m unconvinced there’s any direct linguistic trace entailed.
    That’s always the problem with these investigations into IE myths and poetic language. When it’s not the exact same etyma used in several subfamilies with non-trivial word combinations, it’s always the question if it’s not just parallel development caused by similar social structures and culture. Take Dumezil’s tripartite structures – a division into warriors, priests, and peasants can be found in most agricultural societies, and tripartite is a popular way to structure and divide narratives in many cultures, including non-IE.
    So let’s just celebrate PIE day.

  12. David Eddyshaw says

    I can’t believe our resident Hiberno-Cambrian eye doctor hasn’t weighed in on the Welsh.

    I’m in Valencia, visiting relatives: hence the dereliction of duty.

    It’s a famiiiar expression in Welsh. I’ve always understood it as bid and imperative, but the vagaries of Middle Welsh spelling do indeed make bydd possible. Never thought about it before.

    Unfortunately I’m a iong way from my copy of Ifor Williams’ edition of Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi.: I do recall that he discusses this line, but if I remember right (and I possibly don’t) he only objects to the common misunderstanding of the subjunctive in the relative clause as implying “he who would be head.”

  13. David Eddyshaw says

    So let’s just celebrate PIE day

    Works for me …

    I should probably also celebrate Proto-Oti-Volta Day, though (according to the rules laid down there for PIE Day) that would currently just involve drinking lots of millet beer (and I’m prepared to make that sacrifice) and eating lots of day-old millet porridge (not so keen on that one, even though Glaswegians have a closely analogous tradition …)

  14. Speaking of things Proto-, Benjamin Suchard just tried his hand at a Proto-Semitic “Schleicher’s Fable”, with Proto–Northwest Semitic, -Aramaic, and -Canaanite versions as a lagniappe. Readers have added a Proto-Arabic and a Sabaic version, too. There are some interesting discussions about this and that detail of reconstruction.

  15. J.W. Brewer says

    Just re Stu’s link, halos aside, the absence of a particular word from a lengthy text may be less notable if it’s a word for something abstract/conceptual that has many near-synonyms as opposed to the standard word for a concrete object. Biblical narrative describes among other things characters traveling through landscapes that included bodies of water. Occasionally the crossing of rivers etc. is facilitated by miracles, but not routinely. There are occasional references to fording rivers, crossing lakes by boat, etc. The extent to which there were in fact bridges over rivers in that part of the world before the Romans got there is not entirely clear to me and there’s apparently a debate about whether the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jisr_el-Majami dates back to Roman times or is not quite that ancient.

    A claim that the word X does not appear “in the Bible” is of course potentially translation-dependent if X is an English word. So e.g. the claim in Stu’s source about “problem” is arguably falsified by the GNT’s rendering of Prov. 1:6 as referring to “proverbs and the problems that the wise raise.” For comparison’s sake, in the KJV, that’s “the words of the wise, and their dark sayings”; in a less loose/free recent translation (ESV) it’s “the words of the wise and their riddles.” “Problem(s)” doesn’t appear to be actually *wrong* if you accept a loose/free approach.* By contrast, if there were a Biblical Hebrew noun whose core meaning is “bridge” I would expect it to come out as “bridge” in the vast majority of English versions unless there were reason to believe it was being used metaphorically rather than literally in the Hebrew.

    *It may seem a bit un-Biblical in register, but the GNT is deliberately done (to quote wikipedia) “in a simple, everyday language, with the intention that everyone can appreciate it, and so is often considered particularly suitable for children and for those learning English.” It dates to the 1960’s, when hitherto staid establishment organizations like the American Bible Society had become suckers for novel-to-crackpot theories like so-called “dynamic equivalence.” They probably would have bought into generative semantics if you’d pitched it to them right …

  16. Hebrew gešer ‘bridge’ has cognates in Arabic and Akkadian with the same meaning. It’s one of the words — not many, but they are there — which made it from Proto-Semitic to Mishnaic without an earlier Hebrew attestation.

  17. J.W. Brewer says

    @Y: thanks! Although some quick googling suggests that some users of Mishnaic Hebrew may have needed a word for “bridge” just to be negative. From a piece by Prof. Burton Visotzky:

    ‘The rabbis explicitly reject (as did the contemporary Church Fathers) such Roman institutions as the theater and the games. The former they associated with licentiousness, while the latter, be they animal contests or gladiatorial battles, were deemed brutal and vicious. Yet within the rabbinic community there was debate even about apparently more benign Roman contributions such as markets, baths, and bridges. The Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 33b) depicts the zealous second-century Rabbi Shimeon ben Yohai dismissing these Roman institutions with scorn, “Anything they have built has been for their own needs. They build markets so their whores have a place to ply their trade, bath-houses to pamper themselves, and bridges to collect tolls and taxes.”’

  18. Wait, we will reconstruct “Internet” to proto-World this way. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/جسر has more detailed etymology on WIktionary (but not detailed enough)…

  19. Russian мостить v. to pave
    мостовая pavement (formerly often wooden)
    помост stage, [wooden] platfrom
    мост bridge
    мостки n. pl. (from dim. of мост) Wiktionary 1. planked gangway or footbridge over a swamp, river, ravine, etc. 2. boardwalk 3. pier, jetty 4. walkway around construction areas but in plural (that is, мостки rather than мостик/мосток) 1 is often “over dirt”, “wet river bank” etc., about a low construction.

    and: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/mostъ (and cf. “synonym: brьvь: in modern Russian we only use бревно < бьрьвьно "log".).

    It seems "beam-bridge" (as Akkadian and Hebrew) and "walkway-bridge" are common development. But one expect them to be less common in less woody areas, like you know, Arabia.

  20. The Wiktionary mentions the Akkadian meaning ‘log, beam’, but to be clear, Akkadian gišru has already expanded its semantics to include ‘bridge’ and ‘bridge toll’ (per the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary).

    The Mishnaic attestations are here and here.

  21. The natural questions are 1. other words for bridge (in Akkadian, Aramaic, Sumerian, anything) 2. when it came to mean “bridge” in Akkadian.

  22. J.W. Brewer says

    The Mishnaic “bridges” don’t sound like bridges over rivers/creeks/what-have-you; they sound more like overpasses. Not unlike the ancient (or is it Ummayad/medieval?) “bridge” in Jerusalem described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson%27s_Arch_(Jerusalem)

  23. “markets so their whores have a place to ply their trade, bath-houses to pamper themselves, and bridges to collect tolls and taxes.”

    Shopping centers, toll roads and… pools?

    P.S. Capitalists. But I wonder what Shimeon means about markets. He can’t possibly mean that there was a city (Oriental or Occidental) without some sort of a bazaar and then Romans came and built it? Did they alter function and architecture or quantity of markets? Or there was an “old [Jewish] market [without whores]” and “new [Roman] market [with whores]” in his town?

  24. This is the earliest reference to gešer as a bridge over water. It’s in the Gemara, but it quotes almost verbatim a passage in the Tosefta (c. 2nd century CE), which I couldn’t find an English translation of, and didn’t trust myself to translate it exactly.

  25. John Cowan says

    It dates to the 1960’s, when hitherto staid establishment organizations like the American Bible Society had become suckers for novel-to-crackpot theories like so-called “dynamic equivalence.”

    The KJV is generally considered a formal-equivalence Bible, but the translators’ preface expressly repudiates this theory of translation:

    Another thing we think good to admonish thee of (gentle Reader) that we have not tied ourselves to an uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done, because they observe, that some learned men somewhere, have been as exact as they could that way. Truly, that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before, if the word signified the same thing in both places (for there be some words that be not of the same sense everywhere) we were especially careful, and made a conscience, according to our duty.

    But, that we should express the same notion in the same particular word; as for example, if we translate the Hebrew or Greek word once by Purpose, never to call it Intent; if one where Journeying, never Traveling; if one where Think, never Suppose; if one where Pain, never Ache; if one where Joy, never Gladness, etc. Thus to mince the matter, we thought to savour more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the Atheist, than bring profit to the godly Reader. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free, use one precisely when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously?

  26. J.W. Brewer says

    @JC: Obviously its adversaries will be tempted to frame “formal equivalence” as a straw man that does not accurately account for the actual practice of actually-existing translations. The trouble is when they then go out and generate their rival “dynamic equivalence” translations, they are not differing methodologically with the non-existent strawmen but with the actually-existing translations that maybe don’t really fit a reductionist straw man characterization.

    Bad Bible-translation practice in English in recent generations is IMHO sometimes a weird backwash side-effect of bad translation practice in third-world missionary situations, which was in turn a side effect of incorrect-to-superstitious theories about the Bible held by weirdo extremist Protestant missionaries who ironically enough were thereby motivated to do the necessary (and objectively highly valuable for all sorts of other purposes) descriptive-linguistics fieldwork on those target languages that no one without those weirdo/incorrect (but strongly and passionately held) beliefs could be bothered to do.

  27. He can’t possibly mean that there was a city (Oriental or Occidental) without some sort of a bazaar and then Romans came and built it?

    It’s not clear to me from that quote that the Rabbi was opposed to markets, bath-houses and bridges qua res ipsae. I read that quote as him admonishing the Jews to remember the Romans weren’t building these improvements out of altruistic feelings, but naked self interest. This is a response to the old question “What have the Romans ever done for us?”. Maybe the Rabbi belonged to the People’s Front of Judea.

  28. Hebrew גֶּשֶׁר gešer ‘bridge’ has also been found in the Qumran texts, specifically 4Q521, Fragment 7, line 12. The text was characterized by its editor Émile Puech as une apocalypse messianique. On palaeographic grounds, the fragments have been dated to around 100–80 BCE, but the text itself could of course be older. I hope Google Books will let LH readers see the passage containing gešer here, in the middle and bottom of p. 106. There has been much discussion of the relationship of the bridge in this passage to the Činwad Puhl of Zoroastrian tradition and aṣ-Ṣirāṭ in Islam.

  29. @Hans: Most carbonara is not kosher, and a pasta dish would certainly be not be kosher for Passover. You would never order that for a seder!

    @drasvi: I believe the older marketplace was outside the city walls, at Jerusalem and probably many other south-Levantine towns. A lot of the market business was in livestock. Herders (who were more respected in the culture than farmers) would drive their flocks to the city and encamp their for days or weeks, selling off their animals.* The encampments probably covered a pretty large area around the town at market season, since the herds had to forage each day without moving around much. Other vendors (whether itinerant or local) may have set up their stalls among the herders to hawk their own goods as well. (It occurs to me that this is quite similar to the markets that Thucydides describes being available to the Athenian forces when they put ashore near a friendly town. The local producers and merchants from the town and its hinterlands would set up a market on the beach, where the Athenians could buy supplies in large quantities.) So having a more compact, continually operating market inside the city proper have been a major Romanizing innovation.

    Separately: Aslan states that our world, he is a bridge builder. I linked to some further discussion of this seemingly tortured double metaphor here.

    * See this disgusting recent story if you want to read about officiousness, spitefulness, and egregious government overreach in a program aimed at training American children about the modern versions of such livestock markets.

  30. John Cowan says

    straw man that does not accurately account for the actual practice of actually-existing translations

    Not quite a strawman. FWIU, the Revised Version of 1885 actually does attempt to translate the same original word by the same English word wherever possible (obviously there are synonyms to deal with). In addition, the passage I quoted is part of the translators’ criticism of the Douay-Rheims Bible, which is extremely formal-equivalent, to the point that (per Wiki) an English definite article appears in the New Testament if and only if a corresponding Greek article is present. Many of the “dark” Latinate terms of which the DRV is full were thought necessary because no single existing English word could provide the necessary semantics to be used in all cases.

  31. J.W. Brewer says

    @John C.: But in the context in which the “dynamic equivalence” notion arose, its proponents were not saying “be like the KJV translators, not the DR translators,” they were saying “don’t be like the KJV (or RSV etc etc) translators.”

  32. @Vanya, yes, but it was JWB who spoke about opposition (“debate about”, “dismissing … with scorn”).

    What surpised me is that Romans build them. Possibly there were bridges before Romans (but maybe in the different sense of a word “bridge”) and yet Romans could build their own bridges. It is quite straightforward. Definitely there were markets before Romans, but if Romans “built” markets too, I can’t guess what did it mean and what they looked like.

  33. J.W. Brewer says

    The “dismissing … with scorn” bit is the wording of Prof. Visotsky, whom I was merely quoting. Exegeting/contextualizing quotes from the Talmud is outside my personal skill set.

  34. Brett, honestly, I am quite ignorant when it comes to population and economy of walled cities. My own urban ancestors (not a walled city though) whose occupation I’m aware of were making ropes, and that’s about everything I know about Russian bourgeois.

    But I assume 1. a part of urban population did not cultuvate land 2. craftsmen sold their goods 3. everyone bought clothes and tools and those edible things (vegetables too) that her family was not producing. So apart of trade with nomads there was urban trade as well. Apricots, shoes, luxury. Inside or outside of the walls I don’t know.

  35. Thank you, Xerîb. How did you find that reference?

    I’d relied on the Hebrew Academy’s online corpus, which unfortunately doesn’t yet include most of the Judean Desert materials.

  36. @JWB, sorry, I thought it were your words:(

  37. PlasticPaddy says

    @drasvi
    I do not think the “built environment” aspect of markets, theatres, baths or bridges is key (and the object of the rabbi’s diatribe), more the consumerist/materialist thrust of the whole package.

  38. is the kingdom of God become words or syllables?
    isn’t this in an odd relationship to John 1:1?

    though/and what follows sounds very contemporary!

  39. Gesenius’ Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament has a German-Hebrew index (“Wörterverzeichnis”); there is no entry for Brücke — neither in the 17th edition (1915, lots of reprints throughout the 20th century) nor in the recent 18th edition (2013).

  40. J.W. Brewer says

    Luther (and/or his collaborators) translated the 2 Maccabees passage I mentioned above as describing “eine Stad, die mit Brücken wol bewaret, vnd mit einer Maur beschlossen war …” But there was no Hebrew text available to them for that particular book, so it would be outside the scope of Gesenius. (Subsequent updates to the “Luther” translation have removed the Brücken, parallel to developments in English translations, so it’s now “eine Stadt … die mit einem Wall befestigt und mit einer Mauer umschlossen war …)

  41. Giacomo Ponzetto says

    @drasvi:

    if Romans “built” markets too, I can’t guess what did it mean and what they looked like.

    For the present-day tourist, the most recognizable Roman market building is a food market (macellum) built as a courtyard surrounded by shops (tabernae) and with a distinctive central structure: I recall a ring of columns that would have been covered by a dome (tholos), but Wikipedia informs me that a fountain could be substituted for it.

    It also need not be unreasonable to consider a forum as primarily a market square. My understanding (again as a tourist, not any sort of specialist) is that in Rome itself the imperial fora were purpose-built administrative, judicial and political centers (fora civilia) and there were separate market squares (fora venalium) around the city. But before imperial grandeur, the Roman Forum had served both commercial and civic purposes. I’d venture the guess that most Roman cities stayed small enough to have a single all-purpose public square, and quite possibly its function as a market square may have been the main one.

  42. David Eddyshaw says

    Being currently in Spain, and consequently surrounded by Spanish, and also Valencian (which everyone scrupulously avoids calling “Catalan”, even though it is) it occurred to me to wonder where “hasta” (as in “hasta la vista, Baby”) comes from. It appears that nobody actually knows, but a serious proposal has been the Arabic حتى (itself a puzzling word.) This, pleasingly, has also been suggested (by Jeffrey Heath) as the origin of the West African Wanderwort which turns up as Kusaal hali “until.”

    Such things make me very happy.

    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hasta#Spanish

  43. How did you find that reference?

    Just the personal database in my head—I remembered that gešer had been first in Qumran from some talk or seminar about Zoroastrian influence on Judaism by Oktor Skjærvø or Yuhan Vevaina or maybe Richard Frye, especially in relationship to the Cinuuat Bridge. Also because the etymologies of the words for ‘bridge’ across Eurasia like Greek γέφυρα and Turkish köprü are so problematic.

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