http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pita
Etymology-
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first mention of the word in English was in 1951, with references to Balkan, Greek, and especially Arab cuisine in the next two decades. The American Heritage Dictionary traces the word's origin to modern Greek for "pie," "cake," or "bread;" Webster's Unabridged Dictionary attributes it to the Hebrew pat, for "loaf" or "morsel." An alternative etymology traces the word to a cognate for pine pitch, which form flat layers that may resemble pita bread, and may thereby share an origin with pizza (Italian, "pie").
Or check out:
http://www.etymonline.com/index....x.php?
term=pita
Farmer Joe! Nice to see you.
So Dave, it looks like we need a new name for that culinary treat that I used to call "Pita Pizza" - baking tomato sauce, veggies, spices and cheese on a halved pita bread. Now the name seems a bit redundant.
Toby-
Nice to see you too. So where is the dinner date on Sunday? Will they have Pita?
Farmer Joe
I guess if you don't want to be redundant you can call it "pat pizza".
Suggested Etymology of Š-B-R Meaning to Purchase Grain or Ration Grain
By David Steinberg
david@adath-shalom.ca
Home page http://www.houseofdavid.ca/
Examples of this root are Gn 4714; Gn 423; Gn 4157 422.5 Is 551b. It is found both as a noun and verb.
According to HALOT the verb is derived from the noun and “originally referring to breaking off a piece of silver to make a purchase.” i.e. it is derived from the common root SH-B-R.
Regarding the noun HALOT states
“the etymology of the sbst. is uncertain; according to its form it is more likely to be derived from a verb than to be taken as a primary noun”. It’s first meaning is given as “grain, including its function as an item of trade”
I wonder whether anyone had considered that the root might be a shaphel form based on the noun bar = grain i.e. literally “to make grain”. In fact, as noted in HALOT, it is once used with bar (Gn 42:3). As a shafel it would closely compare with the root ‘kl
‘okhel = food
Akhal in qal = eat
Akhal in hiphil = feed another person
bar = grain
šeber = marketed grain
Verb in qal = buy grain
Verb in hiphil = to offer grain for sale
the root שבר is a member of the family of roots דבר, זבר, טבר, יבר, סבר צבר, צואר, שבר, תבר. So לשבור שבר (lishbor shever) is (litzbor tzever), where צבר (tzever) is a pile, a heap, such as typically of grain. We have from
דבר: דביר, דוברה, דבורה, מדבר, דיבור
זבר: זיבורית, זברה
טבר: טבור
סבר: סביר, סברה
צבר: ציבור, מצבר, מצבור, צבירה
צואר: צוארון
שבר: שובר, משבר, שביר, תשבורת
תבר: הר תבור=הר טבור
פריד יצחק
Just after sending my previous comment Gen. 41,49 came to my mind:ויצבור יוסף בר כחול הים
---IF
OK, back to PITA. See Gen 18:5, II Sam 12:3, as possible sources.
Even if Stahl is right, why should it be written with tet? There is no tet sound in Greek.
I think the idea is that a foreign word with the sound "t" should be (and usually is) written with a tet, not a tav.
Is that "rule" older than modern Hebrew? It doesn't make sense to me because most of the time the non Semitic T is closer to taw.
You're right there Yehuda, but Yiddish speakers weren't using a Semitic (emphatic) tet. I had assumed this convention transcription came from Yiddish, where there was less confusion in pronouncing tet than in pronouncing tav which changed following vowels (i.e. רפה). Moreover, tav was associated with [θ] ("th") in some communities.
Commenting by HaloScan
