There is also the term Gas Kalgus, which was a corruption of Gaius Caligula. They probaby only knew this Latin term because of the emporer
along the same pattern is the word פלגס of kiddushin 23a,
http://kodesh.snunit.k12.il/b/l/.../
l5301_023a.htm
which iirc is a cognate of Latin palax, an animal.
kt,
josh
Once again, I'm curious to know why words with the sound /t/ or /k/ in other languages enter Hebrew as tet and kuf, not tav and kaf.
Is this an indication that by that time tet and kuf were pronounced like a tav and kaf?
Wolf2191 - Where is that term found?
Josh - Actually פלגס comes from Greek, but right, same pattern.
Yochanan - I'm not too sure about pronunciation. My guess? Tet and kuf only sound like /t/ and /k/. Tav depending on the location can sound more like "th" (and represents "th" sounds in some foregin words), and kaf, without a dagesh, is "kh".
oops! my bad. i didn't remember the language and guessed by extension from calgas.
do you know if anyone speaks of how certain are we are of "palgas" and "kalgas" as pronunciations? given an unvocalized text, couldn't it be pallags and kallags, with a consonant cluster at the end?
kt,
josh
Josh - I don't know how we come up with the pronunciations. Sometimes I find that different dictionaries provide different pronunciations, but everyone seemed to agree on this one.
Maybe it's because this pronunciation fits the Latin one the best.
"Gas Kalgas" is in Megillas Taanis (entry for 22 Shevat), and cited from there in the Gemara, Sotah 33a. The context ("he sent images to be placed in the Heichal") fits with Caligula's decree to have statues of himself put up in the Temple and in all synagogues, as recorded in Josephus and Philo.
Dave, I think that your theory about kuf vs. kaf and tet vs. tav is exactly right. We see that kaf is used in transliterating foreign names with /kh/ (for example, Ἀντίoχoς = אנטיוכוס), and similarly tav for /th/ (for example, Θευδᾶς = תודוס). So it makes sense that they would have reserved tet and kuf for the corresponding plosives.
I heard kalgas on the radio for the first time and had to look it up. While Googling I found your website. So happy I did! What a great place to learn!
Shalom + lehitraot.
"In fact, a large portion of the words that did enter Hebrew, are related to the military - such as gardom גרדום - "gallows", ligyon לגיון - "legion", pigyon פגיון - "dagger", and of course, kalgas."
Isn't it in Berachos where these military terms are used to describe the constellations? (And some people point out that the number of stars in the universe the Talmud claims is pretty darn accurate.)
Another major source of Latin loan words is Legal literature. See D. Sperber,A dictionary of Greek and Latin legal terms in rabbinic literature, Ramat Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ. Pr., c1984
Phil - Do you know where in Brachot?
Jeffrey - It's a great book, I'd love to find a used copy.
But I think certainly many legal terms come from Greek. I wrote about a few here:
http://www.balashon.com/search/l...l/legal%
20terms
Interesting that the Mishna in Sota which you site uses the term קלגס to refer to a Roman soldier (a case of synechdoche, if I am not mistaken) whereas elsewhere in the Mishna (Shabbat 6:2) the nailed-sandals themselves are simply called סנדל מסומר. I suppose this shows that although Palestinian rabbis living in the 3rd century used many Greek words, they often did not really know the meaning of these words. It would be interesting to see if there are instances in classical literature where Roman soldiers are referred to as "wearers of the caliga" or if the rabbis coined this themselves.
I just did a quick web search, and it turns out that the Romans themselves called soldiers "caligatus" (nailed-sandal wearers). So this is evidently not a rabbinic innovation.
Years ago, a Hebrew instructor at YU explained the term "kalgas" as a contraction of "kal da'at ve-gas ruach," supposedly a description of the typical Roman soldier. I'm sure he didn't make up that "drash," but a quick Googling doesn't seem to turn it up anywhere.
Lieberman in "Greek in Jewish Palestine"talks about the lack of Latin loan words in Rabbinic Hebrew/Aramaic. He argues that all of the "Latin" words in chazal are in fact latin loan words in the Greek of the time.
Very interesting post. I always have the doubt with pronunciation of these words because I am not native to it.
Thanks for sharing good resources here. It helped me a lot to learn them.
Keep posting.
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