The regular words for "street" in classical Hebrew are דרך and שביל (the latter is primarily Mishnaic, appearing only twice in Biblical Hebrew). Biblical Hebrew also uses נתיב.
Rabbinic Hebrew also employs the classical loanwords אסטרטא (and variant forms) for street and פלטיא for plaza.
Dave, ancient Babylon was famous for its broad walls, which could be navigated atop-seven chariots wide. It was there, on the broadway, that the harlot would be stationed. Ancient Jericho was another walled city with a broad-way. There sat “Rahab” the harlot, which we call in America the “broad.” (And they went, and came into an harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there. -Joshua 2:1b…And Salmon (alias Joshua) begat Booz of Rachab; -Matthew 1:5a) Interestingly, many cities in America have a street named “Broadway;” usually, a highly trafficked street. Are there any sources that could support the notion put forth here?
Moshe -
Thanks for the pointers to the earlier words for street. I guess the question that needs to be asked is - why was it necessary to come up with two new words? In general we see that Modern Hebrew preferred Biblical Hebrew (although Klasuner pushed for Talmudic). But why are we now using rechov and kvish instead of derech, shvil and netiv?
Bartalmei Limetree -
That's an interesting theory - I'm not aware of any sources that discuss it though. Here's the etymology of the English word "broad", including how it became slang for a woman:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.....php?
term=broad
That's an interesting question. Perahps it is because דרך came to have a very broad meaning of "way" (German Weg), in all its senses, and a specific word was sought to mean "street" (Strasse). Quite why רחוב was chosen is unclear.
It's worth mentioning that in Mishnaic Hebrew שוק can also mean a street, rather than specifically a market place. However, since שוק came to be specifically the marked (perhaps under the influence of Arabic suq) this word was also "taken".
Dave-
The second prayer of Birkat HaMazon “nodeh lecha,” said to be composed by Joshua, (associated already with walled Jericho and the harlot named “rahab”), describes eretz Yis’roel as “rachavah”. However the term “broad” was later also used to describe ”the (rachav) walls of Babylon” (Jer 51:58)…I will make mention of [Rahab and Babylon] to them that know me: (Psalm 87:4). The historian Herodotus, in 450 BC, wrote "Babylon surpasses in splendor any city in the known world." And claimed that the outer walls were broad enough, he said,” to allow a four-horse chariot to turn.” The thrust of my point is that perhaps “rachab” originally referred to the street atop the wall and also a synonym for a harlot and then later a synonym for main-street anywhere.
Moshe-
Isaac Mozenson associates the English word "direction" with "derech".
The OED derives "direction" from Latin directionem, from the verb dirigere "to guide". For those who were blessed to be educated in the City of London, the verb dirige is familiar since the motto of the city is "Domine dirige nos", "Lord, guide us".
Some were even fortunate enough to wonder around with the city's motto on their breast pocket. You can see it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Cit...f_London_School
Don't forget סמטהֿ / סמטא (pl. סמטות or סמטאות), "alley" in Modern Hebrew! It's been discussed on this very site, http://www.balashon.com/2006/07/...6/07/
simta.html.
As direction (< Lat. directio, directionis) is certainly not from derekh, it would be sort of satisfying if Jastrow is right and simta is not from Latin.
Directio's Latin root is reg-, to extend, straighten, rule (cognate with English right and rank and ancestor to rule, realm, regulate -- http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots...ots/IE427.html).
According to Brown-Driver-Briggs, the hifil of D.R.K in the meaning "lead" and even, metaphorically, "direct, instruct," is found already in Tanakh . It certainly can be explained without reference to Latin. Dirigo is found as early as Plautus (c. 254 - c. 184 BCE), though directio is post-classical.
But I wonder if the popularity of hidrikh (and madrikh) in Modern Hebrew has something to do with the echo of the Latin. The orthographically pretentious Ghilad Zuckerman has written about this kind of calque. It's behind magniv ~ magnificent. But I don't think that's what Isaac Mozenson has in mind!
PS The motto of Maine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigo
Isaac - Interesting point. I wrote about influence from regel to regula here:
http://www.balashon.com/2006/10/.../10/
sargel.html
By the way, while I respect your right to some anonymity, you might want to give us more of a clue to your last name, if you don't want to be identified as Mozeson...
Just to dispel any doubt: I was certainly not suggesting that dirigere was from Hebrew derek or vice versa. These kinds of folk etymologies may be fun but generally take no account of the developments of the words in their respective languages, and hence of no real scientific value.
Oh, I know. I like that kind of folk etymology, too. And sometimes they get recycled back into the language -- maybe like with direct/madrikh?
The funny thing is that they're often not of the "folk" at all. Crackpots are smart people, just cracked. . . And probably that's especially true when it comes to Jewish stuff. Once in Israel a guy argued with me for half an hour or more about whether the word evil comes from Mt. Ebal. He made me go back to linguistic first principles . . . and since I'm not really capable of doing that, he walked away feeling vindicated. Werner Weinberg has an essay on all the schemes Jews have hatched to Romanize the Hebrew alphabet. It's luftmentshlikh, but it's not easy!
I swear I'm not Isaac Mozenson. You'll just have to take my word on it. . .
Or Mozeson either.
You know what Tom Lehrer said about the problem with folk songs...
I rather think that modern מדריך comes out of mediaeval, often used as translation of Arabic מרשד.
This is a bit of a detour from "Rechov." Nu?
Crackpot vs. Sincerity
"The term “sincerity” comes from medieval parlance. During those times vendors of pottery would take customers inside a dark room to show them their wares so that the clients would not see the cracks in the pottery. The sellers would cover these cracks with wax which in French and Spanish is called “cera.” So, wise customers would take the pieces of pottery they were interested in purchasing and put them against the sun to see if the were without cracks or wax to cover these cracks – ie. “Sans Cera” (without wax). From this expression comes our English terms “sincere” and “sincerity.”"
I always thought that derekh was from German durch, or is it the other way round?
For what it's worth, James Price writes in NIDOTTE, "At times the word [רְחֹב] seems to refer simply to city streets (Prov 22:13; 26:13; Jer 49:26; 50:30; Lam 2:11–12; 4:18)."
(Some English translators do use "street" in some of these passages but others use "square", etc. I didn't look at how they were rendered in "the" LXX.)
Cf. 4Q184 f1:12.
Isn't revach spelled with two vavs? רווח What you have is ruach. רוח And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Great blog!
AmyS: Biblically, "revach" would be spelt רֶוַח. In Modern Hebrew it is often spelt with two vavs to avoid the ambiguity.
Another name for a road is "magal" (see Proverbs 4:26). That is, a path made from the agol agolim of an agalah pulled by an egel.
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