Hey, just found this website. I love it! I started learning biblical Hebrew about five years ago, and have developed an interest in modern Hebrew. I love to see new connections. Thanks for the great blog! I'll be slowly catching up reading the archives.
GaryG
Thanks, welcome!
If Kaddari is able to doubt Klein's suggestion of borrowing and reverse it, it might be that he has suspicions about the morphology that might derive אביון from אבה? What words have a similar form? The closest I can think of are בִּזָּיוֹן (Est. 1:18), הִגָּיוֹן (Ps. 92:4), etc. Notably, these have a dagesh chazaq in the second letter, so by analogy we should have אִבָּיוֹן (ibbayon). If it is the only noun of its form, Kaddari has good reason to doubt its Hebrew derivation.
Joel: What about, for example, פדיון from פדה? And in fact that's more similar to אביון in that both are concrete nouns, whereas בזיון and הגיון are abstract terms.
Some people want to make all the connections themselves. That's just AVArice. (b'da bum!)
Another thing people often desire:
תועבה
תועבה is completely unrelated. Its root is יעב (or ועב), far from אבה.
And yes, פדיון is better for comparison. I hadn't thought of it.
Joel - If I wasn't clear, Kaddari does not connect אביון to אבה at all.
And while תועבה is not related to אבה, interestingly, Klein mentions a second root תאב , which means "to loathe, abhor", and is a secondary form of תעב. It can be found in Amos 6:8.
I knew all along that ebion is an Egyptian loan word, but it was my understanding that the Egyptians themselves borrowed it from the Semites. They heard the people of Gebal who helped them build the pyramids complain “ab-ein”, “I am fatherless”, and, not exactly understanding what is being said, turned it into this curious word ebion.I am sure that proper research will uncover the matching Egyption word emyion.
The missing dagesh in the Bet is cause for concern, but considering the time elapsed and the distance traveled, the dagesh forte could have easily turned into a dagesh lene, and then just drop and fall listlessly overboard.
Uri Dudotchki
See Baba Metzia 111b and Rashi there, which distinguishes between an Ani and Evyon. An evyon is not just poor, he's desperate. It seems to me that the distinction may be assuming Klein explanation.
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