Language desk
< December 28	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 30 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 29

Madayan

There's a series of at least four slim picture-books (I have three), apparently first published in Barcelona, each of which depicts the development of a fictional city from the Stone Age to the present:

Barmi: a Mediterranean city through the ages
Umm el Madayan: an Islamic city through the ages
San Rafael: a Central American city through the ages
Lebek: a Northern European city through the ages

They're fun to look at. My question: Does Madayan mean something in Arabic? (Umm means 'mother'). —Tamfang (talk) 06:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so, but it's close to the m-d-n root which relates to cities and civilization. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Madayen (مداین) is the plural form of madina (مدینه) which means "city". So umm el madayen is "mother of cities" or rather a metropolis. --Omidinist (talk) 16:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Baghdad was an Umm el Madayen in the Middle Ages. Omidinist (talk) 16:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is it? The plurals I know are madaa'in in Classical (مدائن) and mudun (مدن) in Modern Standard. I don't know madayan and I don't see it in the dictionary. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Madayen, madayan, mada'in, mada'en, madaa'in and ... are all variations of a single word in different Arabic dialects. --Omidinist (talk) 20:17, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. I wish I knew more about the dialects. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hamza over ya' and Hamza over waw indicate places where "Classical" Arabic preferred a glottal stop pronunciation over the semi-vowel pronunciations indicated in the earliest Muslim Arabic orthography... AnonMoos (talk) 04:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Non-Israeli Jews and the Hebrew Language

Can the majority of American Jews speak and write in the Hebrew language?. For instance, would Noam Chomsky and Michael Mukasey be able to communicate in Hebrew?--71.105.22.80 (talk) 14:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about Mukasey, but Chomsky grew up speaking Hebrew. As far as I know, most American Jewish children (at least, the ones I knew growing up; I'm not Jewish myself) learn Hebrew at weekend classes in their synagogues, but I never got the impression they learned it well enough to really use it actively for speaking and writing. I think most of the Jewish kids I knew only learned it well enough to passively understand the prayers and Bible readings and the like. —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 14:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.--71.105.22.80 (talk) 16:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Those in Hasidic and Haredi communities are usually fluent in Hebrew, as well as English. —Nricardo (talk) 17:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I know a few Jews who did not learn Hebrew from their parents or taking classes as a child, but they all took Hebrew classes in college and were quite enthusiastic about learning the language that late in life.--droptone (talk) 21:12, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can only speak about the Jewish community in Central Europe, where the following applies:

The answer depends on:

Which importance is assigned by the family to Judaism as a religion or to Judaism as a cultural identity ?
Is the home in the vicinity of a synagogue where Hebrew is taught ?

As the vast majority of European Jewry is both urban and also takes pride in their heritage, Hebrew is almost always taught as a second language. Jewish citizens also tend to belong to the middle classes and have a higher interest in education and tradition.

There may be a small portion of secularised members of the Jewish community who eschew the teaching of Hebrew to their children, but, as droptone mentions above, many of these youngsters chose to acquire the language when they investigate their ethnicity and religion.

Of course, many European Jews also visit Israel for a variety of reasons and some command of Hebrew would be of benefit.

Finally, bear in mind that the Classical Hebrew of the Bible (essentially a liturgical language like Latin in the RC church) is quite different from the modern Hebrew. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While some of the members of Haredi and Hasidi communities in America can speak Hebrew very well, many only have broken Hebrew, with a thick accent, heavily influenced by Yiddish. A major difference is the pronounciation of 't' at the end of words as 's' and most 'a's as 'o's. The number of secular Jews who weren't born in Israel or haven't lived there, tend not to know Hebrew. Mind you, generalisations are just that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AllenHansen (talk • contribs) 20:46, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a rather odd way to characterize an accent that dates to long before the State of Israel and probably before the development of Yiddish as well. It's as laughable as saying that Americans speak English with a thick accent, or that Brits do. Different accents exist, that's all. JudahH (talk) 23:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a Conservative Jew, I can say that most Jewish children go to Hebrew School, and learn a fair amount of Hebrew from ages 7-13. However, these classes are a combination of religious instruction and language instruction, and the language instruction is never very advanced (From what I can remember, the classes were never conducted in Hebrew, it was always taught in English). I was always in the advanced Hebrew classes, and at my peak I was probably able to passively understand the prayers and form very basic sentences. However, I am 17 now, and I have forgotten most of it. I can read Hebrew script, and pick out common words in a prayer enough to know that I am saying good things about God, but that is basically it. Many of my friends are also Jewish, and most of them know less than I do, barely being able to read the Hebrew script. This is just speaking of young Jewish people though; I think older generations have a better command of the language. My dad went to a Jewish High School, and he can read and understand some Hebrew, but I have never once heard him converse in Hebrew, and I don't think that he would be able to. The majority of Conservative and Reform Jewish students today don't continue their Hebrew education beyond bar or bat mitzvah age, and thus never really become proficient in Hebrew, or if they do they lose their knowledge after they stop going to Hebrew School. Jrm22 (talk) 23:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]